Despite the fact that Stranger in the Alps ends with stories of prisoners, murderers, and arsonists, it’s a gentle, wistful, even mournful record that makes for an outstanding coming-out party for Bridgers and a haunting experience for the listener, with melodies and sentiments that linger, softly and poignantly, long after the music ends.

With a little more time and money to burn, Price and co. spiced up the nervy and raw sound of Midwest with the addition of a string section on some tunes, some gospel-like backing vocals when needed, and a little ProTools augmentation to create the collage of presidential speeches that floats in and around the title track. Otherwise, she and the band stick comfortably to their chosen lane.

For anyone thinking Everybody Can’t Go might soften Benny’s razor blade edges, you can rest at ease. If anything, the album adds more layers to the formula and digs deeper into the man behind the persona.

Even without the big set pieces and striking visuals, these two can infuse dramatic narrative into their enlightening prog-stoner drone.

This is a sonic representation of the grandeur of America as it stands, a classically inspired composition built with all the tools available.

Fearless (Taylor’s Version) states boldly, simply and perhaps, generously, that this is a story still worth telling – and a fight worth fighting.

For Jay Reatard's followers, this is a great chance to look back in the past and discover where his music started and, with the benefit of hindsight, see how it evolved. It may not win over any new fans, but the ones who followed Reatard's career should be pleased with Teenage Hate/Fuck Elvis, Here's the Reatards.

Thee Oh Sees are incapable of recording an unlikeable album, and Floating Coffin’s warmed garage slashers will satisfy a noise-addled listener.

While it’s tempting to peg this as a breakthrough, it feels and sounds more like an expertly crafted transitional album. Oh No acts as a refinement of Lanza’s previous sound while gently nudging pop as a whole into a more complex and subtle future.

I Had a Dream You Were Mine overflows with satisfying and complex melodic shape.

The beauty is not lost, Hopkins just places a real-word façade on his delicate textures. Nothing in reality is without flaws and neither are Hopkins’ productions.

Expectations were exceedingly high for Grief’s Infernal Flower, and Windhand delivered a minor masterpiece and the best doom metal album of the year.

DeMarco doesn’t spend time wallowing. Instead, he crafted a companion piece to his previous works, fleshing out a fuller image of an artist “struggling” to find his place in the landscape of indie rock.

The record and its seamless transitions from one heavily enticing, tender, and softly delivered track to the next paints a captivating and enthralling self-portrait.

An album that has WILLOW well and truly becoming a bonafide rockstar, refusing to be boxed into one singular genre — while seeing how far each one can take her. COPINGMECHANISM is WILLOW’s most personal — and, as may coincidence may have it, hardest — record to date.

A double album that cracks Fernow’s process and history apart, rebuilds it Frankenstein-like from the pieces, and lets it live and breathe in the world.

On Everybody Works, Duterte’s timid, but not terrified. Like any sophomore album, it constitutes a bit of a departure, but at this juncture, she has every right to experiment.

Listening to Field of Reeds sometimes feels like taking a test and forgetting everything you thought you studied for. At the same token, its gorgeous production, control, and vision make it hard to turn away from.

While Shadows in the Night may ultimately be remembered as a brief detour on Dylan’s larger journey, it’d be a shame to dismiss this collection as a mere novelty or flight of whimsy.

Rammstein’s untitled seventh studio album marks a triumphant return, and lives up to Kruspe’s desire to present the band beyond its reputation as a magnificent live act. There is a key focus on melody amid the grandeur and forcefulness of the music, along with thought-provoking lyrics (translated from German) that deal with pain, passion, controversy, and sensuality.

Throughout For All We Know, her vocals display her adventurous spirit, the mixture of electronic and acoustic instrumentation developing into a funky blend.

Hushed and Grim could have used a trim, but overall, it was worth the wait.

Chock-full of mature songwriting, sometimes hard-hitting and sometimes sweeping from low-lit nadirs to explosive zeniths, Midnight is a brawny performance from a young artist.

The eleven tracks often sound like mini film scores, featuring arrangements by Drew Erickson and plenty of strings, brass and woodwinds. Tillman still deals in clever, allusive vignettes, but the tone is ultimately gentler this time around, hazier and less incisive than God’s or 2017’s Trump-era Pure Comedy.

Fade comes together as one of Yo La Tengo's most refreshingly forward efforts in both sound and matter.

Much of his work lives in destruction and rebirth, and embracing that helps to make Too Many Voices his strongest record since his 2012 breakout, Luxury Problems.

Thoroughly compelling and impeccably produced.

The album flow is really smooth, as focused and catchy tracks like “Paralyzed” co-exist well with songs that take longer to unfold and have lengthier progressive sections, such as “Fall Into the Light” and “Pale Blue Dot”. The musicianship is flawless.

Though there are some intriguing highlights, The Car isn’t anywhere near the evocative heights that Arctic Monkeys have reached throughout their now-storied career — and perhaps that’s the point.

4:44 is a breathtaking cycle about a man wrestling with his moral failings in real time, not always winning, trying to live his Mondays closer to what he preaches Sunday as he prepares for 50.

From the blood-curdling yells in which the anonymous MC delivers lines about dead cops and human sacrifice, to the positively chilling Charles Manson sample that begins the album, Exmilitary is the real deal, the absolute extent of your parents' worst nightmares when you came home with your first rap album.

Spaltro pleads and howls her way to the crux of the matter, finds her own way out, and leaves a poetic map behind for the rest of us.

Infinite Granite is a stunning journey from beginning to end, as Deafheaven continue to refine, develop, and even experiment with their identity. Undoubtedly, it contains some of their boldest and most heavenly material to date, and it peppers in just enough heaviness to embody the other side of their sound.

It’s a work as notable for its technical achievements as its nuanced themes, and that’s almost as impressive considering that so many artists lack in one or both of those fields.

He’s touched down on his own terms, and he’ll be sticking around for a while.

The resulting music ranks among Avey Tare’s strongest work of the ’10s, whether alone or with Animal Collective, and should be required listening for any old Millennial scared of turning 40 but even more scared of the alternative.

Piñata comes with just enough to reduce the daunting 17-track length to a non-factor, although it drags a bit with overt nostalgia toward the fourth quarter.

Suspiria benefits from Yorke’s attention to atmosphere. But there’s no getting around the fact that perhaps half of the soundtrack is unmemorable and (out of context, at least) incredibly dull. There’s a right way to experience this music, and that’s by viewing the film, just as Yorke intended.

A raging confidence surges throughout Cool It Down, and the music showcases a band who older, wiser, more mature. It’s held together by the strength of Karen O’s lyrics, her signature voice, and the eclectic instrumentation that have made the band so loved. It’s also their most experimental effort yet, full of dramatic soundscapes that see the band push the boundaries of what it really means to be an alternative rock band in 2022.

From King to a GOD is arguably one of the best Griselda projects thus far and a viable contender for year-end lists. Conway’s versatility is on full display throughout the album, exhibiting his growth as an artist who is coming into his own in his late thirties.

Though not specifically a jazz project, V has indeed embraced all the hallmarks of the genre: bluesy lyrics, strong rhythms, great instrumentalists, and a spirit of creative freedom.

The management of tone throughout is also masterful and consistent. For all the shifting that occurs within individual songs, it’s always anchored to place by restrained instrumentation and artful, deliberate counterpoints between highs and lows.

Their cultural impact is undeniable, and their work continues to push forward conversations about genre, language, and much more. There’s no telling what BTS will do next, but that’s what’s so compelling.

No matter its rocky moments, After Laughter exhibits the enduring trait that makes Paramore so appealing: Even when the situation is dire and emotions are running high, they tell it like it is with smiles on their faces. You’d be forgiven for missing the seriousness on After Laughter for just how much damn fun it is.

What makes Parallax a fully realized album is, in contrast to its compact musicality, the expanses and voids Cox explores.

The album is at once a blithe daydream and a haunting nightmare.

They’ve always done an exceptional job of bucking irony and sticking to their own earnest agenda, and this latest effort is no different; you’d be hard-pressed to find anything within a stone’s throw of a radio hit among these nine tracks, but you will find a smooth, almost flawlessly cohesive whole.

Running Out of Love is absolutely true to the duo’s style and their assessment of today’s Sweden.

Slowdive delivers nearly everything their fans desire in a return: familiarity, innovation, and vast atmospheres to get lost in.

Previously, Mariah Carey has made it clear that she’s been through too much to care what anyone else thinks, shrugging off critics and denying all drama. On Caution, Carey has channeled that energy into the music itself.

The album is retrospective and relatable, and it proves that Vernon isn't the only Wisconsin resident to poetically wow us.

Honeys is 36 minutes of an excellent band doing what it does best, approachability be damned.

While The Wild Feathers clearly have the chops, what remains to be seen is whether they can develop their own voice separate from their forebears, and separate from what fans have come to expect.

Die On Stage is like a cold beer and a bag of chips: It’s not the healthiest meal, but it sure goes down easy.

Compton’s 16 tracks ebb into each other cohesively.

This latest release shows they will continue delivering the brand of technical death metal they helped define without compromise.

Parquet Courts may have just released their most realized, independent, and articulate album yet.

His latest LP, Time Off, is his most tuneful yet.

That refusal to keep quiet is essential to the makeup of Jambinai, accentuating and amplifying traditional Korean music, turning up the noise, and letting both traditional and modern emotions vent.

While it's a rippin' windows-down Boss tune, the ragged production and especially the 30 second fadeout sound incongruent with the rest of the album's humming undertones. Despite that, the album still rides like a dream along the freeway and blazes forward on its own path more than it follows in the footsteps of the others.

Heartless continues the successes of Sorrow and Extinction and Foundations of Burden, while also incorporating familiar but tasteful sonic flourishes from adjacent genres.

It’s a brutal and lovely album that refines Reservation’s far-flung impulses into a targeted stream of consciousness.

There’s something to be said for the potential for personal growth inherent in traveling without a destination, and every song here is the sound of Julie Byrne making peace with her restlessness.

As inscrutable as it can be at times, Giannascoli never betrays his purpose, making Rocket his most developed and accomplished album yet.

Drunk Tank Pink is a beautiful demonstration of how musical rebellion and fury need not be explicitly lyrically tied to the current moment to speak directly to those living through it.

Don't leave") and humbles him on "Two Children" ("Watch as I fall down to my knees"). The former frontman of U.K. darlings The Blue Nile isn't well-known in the States, and who knows if he'll ever get his due here--he's already 56. But with Mid Air, he's certainly given himself a shot

Adore Life is many things, but the thing it feels most like is a celebration. On one level, it’s a celebration of the fact that guitar-driven rock music is probably here to stay. But it’s also a celebration of life at its strangest, messiest, and most vital.

The band’s growth as a cohesive unit results in their most accomplished album yet. Painted Ruins is a wondrously complex adventure that rewards attention and patience yet is never inscrutable.

This is the biggest Benny album to date, but he doesn’t lose what made him great and such a beloved underground rapper. His boasts are as strong as ever, and his flows are cold like the air in the Buffalo streets.

Father of the Bride may not have the initial excitement and glistening energy of the band’s now-classic first three albums, but it offers a rewarding and audacious achievement of its own.

An accomplished piece of work, which, like life, has its blemishes and its triumphs.

Faced with the unexpected, Prass evolved, trading inward-facing confessionalism for outward-facing perseverance and releasing one of 2018’s minor masterpieces in the process. Plus, you can most certainly dance to it.

Ventura is lean and lovely.

The lyrics paint a picture of discomfort and restlessness, which grows over the course of the album into a fully formed portrait of personal strength, creativity, and hard-eyed refusal in the face of the harassment of time.

He made sure Sauna is a trudge through comfort, discomfort, fear, and acceptance, a completed revolution that leaves us flat on our backs squinting to make out what’s on the other side of this boiling steam.

It’s the ideal sophomore LP: Blake emphasizes and magnifies his finest assets (the croon, the dark romance) for the sake of a better song.

Recorded live in the studio rather than piecemeal, Savages’ debut album Silence Yourself sees the band completely locked in with each other.

Mutilator is a hulking beast that covers a great deal of distance--as much as any other Oh Sees album to date.

A record that is both magical and heartbreaking, Past Life Martyred Saints looks to be a beautiful start for Anderson, who has a small handful of live shows set up for the summer.

Though less immediate, Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? still bristles with the spirit that makes Deerhunter’s work mystifying. Along with Fading Frontier, the album presents a new era for Deerhunter, one more contemplative and spacious yet continually beguiling.

Ultimately, Cut the World is a successful experiment.

Saves the Day puts the “pop” in pop punk, but it’s a sweet formula.

By Rap or Go to the League, 2 Chainz is a veteran rapper of a certain age who posits himself to be at the top of his game. Unlike the outsized projections rap stars routinely make to seem more powerful, 2 Chainz assessment of himself is actually correct.

Its ambrosial melodies and austere instrumentation edify his canon of work, which has long been rewarding for its risky sensibilities and perseverance. Yet that’s what makes Wakin so curious; it’s Vile’s most derivative record to date.

[Britt Daniel's] big statement is his Body of Work, of which every fine part adds up to a greater sum. Here comes another one.

More often than not, she digs in deep sonically with her fellow players, but she digs in deep lyrically, too, making the words her own even when they’re someone else’s.

Sea When Absent, too, is full of bliss, even if it’s too often sabotaged by an excess of ideas scattered on the page without room to breathe.

There is a sort of pure, youthful exuberance to what black midi are making, but their experimentation also carries with it a sense of mission.

The ten tracks here can feel a bit weighty when played in succession, especially with “Weightless” and “422” each running about a minute too long. The final three tracks (“Out of the Black”, “Dossier”, and “Everything”) go a long way to ease that issue.

They’ve returned with an album that feels far from the all-encompassing anxiety of their previous records, prioritizing the unity and spirit that all four members feel for each other. ... Sometimes, it’s enough to peel back the layers of old paint and put on a fresh coat. The colors may be a bit jumbled at a first glance, but when you take a step back, they’re vivid, pleasant, magnetic.

Janka holds the reigns here, expertly blending the warmth of his half-tuneless lyrics amid a mad swarm of instrumentation and voices. Still, the songs come across as a massive group effort.

The music carries the listener throughout each track, making for a meditative experience. With Birth of Violence, Chelsea Wolfe offers a compelling work brimming with emotion and dreamy wonder.

With its gritted teeth and threats of violence, “If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You I Will” sets the tone for the rest of The Dream Is Over, a feral animal of an album that frequently lashes out without warning.

Her newest release, Pain is Beauty, takes listeners to the highest of highs, all thanks to Wolfe’s willingness to get low and descend even further into the gloom-hole.

Saturation III is the shortest, hookiest, and best, though, for no better reason than they are cooking by now, pithily commenting on police brutality, drug addiction, and receiving head.

Wolf Parade isn’t afraid to dive deep. While they don’t always emerge with pearls, the effort is commendable, and one that leaves us hoping that the next time they swim away into the dark, they won’t take so long to find their way back.

Every aspect is written and performed impeccably, with track sequencing that highlights both the variety of the material and the wisdom of its concepts. True to its intentions, then, The Million Masks of God is a gorgeously tuneful and thought-provoking gem.

There’s nothing new under the sun or on this record, but when the riffs are crisp and the harmonies tight, that’s a complaint that’s at least a couple of spots down the list. The Raconteurs won’t save rock and roll, but they’ll certainly help us pass the time until we find whoever will.