Like a bottle of aforementioned white wine, it needs to develop within the container of people’s memory before it can fully blossom into the role of moody summer album that it aspires to be. The nuances are definitely already there.

The songs on Jump Rope Gazers aren’t as immediately addictive as what came before, but The Beths’ natural intuition for emotive and melodic writing is still intact.

It's dark but inspirational, catchy but never kitschy. Most of all though, it's honest.

Instrumentally, every song here is impressive, but the singing is pushed to the fore on the majority in an attempt to instigate a hook, which is only occasionally successful.

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.

It's all very well-done, but it's not something that you'll feel much incentive to revisit over and over; an experience worth taking, but not necessarily one worth repeating.

Take Care is a record unsure of itself, certainly more focused and interesting than its predecessor, but still far from the classic Drake had hinted at.

Given their status, it wouldn't have been a surprise if Wasting Light had been a by-numbers affair for Foo Fighters.

Taken as a whole, it’s the sound of a band reinvented, shrouded in autumnal atmosphere and containing depths that reveal themselves on repeat listens – whatever the truth may be, on their long-awaited fourth album, I LIKE TRAINS remain true to themselves.

We have heard many albums about the pandemic and life within it, but this is more about about life after it; how to pick up the pieces of the lives we had before it and transform them into this new life that just relentlessly goes on. Vile’s music is attuned to the unrelenting progression of life.

It's All True still has the most in common with its predecessor: the clean production, the attention to detail, the instrumental experimentation (those Eastern flourishes on the first two tracks are strangely easy to miss like the live instruments on Begone) and careful arrangements are all traits that have been carried forward, but many of those (if not all) are core ingredients in what makes up the music of Junior Boys, and they'll likely feature on their future releases for many years to come.

By accepting the chaotic elements coexisting alongside our stark self-made structures – be it tangible, psychological or virtual – Karma & Desire might be the most honest form of pop music one can make at this moment.

This record definitely ranks up there with Offend Maggie and The Runners Four in regards to its emotional immediacy.

The songs are expensive in their depth of emotion but comforting in their intimacy and alluring appeal.

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

As it stands, it’s a solid and often a fun listen, with some real highlights and crystalline production, but for such a lofty eponymous allusion, the album winds up shortchanging itself a bit, rarely languishing long enough in its own ideas to land the dizzying punch Santigold has revealed herself to be capable of time and again.

As a pure entertainment piece, Twelve Reasons To Die appeals directly to the brain’s pleasure center.

Thirty tracks and seventy-five minutes, Fabric 69 is a work of incredibly sturdy sonic architecture; it’s hardly inert or monotonous, yet at the same time it takes techno’s notion of repetition to what might be considered a logical extreme.

Though Moore's lyrics are a bit more obtuse, this could just as easily soundtrack a breakup as Sea Change could.

Gas Lit is an important record from an important band. It doesn’t attempt to make things palatable for you, and nor should it. The record is a provocation to a difficult conversation, one that in all honesty shouldn’t really still have to take place in 2021.

Sympathy for Life‘s strongest moments come in the songs that sound least like the Parquet Courts we’ve known before.

It's not that Beams is a lighter listen than Black City, but it's certainly more honest.

Here she sounds more polished and pop-friendly than ever, largely thanks to some new additions and some smart subtractions.

It manages to feel both too specific and not quite specific enough; while it sounds like her own personal sound world and collection of memories, the album lacks that relatable hook to draw the listener in.

There is a feeling of contrivance in some of the songs here, but genuine joy and abandonment elsewhere.

TYRON is a move away from the raw production style, too, as the beats and other instrumentals here are much more refined and polished. Lyrically, he turns away from the harsh political themes and statements of his debut to topics of much more personal significance to Ty, while not forgetting the part of him that is ‘the contemporary rapper’. Even with this more personal approach, slowthai truly embodies the idea that punk is not dead.

Her well of inspiration has always been deep, with songs about environmentalism, family troubles and small town gossip, but it seems now, when pressed too hard on the idea of maturity, Musgraves appears all too shallow, and no longer the three-dimensional character we loved and craved so much.

Brun has such control of her craft, and that is made brightly plain across these two albums [After The Great Storm & How Beauty Holds The Hand Of Sorrow]. Which one you prefer will likely depend on which genre or style you have deeper inclination for, but taken together, they’re both excellent representations of an artist honing her tested and true style while also venturing out into new waters, easily proving just how capable she is along the way.

It won’t draw new fans in likely, but anyone who’s been following No Age this far are bound to find something worthwhile here, and that’s precisely who the band made this record for.

On her sophomore effort, Monsters, Kennedy doubles down on the eclectic nature of her music, offering up a lengthy set of songs that range from experimental electronica to a capella ballads.

Tilt is the music they are dragging you onto the dancefloor for, and with most of these songs playing over the speakers, you’ll happily join them.

Berninger’s vocal delivery is largely muted; the mercurial and even passive-aggressive eruptions of the 00s are all but gone; rather, there’s a downcast directness here, which at times is compelling in the way that self-revelation and truth-telling can be; at other times, such singularity seems glaringly reductive, a listener wishing for the metaphors, tortuous narratives, and volatile phrasing of earlier work.

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

Despite its flaws, Sun is not a complete failure and does deserve to be mentioned alongside the rest of her work, if only for the comparison of how she once tried something different--a flawed but worthwhile attempt.

Hackney Diamonds is a really great late Stones album, albeit just a pretty good rock album in the canon of history. That’s a compliment.

Double and triple albums naturally sprawl, yet there’s an unexpected compactness to PARANOÏA.

Take the strong songwriting, add the excellent production by David Barbe, and the tight and first rate playing, and you've got an album that truly showcases just how skilled and versatile the band is.

The album struggles to find a particular voice, and make any sort of statement, leaving me more than a couple of steps off using the album's own title to describe my opinion of it.

It's one of the most back-to-front solid and uncompromising Berlin techno full-lengths this year.

3D Country is a fun album, and it gives the band a more definable personality – even if it’s bonkers.

As major label rap debut albums go, Live from the Underground is a relative anomaly in that the artist seems to have escaped with most of his integrity intact.

For the many Heartbreaking Bravery will help rekindle an interest in Krug once more.

It isn’t as impactful as Isolation, but there are plenty of moments on this record where Kali shows great potential that she may yet make that truly fantastic Spanglish R&B album.

On Storm Queen she’s an actor given complete creative freedom with a classic text; the voice of an avenging angel; a ballet dancer performing with a sharpened sabre in hand. Summoning thunderclouds and hurricanes with her inflections and rippling vocal cords, she is the Storm Queen through and through.

Overall, the album occurs as less incendiary than previous work (with the exception of the opening track), DBT at least temporarily setting aside their polemical blowtorches, instead mindfully venturing into vivid inventories of their own lives, choices, and karmic trajectories.

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 album is an alluring, heady mix of skewed folktronica, avant garde noise and opulent orchestral tones which combine to cement Eartheater’s place in every discerning music fan’s end of year lists.

Both fun and grounded, the charm of Nayeon is irresistible and whether you enjoy K-Pop or not, this is worth checking out if you are a poptimist in general.

On World’s Most Stressed Out Gardner, Chad VanGaalen indulges his inner experimentalist more than on its more recent predecessors, albeit with the same giddy, goofball disposition we’re used to.

Viagra Boys have successfully captured a side of the working class that demands empathy, and it’s their strongest statement to date.

Anxiety matches the emotional heights and immediacy of the music Ashin was inspired by, but what arrives from his limitations--as a singer, as a DIY-ist--adds to the record a personal foundation and raw authenticity no amount of budget could erect.

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.

The fact that TANGK captures a band boldly going out of their own depth doesn’t take away that IDLES come on a little too strong too often, compelling you to swipe left more often than right.

All of it is minuscule and done in a minor setting, but it’s also meaningful. Tracks appear like brief sketches before dissipating into the air. It’s the low-key nature of this mixtape that makes Still Slipping Vol. 1 a compelling listen.

It’s somehow arguably her most wide-ranging album (stylistically and topically) while also feeling remarkably of a piece; succinct even.

Nothing about the eight tracks on Humor Risk seems spare or accidental, as the record is expertly plotted and paced, never falling in to the samey or undifferentiable trap that his previous effort drowned in.

When taken as a whole, and as an effervescent thumbing of the nose at the noise establishment, Total Folklore goes by like a breeze, even if the last 11 tracks (three of those ambient interludes) feel a bit overshadowed in the wake of “Ulysses”‘s monolithic, alien bliss.

All of This Will End can be regarded as a riveting bildungsroman, the 25-year-old De Souza reflecting on archetypal initiations and processing essential insights, all the while reveling in diverse instrumentation and a seemingly endless supply of hooks.

This album is like candy; it's not great for you, but it tastes delicious and goes down easy. Plus, it's only 37 minutes long, so it's not like listening to it requires a huge time investment.

Death Dreams' loops of feedback, ghostly monologues and multipronged guitar attacks lash out, often in tandem, making the music feel big.

The dead air that seemed to sometimes crop up previously has been filled or chopped out completely, creating a record with taut and purposeful momentum.

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.

Observatory is ultimately not the Wrens record we all wanted, but it’s what we have and it’s better than it has any right to be given all the turmoil of its conception.

Leftovers may not offer that something she was after, but it’s an undeniably pleasing document of how a surrounding life of family, friends, and personal encounters is perhaps the thing that is real. Only time can turn them into something else.

It preserves the trio’s history while serving us a matured Moderat. MORE D4TA is their cathartic work of loneliness and intoxication, indulging in a museum of sounds.

This album finishes right when it needs to. Any longer and there might be a genuine risk of someone having a hernia from all the physical carousing. As it is, we leave this magical island fully refreshed and filled with self satisfaction.

The trance-like pace of II serves to reinforce the album rather than weaken it.

Their insistence for organic compositions stands out thoughtfully on Open Door Policy, and it reminds us precisely why we fell in love with The Hold Steady in the first place. Despite them being slightly aged rockers, they haven’t forgotten what it means to rock out and to give in to the desire shout at the top of your lungs when you are struggling.

The Rip Tide, though, never bursts at the seams, and never feels too slight. Each number in the collection packs weight, and repeat listenings allow all nine to unfold their unique beauty.

The resulting album is at once a hodgepodge of ideas and a collection that is bound together by vintage synth tones NV and Deradoorian’s desire to explore the possibilities of their collaboration. It’s an entirely unpredictable but indefinably enlivening listening experience.

It seems that with General Dome, Buke and Gase have managed to do just fine, and they’ve created a record that looks forward, as well as backward, to what indie rock has been and what it has the potential to be.

As transformation takes over and her approach to creativity changes, Magic Mirror shines boldly and brightly as the testimony of an adulthood that didn’t come at the cost of losing her spark of child-like enthusiasm. Pearl Charles has taken hold of that raw and bubbly energy, and skillfully turned it into a perfect silver sequin of her very own disco ball.

This tendency that Williams has of interweaving her inner emotional climate with the breathable aura of nature was on magical display through last year’s debut album, I Was Born Swimming, and it’s something she hones further here.

Their debut was filled with promise and, on their third album, Nation Of Language have kept that promise.

The artistic flair of The Center Won’t Hold and the tightness of Path of Wellness are still present, but they find a comfortable position between the two that feels somewhat familiar and certainly natural for Sleater-Kinney.

It's reassuring and delightful to have a debut this excellent to cement her place.

An insistent, vital, full frontal assault.

Desire Lines is undoubtedly a Camera Obscura album, but it might be their first that is more suited to quiet winter nights inside, rather than the sunny side of things that dominated their sound on their previous albums.

The pure power and energy that’s imbued in each of these songs is perfect for a live environment and there’s a sincere hope that Dehd get the opportunity to tour this album. The band’s crisp, no-nonsense approach filters into every aspect of Flower of Devotion and it makes for a heady, light-hearted escape from the complications of the world today.

Some bits here are the starkest and most direct compositions of the producer’s career to date, and that’s more than saying something. Suffice to say, as corny as it may be to declare, the project is perfectly named, Magic, because it provides just that.

For a genre replete with posturing, it’s beyond refreshing to receive an album that so readily wears its heart on its sleeve, especially from a band so esteemed: with so much to potentially lose. Modest Mouse have made gains simply by being themselves. This is comfort food for the well-worn soul.

Crystal Stilts find a way to make you care, though, and that goes along way with music this raw and rapturous.

Without a dull moment in sight, Reep has succeeded in creating something of an ethereal masterpiece.

More often than not, this album is deeply enthralling, providing interesting textures, head-swaying grooves, tight rhythms, and an awesome display of synchronicity amongst the bandmates at almost any turn.

While Ship has a few compelling moments, it's mostly lethargic and sinks into its own monotonous haze.

Even if Hard Light is more homogenous than Delaware, it retains the group’s interest in always finding a different tonality, skipping from one genre or influence to another and conceiving genuine hit material.

It's just a Hot Chip side project that sounds like a Hot Chip side project, and there's nothing wrong with that, but nothing terribly exciting either.

Free Humans rewards the time investment, even if it does take a few unnecessary detours. It possesses so much pop ingenuity and sonic diversity that it has the potential to appeal to all sorts of people previously unfamiliar with the band.

At times it feels maybe a little too familiar sonically or compositionally, but all in all, The Land, The Water, The Sky is a potent portrait of a musician who only gets more impressive with each release.

This isn't yet Tucker's masterpiece. But it's surely a step in that direction.

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.

Their new album, Mercurial World, is a careful collection of pop tracks that threaten, but never quite, reach a boil.

The hook-heavy Haunted Painting is prime for tweens looking to break into indie rock sectors – it’s quirky, it’s light, it’s fun, and it’s Dupuis at her most earnest.

Beatopia lacks the edge and drive of its predecessor, yet several inspired moments are enough to maintain Kristi’s reputation as one of the nation’s most exciting young artists.

After 11 tracks, this return feels well-earned, but it’s equally refreshing to know the next song we hear from Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever might not be so predictable.

Pretty, moody, and even transcendently beautiful in places, Breakers' small-scale take on dream pop is a tempestuous and emotionally unhinged listen.

When a flower blooms, it changes shape and appearance but not its biological essence; similarly, for all its subtle differences, Bloom avoids shedding the bittersweet swells that have become the duo's stock-and-trade.

An inveterate realist, J Mascis isn't one for romanticism, and there's not a wealth of it to be found on Several Shades of Why.