The Drive-By Truckers are the best, smartest, and most soulful hard rock band to emerge in a very long time.

In looking to capture the ugliness of humanity and parse through the despair that slithers malevolently in its wake, Daughters have crafted their most vital outing to date.

Every bit as creative and trippy as L'Rain's first two albums, I Killed Your Dog has some of the artist's most relatable lyrics, and cuts closer to the bone.

Forfolks is as welcoming as it is musically adventurous. Void of production or virtuosic solo excesses, it allows the listener inside the guitarist's soundworld for an instinctively guided, infectiously listenable tour.

Feel Flows moves the microscope over to one of the group's more interesting and quietly transformative phases, a curious time when their hopes to remain culturally relevant lived alongside some of their most inspired songwriting moments, and an earnest desire to grow artistically.

This album confirms once again that she's matured into a singular artist with the talent and the vision to make these stories of her travels in the South come to vivid and affecting life.

It's easy to sound hyperbolic when describing the impact of Quinlan's voice, but she really does prove herself to be among the most captivating rock singers of her generation on Painted Shut. That her vocals are very nearly equaled by the music and the subject matter makes this album a notable one.

Vijay Iyer's maturing at a rapid rate, while at the height of his powers on this incredible effort that sounds like much more than a mere piano-bass-drums mainstream jazz trio. This is an incredible CD, and a strong candidate for best jazz CD of 2009.

Her songwriting talent and willingness to experiment was already evident on 2017's Play 'til You Win, but the perfect balance of exploration and poignancy on Overview make it a significant step forward for her.

The band are nothing if not exceptional at creating a mythos; by promoting inclusiveness and affirmation to aspirational degrees, they demonstrate that by working together, they can create beauty from chaos.

Equally bold, vulnerable, concise, and expansive, Too Bright dazzles.

The Town and the City isn't likely to be the soundtrack for your next party, but it's an exciting and emotionally powerful experience that grows with each listen.

Decades later, it's still thrilling to hear the band and the crowd feed off the excitement of the other.

Guppy may be just the ticket for those looking for a reprieve from the ubiquitous gloss of electro-pop, and they can have it without sacrificing catchiness or sunny vibrations.

This is essential and irresistible vintage American weirdness.

We Buy Diabetic Test Strips feels like a step forward from a duo whose discography has been consistently innovative from the start.

Live in Brooklyn 2011 is a stunning document of a veteran band challenging received wisdom and thriving in the excitement of rediscovery.

Takes the scattered clicks and beats of Autechre and combines it with the tunefulness of Spiritualized.... Very rewarding.

It is simply the bravest, most emotionally wrenching record she's ever issued.

Things We Lost in the Fire's slowly rising warmth and subtly hopeful tone not only make this Low's most cohesive, compelling collection, but one of 2001's best albums.

Fans hoping that Evans will return to country music will be disappointed, but Slow Me Down is something that is rare in 2014: an unapologetic, big-scale adult pop album, constructed with grace and care.

It's a stunning debut.

And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow is another step forward for Weyes Blood, building on the stunning sonic and emotional environments she tailored on Titanic Rising and using that lushness as a means of processing destabilized times.

The Seer is unquestionably a work of ecstatic beauty; it encompasses everything because it is everything.

That Little Simz was able to deliver such a crafty set so soon after the career-making Introvert is impressive enough, but No Thank You stands out for its own merits.

Filled with lonely songs that are as warm as a hug from a long-lost friend, Purple Mountains is more of a rebirth than a debut, as well as a potent, poignant reminder of how much Berman has been missed.

A visceral work that shares the immediacy of classic punk and confessional singer/songwriter fare at once, Puberty 2 takes listeners behind closed doors with the kind of no-holds-barred lyrics that are likely to leave a lasting impression.

Overall a more unsettling collection than his debut, Fussell still offers a unique experience and applies his distinctive take on Southern American music that is like no one else's.

Effectively, this evolution is a biography in the form of archival tapes, and the results are not only historically important, they're absorbing on a sheer musical level.

As always, Ghersi pushes his boundaries on Arca, and the vulnerability he displays makes it some of his most exciting and moving music yet.

The band's devotion to unadulterated sonic malevolence remains unchanged. They know that the darkest corners of the human psyche have deep closets, and they would like to show you what's in them.

Splitting this weighty and rich effort into digestible chunks, the album's physical release comes on two separate discs, making Summertime '06 an artistic triumph wrapped in conceptually fitting package.

An album that has all of the elements necessary to be a pop classic.

What seems to be an unlikely pairing in the duo of former -- and future apparently--Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant and bluegrass superstar Alison Krauss is actually one of the most effortless-sounding pairings in modern popular music.

It's an awesome thing, this album, and anyone, virtually anyone who encounters it will be in some way moved by the impure music it contains.

This album was well worth the wait and should win over some new fans and please the old ones too. Best of show.

Vulnicura honors her pain and the necessary path through and away from loss with some of her bravest, most challenging, and most engaging music.

A wondrous listen that tosses jangling pop and psychedelia with such ease that you'd be forgiven for thinking he could do this in his sleep.

Franz Ferdinand reveals more depth and more new directions than their previous work suggested.

This is one heavy, messy, dynamite album--one that could take a decade to be fully processed.

Tigermending hints that she just might be too eclectic for her own commercial good, but not for the good of listeners willing to follow Round's unpredictable but nearly always successful moves.

Tales of CSNY acrimony are legend, but this rancor rarely surfaced on record. Here, those brawling egos are pushed to the forefront, with all the pretty harmonies operating as an accent to the main event.

Mono is the work of a band just smart enough that sometimes the body is just as important as the frontal lobes. The Mavericks understand how to satisfy both, and Mono is an album that will keep you dancing to its beats and smiling to its wit and romance 'til the break of dawn.

Placed beside only Z, its three-year-old prelude, Ctrl is the work of a considerably less-inhibited songwriter. Rowe likewise truly fronts these frank songs that wield power as they lament lonesomeness, insecurity, and inertia.

With Reaching for Indigo, Fohr has done a remarkable job at translating a hard-to-define, life-changing event into powerful music.

Africa Speaks is breathtaking in terms of energy and scope of vision.

More Arriving is a giant step for Korwar, who pushes musical boundaries to the breaking point as his tunes articulate righteous anger, passion, pain, and pride with a militancy that emerges from the plight of human decency itself. Brilliant.

The resulting project is Headie's most complete and compelling set to date. Pulling out all the stops for an expansive statement of self, in EDNA the Tottenham great provides an impeccable portfolio of his varied sonics, concretizing his place among London's finest.

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.

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.

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

The artist born Jung Ho-seok delivers emotional depth and irresistible energy. Backed by rowdy production, his aggression, raspy delivery, and tongue-twisting bars take center stage, showcasing the rap-focused perspective that he brings to the BTS formula.

I Ran Down Every Dream arrived when McLain was 82 years old, and if it's not likely to be as big a hit as "Sweet Dreams," it sets the record straight that he was and remains an artist well worth knowing.

Pigments is not necessarily built for movement, but it's as moving as any of Richard's previous output. No other album is quite like it.

Sundial has a harsher tone than Noname's previous efforts, but it still contains many powerful, thought-provoking lines, and her skills as an emcee have never been stronger.

Releasing an album rooted in LBGTQ+ culture is an understated but clear sign of solidarity made all the more resonant because Art Dealers hits the heart, head, and groin with equal force.

I Love You, Honeybear, despite the occasional double entendre, is as powerful a statement about love in the vacuous, social media-obsessed early 21st century as it is a denouement of the detached hipster charlatan.

Hecker's sound signature may still be instantly recognizable, but there is no denying that he has moved significantly farther down the path toward something else with Virgins.

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.

While the band's subtlety and consistency threaten to work against them at times, XX is still a remarkable debut that rewards repeated listens and leaves listeners wanting more.

Let Me Do One More makes the leap from "very good" to "great," and this is pleasurable and full of grand surprises in the way that great pop music connects with the listener. You need to hear this.

On the whole, the music on A Place Called Bad makes a strong case that the Scientists were one of the '80s best bands, especially during their swamp noise years. They had the look, they had the songs, they had the sound, and everything they did burned with the white hot fire that only the very best groups are able to harness.

At its best, the album seems to accomplish everything lagging post-shoegazers like Spiritualized or Chapterhouse once promised. However, at its worst, the album sometimes slides into an almost overkill of sonic structures

A dizzying display of a band at peak performance.

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.

Jaguar II nudges contemporary R&B forward as it mixes inspirations spanning continents and generations.

While Chambers and Teasdale are still discovering what they can do, they're having a lot of fun finding out, and Wet Leg more than delivers on the promise of their viral beginnings.

Brilliant.

Random Access Memories is also Daft Punk's most personal work, and richly rewarding for listeners willing to spend time with it.

Soil captures a passionate, complex artist coming into his own.

It's as decadent as it is tasty -- theatricality has never been a practice that the collective has shied away from -- but there's no denying the Arcade Fire's singular vision, even when it blurs a little.

While their songs still maintain the loose intimacy that was apparent on their debut AM, the music has matured to reveal a complexity that is rare in pop music, yet showcased perfectly on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

Part traditional, part African rhumba, part smart avant-garde electronica, Congotronics is the sound of an urban junkyard band simultaneously weaving the past and the future into one amazingly coherent structure, and not only that, you can dance to it.

The patient flow, risky songwriting choices and mature character of the album make it the most majestic chapter of Lana Del Rey’s continuing saga of love and disillusionment under the California Sun.

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.

What's most heartening is that Harris is not only making some of the finest music of her career at a time when many artists would be treading water, but she's delightfully confounding our expectations at the same time.

Phrenology is the hardest-hitting Roots album to date, partly because it's their most successful attempt to re-create their concert punch in the studio.

Wolves in the Throne Room continue to do the genre proud with contributions such as this.

While it's just as thought-provoking as the Soft Pink Truth's other albums, there's something magical in how the emotional dimensions and deep beauty of Shall We Go on Sinning So That Grace May Increase? reaffirm that positivity and creativity are the most powerful weapons against hate and darkness.

Even more than any music that came before it, this album highlights Rosali's unique voice, one that communicates full-hearted intensity without ever resorting to heavy-handedness or overstatement.

Sprawling and complex as In a Poem Unlimited's structures and styles are, it's U.S. Girls' most immediate collection to date, in terms of both sound and message.

The camaraderie of the Pistol Annies cuts deep--they're a gang, encouraging the other two not to talk about Tina, praising sobriety, realizing life goes on even when love leaves--and that gives Annie Up a bruised, beautiful richness.

Is Survived By features more of the Los Angeles hardcore outfit's furious, passionate, intensely personal sound.

American Ride is every bit as strong as Innocent Ones, if not more so.

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.

Cocoa Sugar mystifies before it gratifies, but it reflects a modern global chaos as much as it does a personal one.

It's serious without being preachy, cynical without dissolving into apathy, and whimsical enough to keep both sentiments in line, and of all of their records, it may be the one that ages so well.

A gift for fans who want to dig deep into the Smashing Pumpkins archive.

This is one creatively askew pop-R&B delight after another, all voiced with captivating and confident flair by a razor-sharp songwriter.

It feels like a natural step, consequently expanding the margins of Malian roots music and rock and pop simultaneously.

As it moves from reflective to engaging and back again, In Colour covers the entire spectrum of Jamie xx's music, delivering flashes of brilliance along the way.

Favourite Colours is lovely and adventurous stuff that proves the Sadies are only getting better with each trip into the studio.

A stunning debut and one of the best records of 2002.

This is a finely realized album, with a wonderful, you-can-hear-a-pin-drop sound to it, and Fulks' songs are some of the best he's written, showing once again that he has no intention of being anybody's fool.

This collection wasn't intended to be a memorial, yet this deep dive into one of his last major collaborations pays worthy homage to his skill and dedication to craft, and every moment testifies to Costello's towering respect for the great man.

Children Running Through is Patty Griffin's masterpiece thus far.

It's no turning point in a field populated by dozens of elder space cadets and mood architects, from Massive Attack to Spacek to Sa-Ra. As a flawed first step from a young newcomer, however, it's impressive.

As a collection, Shore emits a sense of coming through something and arriving anew with the welcome bruises that foster greater understanding and compassion.