The balance between these sounds is what makes it such a three-dimensional listen, as the percussion never overwhelms; despite building up torrential speed and power, this force is made beautiful by the spare-but-carefully-adorned melodic elements. ... The only moments on Contact that don’t open up a world of sensory exploration are the three title-track-come-interludes; “Contact (sukha & somanassa)”, “Contact (dukkha & domanassa)”, and the closing “Contact (upekkhā)”.

Westerman may not have found his footing with his debut record, but there are enough parts to the whole that should keep listeners looking forward to what he does in the future.

He may do all of this DIY, but it comes across with more heart than a lot of the tourists of the scene, and it shows in his powerful lyrics just how far he’s come in this world.

RTJ4 is every bit as explosive as one would have hoped, and whatever it lacks in diversity it makes up for with strong writing. It’s a record born out of generations of racial tension and almost four years of near-dictatorship in the USA.

So while the year 2020 mourns the loss of good live music, Ohmme swoop in with a refined and immersive dose of chaotic pop rock, and it’s very satisfying.

Goons Be Gone is nothing particularly new for them, but when No Age balance their flavors of weirdness with the wildness, it still hits the right marks.

No doubt that momentum they’ve built up will take them to plenty of new places when they can get back to playing live next year; they set out to capture that feeling on record this time around, and they’ve succeeded, with an album that makes Hope Downs feel like a warmup. After all this travelling, they’ve finally arrived.

Self-Surgery is punchy and full of potential, but that’s mostly what it rides on. It’s a quick fix, but its depths are easily plundered.

After three albums about the same thing, Hinds haven’t shown any real progression by shedding their lo-fi trappings; instead they’ve just unearthed their shortcomings.

You don’t get the sense that either over-rides the other in terms of input, and this project allows them to fully immerse themselves in the creation of sounds and musical structures that do not lean on the output of their other projects. There is a range of emotions and musical textures present on this album and it feels like quite a ride by the end.

Lady Gaga could probably do well with paring down a bit, perhaps finding some weird way to meld the ethos of Joanne with the sleek electronics of Chromatica. She is a very talented pop songwriter and a strong vocalist, but sometimes her ideas sometimes get the best of her, and Chromatica is emblematic of that, in all its highs and lows.

Though his shouty, communal sound now operates as a fever dream reminder of days when sweaty bodies toppled on one another without the worry of infectious disease, his topical dissection of society on the mend has never felt more thrilling than it is now.

Should you desire to be kind, you can call the album mood music. In theory, it’s an astrology themed LP, with ‘Wunna’ representing an alter-ego, but none of that comes across. ... Even his voice lacks any distinction, a hushed, fatigued monotone that could belong to anyone, with so little presence that it hardly registers over the beats.

The diversity is so vast and so well done that it’s almost commendable. Mainly though, it’s just a bit much for one sitting, and instead feels more like you’re listening to The 1975 radio on Spotify.

On Island, Pallett reaffirms their status as a special brand of artist. With their compositional flair they can inspire you to bone up on music theory, whilst simultaneously, with a flash of their writerly pen, have the ability to break, rebuild and strengthen your heart.

What starts out as a great Woods record unfortunately peters out towards the end. Regardless, Woods have assembled a worthy “comeback” album of sorts, one that highlights all of their best moments, and even some of their more forgettable ideas.

This amorphousness was probably part of the intent, with Smith focusing on transformation; how anything in life can be moulded and re-shaped with a bit of determined focus. It’s a compelling idea, which shows itself in many marvellous flashes across The Mosaic of Transformation, but sometimes you wish it would just hold in place and let you admire and appreciate these moments for just a touch longer.

There is a disappointing flatness to the songwriting, the performances and the general drive of the record. It is the sound of a band going through the motions, scared to make much of a show of themselves for fear of making a mistake.

This is a record unanchored by the lofty expectations of previous releases. It’s a series of notes and remembrances, fond and mournful and often whimsical in nature, which provides ample evidence that the band still hasn’t fully excavated all the mysterious beauty that pop music has to offer.

Surprising title be damned, High Off Life can’t seem to help feeling like a rerun – albeit an enjoyable one.

More than any time prior, it feels we’re getting the true human being that is Thao on Temple, offering her every thought, rather than letting another take her words from her. However, for the more casual listener, the musical barbs and purposeful roughly-hewn nature of the music might prove to be a bit of a barrier. With the inherent vulnerability of the words here, however, perhaps that’s just the blanket the band needed.

Filled with drug-addled bangers and overcast slow-burns, each track on Starz is cut from a single cloth that veils the ever-evolving future of cloud rap, beginning with the explosive “My Agenda”.

This is a record which feels familiar and safely experimental, while Williams reveals more of herself than ever before. Just exactly who that is isn’t yet certain, and where she’ll go from here is anyone’s guess, but it’s sure to be interesting.

A dense, sometimes challenging, but ultimately patience-rewarding listen.

Not only has her singing been pushed more to the front, revealing a clear and pleasing voice that had been tucked away all along, but her songwriting trades in clever metaphors in favor of blunt confessions that purposely work in contrast with the otherwise uplifting music.

Grӕ is so rich in content and so vast in musicality it would be impossible to unpack everything in a single review. It is complex yet universal – comforting yet unsettling. It lives in an incorporeal realm of its own, and somehow, Sumney has gained complete and utter command over it.

Regresa is a perfectly produced, fully realized debut from a promising, intriguing act. Its vibes couldn’t be more relevant in 2020, and beyond its vital plea for compassion, justice, and progress from a duo hailing from a cruelly maligned place, on a more simple level, its music is simply damn enjoyable.

Warnings is a real grower; for every moment of instant gratification here, there’s another that requires more work. The more time you invest in I Break Horses’ latest work, the more you get out of it.

It pushes and pulls the listener into its warm underbelly whilst being contradictory in nature from one minute to the next. The more jarring elements of the album are counterpointed with soothing cascades of sound that envelope the listener before being jettisoned off again before too long.

Don’t be surprised if you find your body moving to the pummelling aural assault you’re experiencing. You don’t have a choice in the matter now, so just enjoy your body’s movements. You see, the pain is in the struggle itself, so just let go and feel it. This music shows you that there is such freedom in letting go of control.

The Mother Stone is a stroke of real promise. With its harrowing peaks of dramatized catharsis and musical excursions that recall rock greats – yet look deep into a dark and obscure abyss – Jones’ record keeps audiences at the edges of their seats. If he can be reeled in to gather his thoughts more concisely, the sky is the limit.

Sticking to a playbook can be a great approach, but Diet Cig seem to be always aiming for “proficient”, while the “exemplary” boxes languish unchecked.

The vast majority of Dark Lane could play in a suburban Baskin Robbins without offending a single soccer mom. Honestly, they’d be unlikely to even notice it was playing. The few songs that would have moms asking to speak to the manager – which are by and large the project’s better offerings – feel more cribbed from younger artists’ playbooks than ever for the Toronto king’s rapidly aging brand.

There are no bad songs here. Some fans might even be thrilled with the more consistent approach. For Their Love often feels like the more meticulously produced sibling to Tamer Animals, both to its credit and discredit. There’s not a lot of staying power on this record, but at least it’s well done.

Her latest, HiRUDiN, is another notch on a belt which is tightening its grip on pop supremacy.

Toledo has always been a lovably jaded ringleader, and Making A Door Less Open continues to dwell on his self-criticism and feelings of redundancy. What makes it a continuously compelling listen is how each song manages to use different sonic approaches to extract a new shade of his despondency.

As a whole, Tomboy is a success, but its short runtime and somewhat underdeveloped arrangements leave the impression that Jurado was more concerned with just getting this set of songs released, rather than making sure they expand his extensive catalog in a meaningful way.

While Just Give In / Never Going Home benefited from a nuanced lyrical approach, any sense of Hazel English’s musical tentativeness is completely gone on Wake UP!.

What hurts The Don Of Diamond Dreams is how they get ahead of themselves with minimal regard to where they’re going.

Shortly After Takeoff is a powerful collection made by someone who’s had to endure more than his fair share of turbulence.

It’s anything but disappointing.

While there are some tracks that could have been expended, that just wouldn’t be Rina’s style. She’s here to express her excessive, melodramatic, fun-loving, pain-harbouring persona in every single different way she can, without holding anything back – and SAWAYAMA should be celebrated for that.

The Universe Inside might not be insanely memorable as a whole, but will still make for recurrent vivid flashbacks in the days after you’ve listened to it.

Despite an array of musical styles, the songs all tend to plod along at the same tempo, which becomes a little frustrating in places. The portraits of sombre and solemn humanity painted on the best songs here are rich, whereas they fall into caricatures on the weaker tracks – although these are in the minority, to be fair. Even when the material is less than hoped for, his voice can still manage to grab you square in the heart.

Sonically Song For Our Daughter offers up a familiar feel, which is no doubt from the return of producer Ethan Johns (co-producing alongside Marling here). His touches feel light, but help add weight where necessary, be it with the greater presence of strings or the additional percussion (which never seeks to take the attention, regardless of how busy it is).

A Western Circular is likely to remain a curiosity – but it deserves much more than that. Here we have a gleaming, respiring and perspiring ode to the joy and pain of life, the looming shadow of death – and the importance that it gives to our daily struggles. All of these ideas are packaged up in lovingly arranged and sung art-pop songs, which sound as breezy and warm as an evening sitting out on the seafront with some close friends.

A bold and entrancing set of songs, it’s hard not to see what a big leap forward she took on this album.

Thundercat has a giant heart, and It Is What It Is is the best display of his enormous empathy yet, even if it does have a few unnecessary goofs along the way.

Cenizas is easily Jaar’s most experimental work, one that steers him far from his significance tied to dance-driven excellence. It exudes a different kind of excellence; though there are no hooks nor beats to catch listeners in his web of brilliance, Cenizas’ sonic allure and complete diversion into sounds rarely explored makes it Jaar’s most compelling project yet.

There is nothing out and out original on Viscerals, and in many ways that is the appeal. If you like down tuned sludge/doom then you’ll find plenty here to get your teeth into.

Heaven To A Tortured Mind is the kind of album that challenges listeners sonically and lyrically, and makes absolutely no bones about it. It’s full of forward-thinking musical combinations, but in its themes it’s even more progressive.

Reflective by nature, it might not have been her expected next step, but is nonetheless a beautifully delicate album that benefits from repeated close listening.

There is an efficiency to this album as a whole, a clear sense of purpose and direction which cannot be claimed for many of their albums, which tend to wander in a beautiful haze for however long it takes.

This is a record that begs patience and understanding of its listener, but for those that put in the time required, it offers the most bountiful emotional rewards of Nandi Rose’s career yet. This is an album for being lost, as well as healing. Much like its title, it is what you need it to be.

We can chalk these relatively minor missteps up to inexperience or over-excitement at finally releasing an album, and when you consider the heights that Sorry reach at points on 925 then it’s entirely forgivable. Overall, it would be hard to call 925 anything other than a great success, and one that should see Sorry’s star rise even higher – that’s if the public can get on board with their slightly unhinged view of things.

This is a life-affirming album which is not held back by the restrictions of linguistics and the limitations that words bring, and it may be just what you need to lift you out of yourself in these troubled times.

It’s a profoundly empathetic collection of songs that offers both gentle reminders and harsh overtures as to the effort it takes to sustain healthy mental and physical spaces in your life. Woods has given us unparalleled access to see how she responds to the things that have kept her up at night and to those things which evoke happiness in her world.

With true, human conflict between happiness and sadness on full display, Man Alive! is unequivocally King Krule’s, or better yet, Archy Marshall’s most sobering work yet.

Unfortunately, after years of anticipation, the reveal is an overtly tedious shell of everything Parker has ever charmed into existence. In fact, tedious may be an understatement.

A work of tightly-focused determination.

Be Up a Hello can be a lot to take in at times, a rambunctious and restless effort from a man comfortable in his ability to make the dancefloor obsolete. But there’s more here than simply speed and density – there are strange currents working their way through the songs, hints are something deeper and more relatable than its superficial excess might suggest.

These six instrumentals are pleasant if not pretty in the usual way an Andrew Bird instrumental track might be.

Hardcourage is an exceedingly worthwhile release from a producer that’s constantly pushing himself toward new things.

It’s one of the young year’s best all-out rock records, the kind of fantastic full-length that some kid in a garage will one day look back to themselves, maybe when plugging that guitar in for the first time.

The End of Silence is a serious statement that can bring the harshness of war to your ears and occasionally make you rethink how casually you consume the news. It’s by no means an easy album to wander through, but I doubt it was ever Herbert’s intention to make this “easy listening” in any conventional sense of the term.

Such is Krug’s way with words: deliberately or not, he’s weaving a huge tapestry that makes the author clearer to us. Julia With Blue Jeans On is another section in it and is a damned beautiful, it not great one at that.

Here, Lopatin excels at what he’s been doing since his first release as Oneohtrix Point Never, and what first brought us to him: drawing feeling out of the digital realm, instead of just channeling it.

Scoff at them for being a bit too obvious with their name but Fuzz and Fuzz deliver the garage rock roar we’ve come to expect from Segall and Co.

Granted, as they’ve smoothed out the rough edges a bit, some of the rugged immediacy has been lost, but they’ve more than make up for it in a newfound sense of lively rhythmic interaction.

With the triumvirate of googly-eyed rhythms, sinfully catchy melodies and a breeziness that seems only fitting, they’ve served up one of the most auspicious debuts of the year.

The timbre or the texture of the sounds they make is worth noting while working through Smilewound, but hardly worth returning specifically for.

They write very strong songs, but aural satiation sinks in over Bones‘ 48 minute runtime.

Aside from a few inconsistencies, the change in sound is quite revitalizing and proves that there is more to Royal Bangs than a serious case of musical ADD.

Dream River is as evocative a record as he’s ever made and that’s saying quite a lot.

Comparing it to where they once were, somewhere middling between post-rock and meandering industrial ambient, the sound of Factory Floor is of a band that is now confident in their own original and entirely dominant sound.

The limits of Vernon’s imagination and drive have yet to be truly tested, and based on the size of the sounds that he’s summoning here, the ceiling isn’t even in his sights yet.

The experimental mindset is evident in moments of Right Thoughts, but only a select few, and like Tonight, it’s most prominent on the last few tracks.

AM is a pitch black party record, full of menacing pop and grimy, indelible grooves drowned in bourbon.

This album finds them going all-out in swashbuckling revelry for the most part, and it suits them better than anyone might have expected.

With repeated listens though, the tracks on Versions don’t entice you back again and again like the ominous hook-laden tracks of Stridulum or even the wide sound palette of Conatus do. Versions is probably best for those who were there at the Guggenheim concert.

Although working your way through the album can feel like trudging through the shit-stinking mud in the tunnels beneath the streets, there are glimpses of lights that break though from the surface, like manhole covers left exposed.

Loud City Song is a true achievement from Julia Holter. Nary is there a hook on the album, but the richness and vividness that she brings to the songs musically and lyrically will hook you more effectively anyway.

Many of the best rap records are monochromatically single-minded, but then the other half, embrace contradictions as a weapon, rage hiding insecurities, heartless satire shielding weakness, such as Earl’s hero, early period Slim Shady.

Mindlessly hummable and pure of vision, Howlin’ sounds just as good coming from your headphones as it does from Marshall stacks.

Nepenthe isn’t The Magic Place, but it certainly sounds like she’s found another special site of inspiration. Thankfully for us it’s just as prodigious and marvellous as anything else Barwick has put out before.

RocketNumberNine should be commended for the killer tracks that they’ve managed to pack into MeYouWeYou.

On Bitchitronics, Bitchin Bajas make the journey from unconscious creation to physical expression in a way that few of their electronic peers would understand. Brian Eno and Robert Fripp would approve, I’d imagine.

Even though Supermigration is constructed as a whole, it doesn’t always work best in one sitting.

At the very least instead of sounding like he was curling up into a melancholic hibernating state as on Exercises, here he sounds like he once again wants to fight the boredom and start actively engaging the listener on all levels.

Though it’s hardly labyrinthine--these songs proceed in pretty much a linear fashion–Slow Focus immerses the listener in an aural landscape that offers so much to explore.

It just runs over half an hour, but time slips away when you’re inside it, wandering about.

Ultimately, this is sound of two dons recognising their rightful place at the top of the summit, surveying their kingdom and proceeding to piss all over it. And it sounds fucking glorious.

Fans of Yuck who are coming into Unreal hoping for and album as plentiful of hooks as that album might be slightly perturbed at first not to find anything as tight or punchy as something like “Get Away” or “The Wall,” but after spending time with the album you’ll find that each song possesses an airy, sing-songy hook that’s easy to latch onto.

Kveikur is the band’s noisiest and most muscular record yet. The variety of experience it offers not just from Valtari, but from the band’s entire catalogue, means that it stands among their best.

Saab Stories is the least appealing of those [albums], but that has less to do with the rapper and more to do with the production which doesn’t allow this extra-large personality to conflate alongside it. Action Bronson is a big man; he just needs room to breathe.

Embracism is a record that’ll grab you and bring you close, but also one that won’t hesitate to push you away with a gut punch and expect you to take it like a man.

It’s big, heavy, and worthy to soundtrack plenty of dancefloors. The only thing Ghost System Rave is arguably missing is the real personality from its creators.

The growth in Austra from Feel It Break to Olympia is palpable throughout.