By challenging their listeners and pushing themselves, they manage to sound fresh by refusing to settle. Watching them work through their identity as a band offers a promising take on what an assured statement in the future would look like.

Parts of Nikki Nack are interesting, deeply beautiful, and insanely catchy. Other parts are painful to listen to given their overt blindness to the nuances of holding conversations like the ones she attempts to initiate.

It’s a unique recording, a shocking, exciting collaboration performed in full faith. But it too often fails to be more than the sum of its parts.

It turns out they were right to push through the breakup, but a few bleak songs dampen the high they’re chasing after as a result.

Through his distortion of smooth adult contemporary ballads, Lopatin proves that in the right hands, often-ridiculed elements of culture can be crafted into something transcendent.

The 1975 don’t presume to have all the answers, but their sincerity and vulnerability make for a tremendous record that speaks to the state we live in. It’s their best work yet.

Wall of Eyes is the sound of a more confident, collaborative The Smile, a version of the band willing to let their ideas ferment, even at the expense of immediacy.

PUP is an incredibly self-assured and refreshing debut for a band unwilling to shake the pressures of becoming an adult.

There’s a duality here, and it’s present throughout Fear of Men’s debut album, Loom.

Few Good Men builds on Saba’s quest to just live life while acknowledging that’s a loaded proposition at times.

Seek Shelter is a rich representation of Iceage’s bravery as a band.

It's incredibly beautiful and soothing--perfect music for laid-back late-night hours.

Their democratic process and persistence has resulted in an elevation of their sound.

M doesn’t differentiate itself greatly from the early work of many black metal artists. That said, the album shines with potential and the promise that a more unique followup waits further down the trail.

LiveLoveA$AP is worth nearly all of the incredible amount of buzz it's accumulated in recent weeks.

With each additional listen, this album opens itself up to being more than just an instrumental soul album, but one layered in blues and gospel, sunshine pop and the rhythmic groove of soul jazz.

The record’s impromptu release was surprising; that Star Wars delivered on all of the excitement surrounding it is anything but.

Despite the uneven results between that last track and the album’s superlative opener, Goths is a record that grows on you.

For Walker, it’s about breathing life back into ’60s folk until it bursts with springtime charm, and Primrose Green is 2015’s ultimate encompassment of that sound.

This album definitely draws from painful places, but comes out of its explorations is multifaceted, deeply considered, and above all full of kindness. The questions it asks — what does caring really look like, how do we show one another kindness when we’re angry, how do we show ourselves kindness when we’re upset or hurt or numb — are essential ones, and we’re lucky we have Parks to guide us through them here.

Likewise is a gorgeous solo debut from a unique singing and writing voice, a record that quietly gets under your skin and stays there.

Locrian invites the listener not only to imagine a world in which humans have become extinct, but to explore every inch of it.

Though brief, a tardy reprise of the adventurous sound that opens the release is an exciting display of The Internet’s true brilliance, which finds them absolutely nailing every transition and avoiding the anticlimactic ending suggested by a number of the preceding tracks with a pair of stone-cold bops.

It should come as no surprise that follow-up b’lieve i’m goin down... finds Vile continuing to self-deprecate, amble, and sigh, despite the new tier of success. Neither should it be a surprise that all those qualities remain entirely charming.

If listeners return the love even half as much as the band has dished it out, both parties will be highly satisfied.

Even when the record bites a little harder on tracks like the politically charged “Fiscal Cliff”, or the Nirvana-inspired rendition of “She Can See Me”, there’s an energy to Bubblegum that allows for endless fun, even when the band furrows its brow in spots.

From the gruesome, sweary brawls to the softer elegies, Transgender Dysphoria Blues comes wrapped in some of the best melodies Grace has penned to date.

While the writing on Weathervanes is carefully crafted and wildly impressive, what sets the record apart in a discography full of tattoo-worthy couplets is the contributions of The 400 Unit. They’ve undoubtedly been an integral part of Isbell’s past few efforts, but the band has never sounded so locked into an album’s singular vision.