It’s dynamic and unpredictable while also being Into It. Over It.’s most focused work.

Fallon's story is far from finished. This guy is one of the best songwriters of his generation, in any genre, and if his future albums--solo or not--are as full of pleasures as Painkillers, we have nothing to worry about

Potential runtime issues aside, Rot Forever is a great record.

In a word, Pablo is fun, and it’s fun in a way that a Kanye album hasn’t been in nearly a decade, since Graduation’s pop-rap coup marked his commercial peak.

EVOL is one of if not the best project Future has under his name, and while it may not feel as grandiose and capital I Important as DS2 in his legacy, it pushes his sound forward while he continues to stretch himself as an MC, songwriter, and lyricist.

The band has eclipsed the success of their debut record, creating the first masterpiece of the year and a record that will remain one for years to come.

For being an easy album to just listen to, Pool is not easy to break down.

While the lyrics are what everyone will talk about, it’s Hall’s voice that makes them work. That insistent yelp, straining to create melody without being beholden to it.

The songwriting on Pawn Shop is solid and varied, ranging from big road trip anthems like "American Crazy" to swampy groovers like "Dirt Rich." But it's the musicianship that really sets these guys apart.

Simply put, Death of a Bachelor is exactly the hot mess it wants to be. It’s been a while since I’ve heard an album that’s so divisive in its quality, so manic on one end and so lazy on the other.

When Future gets into the sweet spot with a trusty producer behind the boards there's nothing stopping him, and Beast Mode only further solidifies that with some of his strongest tracks to date.

The recorded calls between Ty and his brother that crop up repeatedly develop their characters while the story, for T.C. at least, remains stagnant. Free T.C. places an emphasis on the intimate, human relationship between these two men.

It's clear that they've tapped into something special with this new lineup and that from the tragic events they suffered through they've been able to reemerge bigger and badder than ever. Purple is their finest hour yet

What a remarkable debut it is: artists rarely arrive this fully formed, this self-assured, or this seasoned in their craft.

There are a few good songs, but A Head Full of Dreams is disappointing because it's the first Coldplay album in awhile that is distinctly less than the sum of its parts.

By broadening the themes, growing up a bit, and going deeper, 25 hits upon some truly transcendent moments—moments that deserve the millions of lives they'll soundtrack. It's just hard to fully praise an album that stops feeling like an album three-quarters of the way through.

This album is mostly just a fun side project for the band before they start plugging away at the next full length, and it should be taken as such.

If Purpose focused on the excursions into global dance sounds that earned him popularity outside the insular Belieber fandom, it might have been one of the best pop records of the year and alleviated some of the headaches induced by his lyrical persona. It certainly doesn't help that Purpose is another entry in an ever growing catalog of big tent releases that relegates some of its best tracks to bonus track status.

With strong songwriting, restrained arrangements, potent vocal work, and terrific production from Jay Joyce, Mr. Misunderstood is a deep, nuanced album that will appeal to fans of folk, country, or rock and roll in equal measure.

Art Angels is us listening to personal triumph. Grimes has found her voice literally through the music.

Much like The World Is A Beautiful Place... and their new record Harmlessness, Foxing have set a new standard with Dealer not just for emo, but for indie and alternative rock across the board.

For all its flaws, Beach Slang’s debut is a fun and absolutely engaging listen.

Return to the Moon is far from disappointing. More accurately, it is a scattershot collection of unique sonic experiments and National-esque B-sides that are unlikely to sway opinions of Berninger's primary outlet either way.

While State Champs is not necessarily reinventing the idea of what it means to be a pop punk band, they’ve sure as hell perfected it.

The heart and intent behind the lyrics and music, the effort so clearly put forth is what is supposed to translate and it does. Most of the growth on this record comes in the form of more textured and dynamic instrumentals, and glossy, but not necessarily overtly “made for radio” production.

The best thing that can be said for the majority of this record is that it sounds great.... The problem is, Green's songwriting here simply isn't up to par with the artists he's trying to imitate.

Long Live offers few surprises, but that really isn't an issue when what is offered this time around is really something great. If you're a fan of the band's discography through 2007's Lead Sails Paper Anchors, chances are you're going to really like this record.

Taking their sound into a much darker (and riffier) realm comes as a bit of a surprise, but the band pulls it off with such excellence and grace that the shift isn't even jarring.

No one really knew what to expect out of this project, and I think it's safe to say that Permanence exceeds expectations.

Harmlessness is a perfect record and it’s the best one we’ll hear in 2015 and nothing will come close. The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die have created their magnum opus and the most transcendent and challenging piece of music to emerge from modern rock in a long, long time.

At the very least, Better Nature represents 10 more (well, 9 if you don’t count “Ragamuffin”) well-crafted and heartfelt songs to listen to for the next 2-3 years before they put out another unbelievably consistent record.

This is an album that will hold up over time, keeping us more than satisfied as we wait for Chvrches to give us something even bigger.

For this record, Lana Del Rey went all out with her ambition, bringing her vision to life in a way that only she could. She's making music that only she could make, that possess a unique sound no one else is bringing to the table right now.

What A Time To Be Alive is ultimately the kind of release that will be relegated to curio status in the near future. It doesn’t hold a candle to the strength of either rappers best work, and for Future in particular its overall quality feels like a steep dip from the highs of his most recent run.

Taylor's original 1989 is made even more interesting and worthy of discussion by Ryan's overtly classic rock-ified version, while Ryan's version is intriguing as both a personal expression and a reaction to one of the biggest albums we're likely to see come along in our lifetimes.

This is an album for the Spotify era--a disparate collection of eleven singles, with no unifying message or even common mindset I can discern.

Ultimately, though, regardless of whether Hansard is cribbing moves from his own country's heritage, or from one of the biggest rock stars in American history, he manages to make it all his own thanks to the quality of his songwriting and the passion behind his performances.

Folds just doesn’t seem to have the same grip on likable, semi-charming songwriting he once did.

Without rising above the sum of the parts brought together, Travis loses control of his own album and it ends up sounding like a collection of tracks from various artists with the loose theme of Travis Scott barely tying it all together.

It's officially a biennial tradition that The Wonder Years release a new record that happens to be their best record to date.

The result is a record that feels as weighty as a work of literature, but also as enveloping and beautiful as the best albums that the folk music genre has ever produced.

Showcasing the very best of Archambault’s lyrics and the band’s musicianship while channeling more post-rock-esque breaks along with diverse shifts in pacing and tone into their brand of hardcore, Abandoned is undoubtedly the essential Defeater release and gold-standard for hardcore in 2015.

For the band's loyal fanbase, Everybody's Coming Down proves an experimental but mostly successful step further down a path of fuzzy, theatrical rock and roll.

Emotion goes to great lengths to prove the advantages of being manufactured, with every piece interlocking with machine-like precision with its surroundings. It’s astonishingly effective, and like the best pop, demands to be listened to ad nauseum in order to gawk at the sheer audacity of the accomplishment.

So really what Neck Deep have here is something that is both faithful to its influences, and striving to be free of them. What that creates is an album that, though narrowly defined, is still working through something of an identity crisis.

All told, Positive Songs for Negative People is Frank Turner's most complete album since Love, Ire & Song, and perhaps his best as well.

Ivywild is an unlistenable mess.

Though it may be Mac’s tamest experiment yet, it also lends credence to the idea that he truly is this year’s grand romantic.

The quintet have honed in on their strengths and produced their most concise and assured release to date.

In place of Pluto and Honest’s love songs are emissions from the depths of Future’s psyche where light is unable to penetrate and whose denizens are twisted and ferocious.

It’s an intelligent, creative, and engaging album. It’s a blast to listen to, too.

Ditching the psychedelic rock for an album that mines from disco, synth-pop and R&B in equal measure is a move that is sure to alienate some of the Tame Impala fan base, but the fact that Kevin was able to stretch himself into this kind of new territory is undeniably a feat in its own right. It's just icing on the cake that Currents also happens to rival Lonerism as Tame Impala's masterpiece.

No, this is not his strongest work to date, but it certainly keeps him in the conversation.

Isbell isn't your average songwriter, and on Something More Than Free, there's a pretty strong argument to be made that he's outplaying anyone else in the game right now.

Slightly unfocused by design, Lantern broadens HudMo’s repertoire while also reaffirming his status as the premier producer of the sound that brought him to fame.

This record is bold, uncompromising, and one of the best and most important in its genre to come out in an already exceptional year.

Found In Far Away Places shows the band exploring brand new territories both instrumentally and lyrically. A clear ‘Album of the Year’ contender for 2015.

mewithoutYou have done something that feels nearly impossible with Pale Horses, and that’s recreate themselves without losing what made them interesting. It’s so effortless that it’s hard not to wonder if a higher power was involved.

Rather than dialling in the same record with a different twist every two years, Desaparecidos have crafted another mission statement.

[Pageant Material] sounds effortless and fully formed from first note to last.

While the album is often an enjoyable listen, it is difficult not to wonder what the collective talents of Andrew Dost and Jack Antonoff of fun., or even the talents of a Sam Means of The Format, could’ve yielded to Grand Romantic’s songwriting.

Dopamine isn't his best record, and it might be his worst, but for one of the slyest songwriters from the past two decades of pop, "worst" can still be pretty damn great.

Connector tries to juggle too much in too short of moments, confining juxtaposing or conflicting elements to 15-20 second bursts, often between choruses.

Universal Themes has the makings to be one the year’s most intriguing collections of songs yet.

As with everything Van Etten puts out these days, it’s an essential release.

While Four Year Strong will never be the band that wrote Rise Or Die Trying again, they prove on their new self-titled record that they have bigger steps ahead than the ones they left behind.

Lil Durk's first album is lacking in a lot of things, the first being songs. Now, ten tracks is not necessarily too little of a number, but when half of the album is filler, that's when that number starts to work against you.

While it may not always work out in his favor, the high points here far outweigh the lows, and the takeaway from At.Long.Last.A$AP should be that Rocky is on his way to something even better once he finds his footing.

In Colour is neither a faithful regurgitation nor a distasteful bastardization of the past, but is instead a charming, effective attempt at bridging the gap between the two.

It's a return trip to the well that provided Nothing is Wrong, but one made by a band that has gained significant perspective, clout, and chops in the four years that have now passed since that record.

On their Bloodshot Records debut, the sextet have stepped up their game and have announced themselves as one of 2015's most important alt-country efforts.

The songs are still great, the live shows will still be raucous, and as evidenced by fiery album closer, "Til I Do It Again," Hoge's still got plenty of rebel left in him anyway.

At first blush, things are catchy, the drumming is incredibly interesting and it’s all over pretty quick. But delve into things, and nothing’s changed. Which is lazy on a few levels.

Everything here is well thought out and meticulously executed, it's just that Matsson makes it all seem so effortless.

With so much going on in these songs, they could easily have become overstuffed, but Moulder balances everything perfectly, creating a swell of sound that surrounds you with its hugeness, but doesn't lose clarity in the process. Suffice to say, this is a record that demands to be listened to on a pair of good headphones.

The Room’s Too Cold may have the memories, The Mother, the Mechanic, and the Path may have the ambition, In Currents may have the excitement, but Imbue is the best album that The Early November have ever released.

+- stands up to all of their previous records easily, and while there aren't any major shifts in their trademark formula, it is another step forward in the ever expanding career of the danish band.

New Glow has its moments, but you won't find it on many EOTY lists.

At this stage in his career, he is firmly focused on doing whatever he and his band want to do. That kind of artistic freedom should certainly be applauded, one just wishes the results were far more satisfying.

Instant Gratification is impressive and for the most part feels like a strong return to form for a band that's well adjusted in its own sound and aura, as Dance Gavin Dance continue to be an anomaly in a mostly tired and boring scene.

Even if The Damnwells feels a bit anticlimactic as a big reunion album, even if it isn't quite as good as either One Last Century or No One Listens to the Band Anymore, and even if it could have been improved substantially through the addition of a few more EP songs (particularly "Along the Way," a bittersweet Boyhood parallel that stands as arguably the best song Alex Dezen has ever written), it still largely succeeds on its own terms.

It's a version of All Time Low that not only has zero interest in moving past its pop-punk roots, but is embracing them with more vigor and pride than ever, laying the groundwork for punk bands that imagine a world where "maturing" doesn't mean leaving behind what you grew up loving.

There are far less cringe-worthy lyrics, and a sound that seems far more natural for the band as a whole.

Strange Trails is brilliantly paced, and each song itself is brilliantly paced.

Malin has always been a talent, but here, he parlays everything he does well into a single 45-minute burst, and he reaches his pinnacle as a result.

This album is perfect for those days when you just want to keep to yourself, when you feel like no one can be trusted. It's for anyone who has ever had the desire to forget their responsibilities and just make some damn music.

At its core, Kintsugi takes broken pieces and finds ways to put them back together into something new.

Carrie & Lowell leaves everything on the table, and as a result it's the most open, transparent and heartfelt record Stevens has made in his career. Sometimes, that's all you need in order to make a masterpiece.

Few rap albums are this smart, this detailed, and this concerned with its culture. It's the kind of record that could easily collapse under its own weight, but is repeatedly hoisted up by the impenetrable musical foundations.

Hit The Lights came back in 2015, and all things considered, sound like they did in 2011.

It's the sound of a veteran band coming back to the game without missing a beat, and churning out some of their best, liveliest, and catchiest material in the process.

On the whole, American Beauty/American Psycho is Fall Out Boy's most consistent and bottom-line best album ever.

Generally speaking, the Jack Ü project is fully functional party music that hedges its bets with collaborations and does little in the way of genuine innovation.

Of the 12 songs on the album proper, Sean is left to his own devices on less than half of them (two of which are the intro and outro), and the first signs of wear on the album come as soon as one of his solo joints succeeds another.

If you just want another batch of Torche tracks, some of which stand up to the best in their discography, then Restarter will prove to be a worthy addition to the Torche catalog.

As it stands, its hard to call anything on this album an evolution, since many of the tracks feel like they're just more beefed up but far less interesting versions of what they gave us on Shrines.

If You're Reading This It's Too Late comes with all of the baggage and experimentation a mixtape brings while managing to surpass the quality of most artists' output.

Then Came the Morning is still a solid next step for a promising young band. The songs are catchy and memorable, the musicianship is impeccable, and the production... well, suffice to say that Aaron Dessner should soon find himself an in-demand producer in the folk/Americana world.