Longtime fans need not fear that Shomo has gone too mainstream, as evidenced by ragers like "Dominate," "Phantom Pain," and "Hell of It," which pack enough of a punch to keep the mosh pits bruised and bloody. Combining those catchy flourishes with the band's trademark heaviness creates a great balance, and Below winds up being one of Beartooth's most enjoyable and immediate releases to date.

Delivering on the promise of her industry-shaking debut with confidence and grace, Happier Than Ever has the markings of a big career moment, one that signals artistic growth and hints at even more greatness to come.

With Heart-Shaped Scars, she's found a home in sparse and spooky folk. Possibly not something one could have predicted when she first arrived on the scene with One Dove, but something that is satisfying and true all the same.

Refuge sounds composed, thoughtful, and intimate, with reflections on pain, grief, acceptance, and relief coming through in the character of the album's varied atmospheres.

Not only is Screen Violence Chvrches’ finest work since The Bones of What You Believe, it’s also their most purposeful. It feels like they took stock of who they want to be and what they want to say, and these epic songs about letting go but holding onto the ability to feel make for a stunning creative rebirth.

For all its sharp turns, 333 has a fluidity and high level of conviction that Tinashe's previous full-lengths lack.

With Reznor and Ross supporting such a weighty artistic vision, Halsey takes a huge leap forward with this course-changing opus, a revelation that finally presents their most authentic representation of self.

In subtle ways, this album ties together all of the various disciplines Gunn has previously explored, from American primitive guitar playing to jazz, folk, indie rock, and drone music. Yet it is also something entirely new with a unique sound that is a joy to spend time with.

Both vital and respective of the listener's time at just under 35 minutes, Glow On rolls in like a violent, late-summer storm and pummels the power grid but mercifully leaves the lights on.

It's raw and fearless, and just as the earliest Nite Jewel albums quietly set the course for entire musical movements of their time, it wouldn't be surprising if No Sun helped usher in a new era of forward-moving conceptual pop.

As on Grey Area, there are no dry spells or dips in quality, just a master class in modern songwriting with heaps of poise and a beating, soulful heart.

Remarkably, the most effective moments in this vein occur when the leader assumes a background position, lending synthesizer shading and warped effects as mallets and flute link and skip at the fore of "P64 by My Side." For the most part, this is a jazz date -- an inviting and beatific one that frequently evokes classic '70s jazz-funk.

This compilation is positively essential for fans of the band and of psychedelia of all kinds.

The Witness is a consumptive listening experience, designed with precision and purpose in the same way as the immersive albums that came before it by Portishead, Talk Talk, Radiohead, and other artists willing to take their time systematically disassembling and rebuilding their music.

Their rapid growth is as head-spinning as the songs themselves, lending a triumphant air to Comfort to Me that keeps Amyl and the Sniffers primed and ready to conquer the world -- again.

Fans of the group more interested in songs might feel short changed at first, but further listens only intensify the cohesive power and pocket grandeur of the record.

It's a lot of ground to cover in a swift 36 minutes but the nice thing about Lindsey Buckingham is that it feels as vibrant as it is controlled. It's the work of an expert craftsman who relies on his skills as composer, arranger, producer, vocalist, and guitarist to sculpt songs that comfort without succumbing to nostalgia.

Montero delivers in droves, a powerful realization of self that boldly places sexuality, honesty, and vulnerability at the fore.

It is unmistakably the work of Brandi Carlile, who once again proves she's one of the best singer/songwriters of her generation.

While LaFarge might still be a time-traveling rock troubadour, he seems to have found the center of his musical universe with In the Blossom of Their Shade.

Tour de force might be too weighty a term for an album so seemingly effortless, but from its unhurried flow to its wealth of songs, Far In is a glorious showcase for all the aspects of Helado Negro's music.

Absence is a mutative and nuanced album, but one which rewards both casual listening and extended deep dives.

While Hushed and Grim tracks the stages of grief, it also reflects on the soul's journey after death. Musically, Mastodon illuminate the emotional heft of their subject matter in gorgeously architected compositions rendered with abundant creativity, massive power, and searing honesty.

The Path of the Clouds was constructed by Nadler sending frameworks of songs to long-distance collaborators; Seth Manchester (Lightning Bolt, Battles, METZ) later mixed the album after judiciously adding feedback and distorted guitars. These adjustments perfectly suit the album's epic, aching songs, which refuse to keep tragedy at arm's length.

As a snapshot of this crucial turning point in the Radiohead discography, Kid A Mnesia presents a band taking its first steps into a thrilling new phase, one that would alter their trajectory and push them further into the unknown.

Meeting titanic expectations, this linear journey of the heart is Adele's most cohesive statement to date, pairing her inimitable voice with a dozen engrossing vignettes, reminding us that all we can do is keep trying.

A mesmerizing 11-song set that pairs bracing hardcore with expansive symphonic and post-metal.

It doesn't aim to reproduce the ebb and flow of his usual concert experience, instead aiming for an all-killer, no-filler experience, and it leaves no doubt why the audience got so caught up in this music.

Highway Butterfly is remarkable because there isn't a weak song or performance included.

Gay more than succeeds in weaving all of these seemingly disparate sounds together, and Open Arms to Open Us has the engaging feeling of walking through a kaleidoscopic multimedia art installation.

Tempest Revisited seamlessly twins harmonic lyricism, soundscape textures, and powerful dynamics here. The end result is her most diverse -- and musically compelling -- album.

Leaving the listener with a sense of sweet melancholia, Amarante wraps up with "The End," a dusty-voiced piano ballad that serves as the closing credits to Drama's captivating journey.

The track sequencing is skip-proof. This and the film belong in every library on the planet.

Listening to Good and Green Again is like visiting a warm little den where the songs of yesteryear spend an easy hour catching up on the news of the present. His is a peculiar gift, but one he's learned how to use to great effect.

The hit of serotonin for longtime fans is an absolute joy. Against the odds, Korn have done it again with Requiem, a quick and ferocious blast that finds the band still hungry and innovative nearly 30 years into the game.

Even though A Place to Bury Strangers have been bringing the noise back to shoegaze and post-punk for years, they're still finding new forms of expression. That they can create a career peak like See Through You two decades after forming makes them all the more inspiring.

On a strictly musical basis, Earthling is the most varied project Eddie Vedder has ever released, and it's also his lightest album: there's a palpable joy to his free experiments here that's infectious, even fun.

If that album [7] expanded the idea of what Beach House could sound like, then Once Twice Melody fills in that idea with colors both familiar and new.

Perfect pop for perfectly sad people will never go out of style, and Summer at Land's End is more proof that Glenn Donaldson and the Reds, Pinks & Purples have the market pretty much cornered.

Segarra has wound up with a distinctive album, one that operates equally skillfully on an emotional and intellectual level.

It all comes together as a beautiful and honest reflection on self-acceptance and the passing of time. Bell invites us into the deeper reaches of his perpetual but ever-evolving dream state, and in the process creates some career-best highlights.

These are exquisite productions where Le'aupepe's rich, throaty baritone is framed by wiry bass lines, artfully arranged orchestral sections, and spiraling guitar accents. There's a frankness to Le'aupepe's lyrics, as if he's talking directly to you. Yet, even in his most earnest, off-hand moments, he finds poetry.

Easily Conway's most impressive work to date, God Don't Make Mistakes is a culmination of everything he's experienced and achieved so far, and a bridge to the next phase of his life.

Everything Was Beautiful is delirious and exciting, a perfect distilment of the best parts of the band's various phases that feels reinvigorated and new.

Impera is the most unabashed exercise in exultant pop/rock sheen Ghost has issued to date; it establishes an exquisite front in their own quest for global rock domination.

Though known for her Ella Fitzgerald-esque skill at interpreting songbook standards and French chanson, Salvant has proven herself a literate and nuanced songwriter in her own right. She brings all of these aspects together yet again on Ghost Song, this time adding in more contemporary cover tunes and other folk traditions she hadn't yet explored.

Motomami is as provocative and risky as it is creative. It showcases Rosalía as a master, twisting together the contradictory strands of Latin and Anglo pop with traditional and vanguard forms and fresh sounds into a gloriously articulated radical approach that makes for obsessive listening.

Ibibio Sound Machine have always sought to get listeners onto the dancefloor. Electricity reveals that they won't have to coax. Here, they have taken their songcraft, production, and rhythm science to an entirely different level without sacrificing their Afrocentric roots.

More aesthetically modern and approachable than some of their other records, though no less potent, this is Kae Tempest at their best.

An impeccable blend of past and present, this is essential listening for indie pop lovers of any age.

The quiet intensity, supernatural control, and disquieting character of his singing are all in full focus, adding mystery and longing to even the most benign lyric and making the highlights of Midnight Rocker rank among his best work.

The mix of songs that connect with gently experimental sounds that low-key dazzle make for a winning combination and Together is another surprising slowcore triumph.

Older, wiser, and more ambitious than on her collegiate debut, Tomberlin finds a musical artistry on i don't know who needs to hear this… that rises to the level of her lyrical perceptiveness.

The different sounds and scenes add up to a rich, complex album, one where Lambert finds the perfect blend of the writerly The Weight of These Wings and the breeziness of Wildcard.

Lady For Sale bubbles over with these kinds of inspired genre-mashing moments made all of the more potent by Kirke's swaggering, palpable sense of fun.

With Headful of Sugar, Sunflower Bean turn the pangs of growing up into hypnotic, intoxicating pop.

Every bit as refreshing and even more insightful than her debut, Norwegian pop star Sigrid delivers another near-flawless effort with her sophomore album, How to Let Go.

Un Verano is not only a seasonal statement-piece but a testament to Benito's singular songwriting -- across genres, generations, and even languages, he works to produce enduring landmarks that trace universal joys, sorrows, and passions.

One of the best chapters in an already impressive catalog; one that finds a new artistic depth as it faces some of life's eternal concerns.

The Stones often sound as if they're enjoying hunkering down on a smaller stage, giving enthusiastic performances that avoid sloppiness. It adds up to a gas, a record that belongs alongside Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! and Brussels Affair as among the best official live Stones albums.

Harry's House is what happens when Styles steps out of the spotlight to live his life. And despite the fact that there's nothing as immortal as "Watermelon Sugar" to be found, this album, as a whole, has solid bones and is sturdy enough to last.

Blue Skies elevates Dehd's mysterious auras, thoughtful experimentation, and strong songwriting, but reaches its highest levels of beauty and intensity when the band shares more of their unobscured personalities.

They've tapped into the source of indie rock's greatness like few bands have been able to and Versions of Modern Performance isn't merely a homage or a neat trick, it's another very strong, very satisfying link in the chain connecting past to present.

Proof is a shining example of how to do it well, drawing listeners in with the familiar and enriching the experience with a special, personal touch.

As bleak as In Amber can be, it's as thrilling to hear such unguarded yet exquisitely crafted confessions from Hercules & Love Affair as it was to have them transport listeners to dance floor nirvana.

Mississippi Son is an unromanticized testament to living the blues and sounds like it came from the soil. As such, it's a late-period masterpiece.

Ultimately, Vaxis II: A Window of the Waking Mind is stellar; it offers fresh, wildly creative terrain for the Amory Wars saga to mine going forward.

On DMIZ the rapper finds a third gem in the post-T&Y crown, building his incisive pen into smaller frameworks -- with stunning consequences.

The result is perhaps the best recorded document of Prince & the Revolution in full flight: they sound invincible here.

It's an album that leaves you feeling quietly joyful and, as in the spare, poignant closer "Writer," in which Nutini ruminates on the interplay between art and life, might just make you cry.

The whole album is pulsing with both those elements [energy and emotion] and comes across like the group's most important album, only without the kind of pretension that kind of thing often entails. It's more that Formentera captures the warring emotions, steady fears, and crushing uncertainty of the era it was made in and delivers it all wrapped up in triumphant and true songs that one will want to spin again and again.

A special work, Loggerhead is among the most necessary albums of its time.

Entering Heaven Alive feels of a piece with White's previous work, yet the ideas are synthesized and executed in fresh, inventive ways, suggesting that the ungainly Boarding House Reach was indeed a transitionary album to allow him to do music that's as relaxed and vibrant as this.

The Sadies created something very special here, and Dallas Good was rightly proud of this work.

With 2022's Misadventures of Doomscroller, Dawes have crafted one their shortest and tightest albums to date that also happens to be one of their most enjoyably experimental.

The LP is top-to-bottom danceable and sequenced with each track setting up the next, through the ecstatic finale, where Beyoncé most potently mixes sensuality and aggression, claiming her man with nods to Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder, Patrick Cowley, and Larry Heard.

All of it sounds supremely organic and works as a further interpolation of the soulful pop she embraced on Heard It in a Past Life. Surrender is the sound of Rogers coming into her complete self as an artist and choosing to be the positive force for good that she wants to see in both the pop and real worlds.

With Take It Like A Man, she's made a striking, deeply satisfying album that follows no rules other than what her muse has chosen, and it's inarguably her finest work to date.

Greer's vision of barbed future pop isn't easy to immediately understand, but Barbarism is as thrilling as it is challenging, and a rare example of art truly existing on its own terms despite how difficult it might be for an audience to digest.

It's never really obvious who is playing what here, but it doesn't seem to matter on an album so moving, immersive and mysterious, organic and otherworldly. Sprague and her bandmates hanging out on a porch upstate managed to make a record that delivers simple songs, artful sound exploration, deep emotions, and comfort all at once.

Even when other albums by Panda Bear or Sonic Boom have suggested positivity and low-stakes fun, none have quite delivered that feeling like Reset does.

Some stellar outside contributions notwithstanding, Cheat Codes stimulates most when Mouse and Thought are sequestered, allowing the latter to leave space only for the occasional instrumental break or rare prominent sampled vocal.

Whether it's a genuine transformation or just a brief exercise for the pop chameleon, the triumphant Holy Fvck is a refreshing change of pace and an utter thrill to experience for those willing to look past the headlines into the heart of an artist who continues to grow in the public eye.

Viva Las Vengeance is Urie's amorous declaration to everything sumptuously mythic, exultant, tragic, and yes, even silly about loving and aspiring to be a part of the rock'n'roll world. That Urie is completely self-aware about his place in that world makes Viva Las Vengeance all the more delicious.

It's hard to call any of the unheard material a surprise, yet these demos, abandoned ideas, and working mixes help to add a dimension and perspective to Blondie's basic canon. Those original albums and, especially, the big hits are so familiar that they can seem set in stone, but when they're paired with these raw, unheard recordings, the group's nervy, arty spirit is resurrected, so it's possible to once again understand what made Blondie such a striking, special band at their peak.

While Will of the People is not as essential as their 2000s classics, it's a quick, satisfying burst of Muse essentials that cleverly forgoes the hits-compilation graveyard in favor of fresh material that honors both their evolution and dedicated fan base.

Though a handful of tracks fall into the category of fun but not essential, Pulse of the Early Brain feels more necessary than some of the previous Switched On volumes. As it covers a wide swath of the band's career, it provides a few surprises for even the most avid fans -- and whether listeners are hearing these songs for the first time or the first time in a long time, they sound equally great.

I Love You Jennifer B is pop at its most baffling, but its considered arrangement keeps the album not just listenable, but thrilling, even as it dives off of various sonic cliffs into the unknown.

Curtain Call 2 is generous to a fault, playing like an endless streaming playlist instead of a curated compilation, yet it does feature many highlights from Eminem's mid-career records.

Martsch has evolved into a survivor; while others may have flashed early and burned out, he's kept plugging away and with When the Wind Forgets Your Name he and Built to Spill have delivered a late career stunner that easily equals their best work.

As a vocalist, Parks shows even greater versatility, matching modes ranging from breathy siren to tough MC with productions that dish out flickering electronics, atmospheric breaks, blown-out trap, and knocking hip-hop soul. Resilience, joy, and power emanate from all of it.

Kicking off their third decade post-Barsuk, Death Cab continue their evolution in fascinating and rewarding ways, somehow managing to surprise with fresh directions and sounds yet unheard from this ever-reliable crew.

Besting the already star-making Sawayama, the triumphant Hold The Girl is the sound of an artist taking their rightful place on the pop throne. Sawayama was born for this.

The last time Suede sounded this muscular and urgent they were still in the process of discovering themselves. Here, the quintet know how to deploy not just their strengths but their distinctive blend of nervy post-punk, overheated glam, and yearning poetry to make an album that sounds full, complete, and utterly alive.

Always a unique band, with these 13 experiments, No Age has created something puzzling, beautiful, and truly one-of-a-kind.

In These Times accumulated an arresting abundance of ideas, sounds, textures, and styles. The album is its own jazz labyrinth, and as such is destined for repeated listening and startling discovery.

Joe Strummer 002 is worth its weight simply for containing remastered versions of all three Mescaleros albums, but the copious liner notes, ephemera, and bonus disc of demos and rarities make it essential.

It will please fans of the hybrid jazz scene in England and draw in many new listeners internationally who will be deeply attracted to its apocalyptic energy, innovative beats, and rowdy abundance.