Morning Phase actually matches Sea Change in melodic beauty, and it might even surpass it in production quality, but the cryptic, repetitious lyrics of songs like “Blackbird Chain” and “Heart is a Drum” fall so far short of the devastating heartbreak that Beck wove on songs like “Guess I’m Doing Fine” and “Lost Cause” that it’s impossible to see this record ever achieving the classic status of its predecessor.

On They Want My Soul, Spoon’s most wide-ranging and eclectic album of its career, this isn’t a band who are settling in to their collective stride, but searching for new places entirely.

The album is something of a rollercoaster of musical styles, songwriting approaches and emotions. But most importantly, transcending it all, is Ritter's astounding power to make us hang on every word.

To call it a triumph is putting it mildly. Lucky is a clarion call to contemporary country music, a beacon of hope that proves just how much can be accomplished with just a voice and a vision.

Burst Apart retains all the band's compositional prowess and aural splendor, but it's also a record we can truly celebrate.

If you're willing to take the time and patience required to give this album the attention it really deserves, you'll find the rewards will exist long after you turn off the album.

Kinsella has, yet again, created music as an art form and has provided us with a soundtrack to all of those moments between the events.

Lese Majesty is an entirely different beast than Black Up, and the group manages to continue sticking out in the hip-hop world for their incomparable creativity.

As a full record, Paramore certainly isn't for everyone--but there's certainly something for everyone. If you're not having fun at some point of the album, you're probably not trying.

While it’s certainly not what anyone thought a new Deerhunter album would sound like three years removed from the world of Halcyon Digest, the band certainly succeeds in their goal of crafting “nocturnal garage, and the album’s high points--namely “Monomania,” “Punk,” “The Missing” and “T.H.M.”--are some of the best songs the group has ever recorded.

Shed is the right album for those who don't want their pop-punk bands opting for breakdowns.

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.

For any other group purveying hardcore-influenced post-rock (or vice versa), Recitation would be a career-defining moment; but for the band that created All the Footprints and A Dead Sinking Story (releases introducing a new language in aggressive independent music), and to a lesser extent Insomniac Doze, Envy's latest is a bit too middling.

With Archambault’s vocal performance stronger than ever before, the band sounding fresh and the lyrics seemingly closing out this chapter in their career, Letters Home is one of the most thrilling albums they could have created.

If you have the patience to wait and persevere until Paradise fully blossoms with you into something spectacular, rest assured, it will be a record that won't stop giving when it finally does.

Full of tenderness and vulnerability yet also razor-sharp and raucous moments, it makes the record even more charming due to the relatable nature of the constant battle with internal monologues.

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.

Bad Books' II is the band finally discovering its sweet spot, as the album's eleven tracks are firing on all cylinders.

One of the most unique, reflective, darkly humorous, and brilliant records to grace ears in a while.

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.

Cult unleashes some of the band's tastiest riffs and strongest songs yet while broadening Bayside's musical palate.

Give In is as strong an effort as any and the grand introduction of a first-rate new outfit.

Yours Truly is more tempered and less likely to put you in a beaming state of catatonia.

Best of 2015? Maybe not, as Cloakroom could do well to add just a bit more variety to their sound. Nonetheless, they’re off to a rather auspicious start, as Further Out refines positive aspects of their debut EP and ups the production value immensely.

My Name Is My Name is one of the best debut albums of the year, but since Pusha T is far from a new artist, he's got a leg-up on many of the newcomers to the genre.

It’s an enchanting odyssey that is steeped in the tantalizing mysticism of the unknown.

Not only is The Powerless Rise As I Lay Dying’s heaviest album to date, it also features a splendor not heard on past releases.

The anxiety-ridden sound of Kveikur is the best the band has produced since their breakthrough album, and seems promising to yield only more rewarding results in the future.