This set is unified, fully realized, and eloquent, on par with the grandest of musical statements, yet utterly accessible.

Throughout Towards Language, the emergent notion of "slow jazz"--music that unfolds deliberately in a communal context rather than the accepted soloist and accompaniment formula--is almost defined. Its individual utterances are elementary building blocks that collectively move toward an artfully realized goal of musical speech. It achieves its power from the sum total of its sounds and atmospheres. Magnificent.

The anger and disillusionment on Algiers' debut were expressed through its raw, unhinged mix. Here, while their outlook is overall less tolerant, it's voiced with more atmospheric control.

The sheer creativity and accessibility of Reaching Into Infinity raises the bar for power metal from here on out, and offers a new plateau for the band. Based on this set--with their catalog as further evidence--there is no reason DragonForce shouldn't be one of the biggest bands in the world.

Their call to arms isn't preachy; instead, righteous anger is refracted through the lens of empathy. It is also a fresh reboot of the band's sound, offering excellent songwriting and arrangements; it sounds more like a group effort than anything they've released.

A one-of-a-kind revelatory document. This music was not only professionally recorded, but preserved with archival standards, making for an excellent fidelity reproduction.

Supported by the Hi Rhythm Section he sounds livelier and grittier than he has in years, and that passion serves as a nice counterpoint to the smooth grooves on Robert Cray & Hi Rhythm.

Funk Wav Bounces impresses not just with the marquee names, but with how effortless, communal, and fun Harris makes it all feel.

Goodnight Rhonda Lee is hardly Atkins' first stylistic excursion into the past, but here, having an audibly sharp focus, a lot on her mind, and a leave-it-all-on-tape performance ethic make for her strongest impression since her debut.

The group doesn't disregard songs; the songs are nimble and open-ended, inviting exploration but also ready to be played simply. The result is the CRB's best record to date: one that captures their trippy side as easily as it showcases their sturdy foundation.

While most of these songs are rife with anxiety and isolation, the open-hearted lyricism and wide-scoped productions, put together by an artist in peak form, make them immensely engrossing. Frank Ocean, Pharrell Williams, Kali Uchis, Syd, and Estelle are among 11 supporting cast members, not one of whom is inessential to the whole.

Based on the nuanced opacity of these lyrics and the artful moodiness of the music, the answer will likely remain an elusive puzzle for listeners to ponder. Thankfully, Manchester Orchestra have made an album well worth pondering over.

Come All Ye: The First Ten Years is essential listening. For fans, all of this is necessary, for the curious, start with the studio offerings (there are two fine offerings entitled Five Classic Albums, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2) or the double-disc Gold from 2008.

The kind of musically rich and emotionally powerful debut that feels timeless and stands far enough apart from the rest of the music scene surrounding it that it feels like a cleansing blast of fresh air.

This time out, the best things are brought out in sharper focus and dressed up in finer clothing, and the record nearly achieves perfection.

On Exile in the Outer Ring, Anderson calls on listeners to maintain their humanity in powerful, unnerving ways that make it one of her finest achievements.

Ultimately, it's that balance of harmonically adventurous exploration and no-holds-barred blowing that make Far from Over nothing short of thrilling.

Antisocialites manages the rare feat of a band topping their brilliant debut with a sophomore effort that's even more brilliant. Alvvays make it looks easy, and by the time the album is done spinning, it's hard not to start thinking about how great their next record could be.

The album never comes off as a slavish museum piece. It feels instead as if they somehow rediscovered this sound, like an old coat picked out of the attic that looks as perfect with a modern ensemble as it did in its own heyday.

Dreaming in the Non-Dream is the sound of Forsyth and the Solar Motel Band breaking into the muck and mire of rock history to emerge with a communicative, dynamic language of their own design.

An earthy, majestic, endlessly inventive album that caps both his own storied career and points the way toward the future.

Mareridt is a work of atavistic mystery, unflinching honesty, and balance. It embraces everything from horror and beauty to the sacred and profane; its creator has encountered them all within, faced and accepted them, and ultimately woven them into the fabric of her being as music.

Ultimately, Starsailor have been around long enough to earn veteran rocker status and All This Life, with its perfect balance of emotional gravitas and buoyant lyricism, is an album worthy of that status.

Heaven Upside Down is Manson at his most human. If Pale Emperor was a welcome return to form that signaled a new day for the band, its successor is just as satisfying, if not better.

His sweetness and melancholy are as palpable in the composition as they are in the performance and, ultimately, that's why the live-in-the-studio recording of Out of Silence cannot be dismissed as a stunt: such a simple, yet kinetic, production is the only way to do justice to songs are rich as these.

Nothing is as volcanic as "Bank Head" or as rush-inducing as "Rewind"--two past gems--but these hyperballads and zero-gravity jams always stimulate, covering a broader spectrum of emotional states with deeper resonance.

Masseduction delivers sketches of chaos with stunning clarity. It's the work of an always savvy artist at her wittiest and saddest.

Two of the album's finest originals--burning perseverance anthems "Fussin' and Fightin'" and "Freedom Chain"--are reggae to the core, translatable from an intimate hideout to a sound system. Other moments travel far afield from McFarlane's prior sessions. Not one of them is disposable.

Just as much as their very best studio work, For Sale is a invigorating, joyous, rollicking summation of a remarkable band on a night when they truly lived up to their legend. If you ever loved the 'Mats, you need to hear this.

No matter that feeling, illustrated with one distressed scene after another, filtered through a multitude of inspirations and a few bodily fluids, The Ooz is a completely engrossing work from a one-off.

Despite Plant's clear favor of the heart and head over primal pleasures, Carry Fire retains a visceral kick, because the singer/songwriter understands the transportive power of music, how the old can seem new when seen with a different light.

Ultimately, on Dreams and Daggers, with its balanced framework of live and studio recordings, happy and sad romantic songs, small group and classical chamber pieces, Salvant remains as bold and as sharp as ever.

The songs pop, the production is memorable, and the guests weave effortlessly into their respective tracks without detracting from Gucci's signature delivery.

Throughout it all, A Flame My Love, A Frequency resonates with a healing warmth that is a testament to the remarkable purity of Colleen's music, as well as to the importance of beauty and hope when life is hard.

For a band that has evolved from screamo to such thoughtful artistry, The Canyon is a stunning offering.

Elegant from the first minute to its 70th, Ojalá is an essential album for fans of Raymonde-affiliated projects like Snowbird and This Mortal Coil, and is among his and the year-in-indie's most exquisite works.

Even for longtime fans, Savage Young Dü is revelatory, charting a young band's progress as it achieved its potential for greatness.

Nearly 30 years after the group called it a day, the material on U-Men barely seems to have aged at all; like the best rock & roll outliers, the U-Men created something that was less a product of a specific time and place than music that existed in a world of its own, and that planet is still a wild, fractured, and thoroughly compelling place to visit in the 21st century.

Noel knows how to construct a sturdy song and Holmes knows how to dress them up in flashy clothes, and the combination results in Gallagher's best album since splitting up Oasis.

A bigger soundstage doesn't necessarily suit the BBC sessions, where the primitive production suits the raw performances--for proof, listen to the second disc in the deluxe set, which wasn't de-mixed--but it's ultimately a minor flaw in what's otherwise an essential set.

What's most important is that nearly everything here is brilliant. Highly recommended for anyone with the urge to plunge deeper into the Fall's tremendous body of work.

The Official Body is a frequently dazzling example of how resistance can be fortifying and even fun.

It's art with a beat, noise with hooks, and more proof that No Age are one of the great slept-on bands of their generation.

Accessible and friendly yet highly profound, Vision Songs is a truly uncommon work, and easily one of Laraaji's best.

While that's brief by 21st century standards, it's plenty and proper on a collection of songs framed in kinetic, inspired performances by one of the greatest soul bands to emerge in decades.

It stands with their best work--some songs would no doubt end up on a greatest-hits collection--and in that regard is some of the best pop music anyone could hope to hear in 2018 or any time after.

Rifles and Rosary Beads is unlike any other record. It edifies and empathizes with the experiences of its participants in delivering brutal yet tender truths; it confronts listeners to embrace without judgment the struggle of war survivors, while experientially relating the extended fact that over 7,400 veterans commit suicide each year. Gauthier and her collaborators look into the gaping maw of war, its trauma, isolation, rage, and loneliness, to reveal the human faces and hearts of its witnesses. Popular music can do no more than this.

Transangelic Exodus is a scrappy yet poignant rock & roll narrative of inner conflict and acceptance; its songs are a confessional and confrontational commentary on a historic period when so much is possible, even as fear, hate, and paranoia still hold the reins of power. Its energy, vulnerability, rage, and crafty poetics are awe-inspiring.

She radiates genuine personality, and her second full-length demonstrates just how well she can bend pop structures to her will and sound fantastic in the process.

It is desperate, important, and powerful music and it might just be the best album they've ever made.

Silver Dollar Moment is a stunning debut, and if it doesn't quite reinvent the wheel the way that The Stone Roses did, it does have a uniquely sweet spirit and lighthearted beauty all its own.

Keyboardist Cleo Sample and singer/songwriter Kendra Foster are among the variable cast that joins that trio, so the set unsurprisingly has the densely layered, spaced-out, and fiery qualities of D'Angelo's Black Messiah.

While it may be inspired by Sandy's fallout, Landfall's reach runs to a sea of loss, chaos, and confusion. It's an elemental mystery of quietly epic proportions made exceptional through clarity of thought and feeling.

It's a lovely and deeply creative record that came so late in his career that it appeared to have already been relegated to history.

This volume charts Jansch's development as a songwriter as well as an interpreter who remains devoted to his roots while restlessly expanding the reach of his oeuvre This music has aged exceptionally well.

With Violence, the Editors have crafted a big pop album on their own terms, rife with grand, operatic gestures and heat-seeking hooks that cut deep, just as they put salve on your wounds.

Previously, her cleverness was her strong suit, but on Golden Hour, she benefits from being direct, especially since this frankness anchors an album that sounds sweetly blissful, turning this record the best kind of comfort: it soothes but is also a source of sustenance.

The word "Akokán" means "from the heart," and the playing here underscores the translation. While the recording was meant as an homage, the innovations in both charts and performance make it simultaneously modern and timeless.

The tape sources are all official: The Copenhagen gig is remastered from a state radio broadcast and the other two concerts are from producers' archives, making this historic set among the most essential in the Bootleg Series.

The album feels open-hearted and mischievous, a combination that is disarming upon the first listen and nourishing upon subsequent plays.

This is essential and irresistible vintage American weirdness.

With its beautifully chosen material and unorthodox construction, What News has that rare timeless feeling to it, effortlessly placing the ancient within the present as only the right group of artists can manage to do.

Daphne & Celeste may not save the world, but a listen to this album is sure to make the world a better place for about 45 minutes or so, and sometimes that's enough.

The artists take risks, and they--and the songbook--come out sounding the better for it.

The album doesn't seek any big answers to make sense of a pointless death, but profoundly chronicles Saba's jagged path through the heartache as life continues.

Nothing here is particularly outside the wheelhouse of Old Crow Medicine Show, but the songs are finely etched and the performances vivid, elements that separate Volunteer from its predecessors. Here, Old Crow Medicine Show feel focused and fully realized, as if they're just hitting their stride after two decades in the business.

Sparrow is sharply constructed as an album, setting a mood with its first song and then finding variations on this lush, enveloping sound. It's a record designed for late nights, whether those nights are lonely or romantic.

While this is easily the most loaded Monáe album in terms of guests, with Brian Wilson, Stevie Wonder, and Grimes among the contributors, there's no doubt that it's a Wondaland product. It demonstrates that artful resistance and pop music are not mutually exclusive.

They're a band who refuse to stop moving and exploring their sound, emerging every time with a more refined approach to the music. That they can achieve this with integrity should be celebrated, except maybe this time with a bottle of red wine instead of cheap beer.

Profoundly authentic, nostalgic, and graceful throughout, The Horizon Just Laughed does nothing less than reaffirm that Jurado is one of the best songwriters in the business.

Malkmus may still stand on the outside smirking, poaching different elements of the underground and mainstream, assembling them in a fashion that's undeniably unique, but the craft and cleverness of Sparkle Hard can't disguise the simple fact that he means this music, man.

With Brent, Dave has a singer/songwriter who is sly, well-versed in the history of country and funky Americana, who places equal emphasis on the song and the performance. As a result, Providence Canyon is fleet on its feet but also substantial: it’s a record that can be enjoyed as a vibe, as a sharp musical interplay and as a set of song that are malleable yet enduring.

Somehow more sophisticated and savage, Welcome Strangers is quite a leap from the bucolic folk of their debut and quite a bit more exciting too.

All the songs may be good, but they're given life by a group that has been broken in by endless dates on the road, a difference that helps turn Weiner's best set of songs into Low Cut Connie's best album.

With Hell-On, Case has once again given herself an ideal showcase for her talents as a vocalist, songwriter, and producer; it's lush but intimate, and one of the strongest and most satisfying records she's delivered to date. Which, given her catalog, says a great deal.

It's truly a team effort and the result is a heartbreakingly emotional record that sounds great and has tunes that will leave the listener humming long after the final melancholy notes fade.

It's not difficult to call an album as multi-layered and fascinating as Age Of a landmark work.

Childqueen is a substantial accomplishment for Bonet, a cut above her debut, exceptional for 2018 or whatever year in which it takes place.

Certainly few, if any, bands of the era made an album as consistently great as Hope Downs. Not many in Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever's era have, either. It's a small-scale triumph of hooks and guitars from a band whose members have figured it all out and delivered a debut album that comes as close to perfect as any guitar pop album can.

Equally soothing and exciting, heartfelt and innovative, Ecstatic Arrow is Virginia Wing's finest work yet.

The epic length of Our Raw Heart requires patience. While it unfolds slowly, the reward is big. It's shot through with musical invention and a clarity that makes it the new high-water mark in this trio's oeuvre.

Remain in Light comes bursting out of the gates in a rollicking, irresistible wave of musical joy that only stops when the album is over, leaving the listener in a state of blessed disbelief.

Kids See Ghosts is everything Ye wasn't, delivering a worthwhile listen in spite of the extended PR disaster that preceded its release. With Cudi as the yang to West's yin, the pair inch closer to finding peace and a light in the darkness.

Bon Voyage shows that Melody's Echo Chamber is far from being just a Kevin Parker creation. Prochet's vision is her own, and it's strong enough here to fly free of any and all constraints.

An especially poignant return for Waterson, who endured a harrowing illness that left her in a coma after their last release as a duo, Anchor is a powerful performance arriving late in her career and is a testament to both her strength of will and creative voice. ... For her part, Eliza nearly matches her mother's earthen elegance as a singer while turning in some of the most natural and sympathetic fiddle work of her care.

While SOPHIE's music has never been simple, Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides' complexities and transformations make it a remarkable debut album that reveals more with each listen.

It's also a sonic master class in marital counseling and commitment, wherein Beyoncé emerges with the upper hand and a contrite Jay is lucky she's so gracious. Vocally, it's a similar story: Beyoncé shines here, balancing light rap verses ("Apeshit" and "Nice") with some of the prettiest vocals she's recorded in years ("Friends"), while Jay offers his standard braggadocious bars that nonetheless make an impact for their occasional honesty and humility.

Ultimately, the album's message is one of fearlessness and self-empowerment, and it's the most inspiring work Lotic has crafted.

Ovlov started strong with Am; with TRU they have made good on all that promise and released the kind of breathtakingly great record most bands can only dream about making.

The Morning Star is at once brave and solitary, gentle and bracing, provocative and spiritually resonant. It extends Bachman's reach, allowing him to paint the innermost dimensions of the world he perceives and cleave it open for light to flood in and illuminate it for us.

To the Sunset isn't splashy: it's handsome and layered, alluring upon the first impression but revelatory upon revisits.

It may not have the classic status of Live at Leeds, but the group never sounded as explosive as it does here.

Smote Reverser is undeniably an Oh Sees record, with all 20 years of the band's history coming through every note played and sung, but it feels like a huge step into something new that's sure to be just as exciting and unpredictable.

Overall, though, these songs are meant to exist in a complete volume, tied together gracefully with a sweetness that belies their complexity.

Rather than being a disappointment, Be the Cowboy's point of view provides a brilliant twist, one that channels all the unease, unpredictability, and intuitiveness of Mitski's previous work--even for those who don't take in the lyrics.

Highlights are well placed within an astutely paced sequence of short and bittersweet love songs and instrumentals, all substantive and ripe for sampling. ... Piano, strings, and horns have greater presence, providing a lighter, often joyous touch that complements the mostly muscular drums and chunky basslines.

Negro Swan sonically is as fluid as it is fragmented, synthesizing and bounding between bedsit post-punk, desolate dream pop, chillwave-coated quiet storm, and low-profile hip-hop soul.

Overall, Joy as an Act of Resistance manages to plumb new depths for Idles -- that they've achieved another record in such a short space of time is admirable, let alone one that shines head and shoulders over the majority of their peers -- and it certainly upholds their status as one of the U.K.'s most exciting new acts.