This is music that wants to be read as a text, and deserves to be. The fact that it comes to us in an era of smartphones and shortening attention spans only serves to underscore its audacity.

While Coloring Book successfully channels the musical conventions of African-American church tradition without sounding dated or pastiche, the album also subtly chronicles black history and uses it as inspiration for artistic freedom.

While that record [Pomegranate] was expansive and full of divergent genres and characters, This Is Our Science condenses the process into a tight 40 minutes of rhythm and revelations.

While her songwriting has always been among the most powerful of the past decade, it’s not only refreshing, but thrilling, to see Big Thief take a broader sonic direction without ever losing the raw passion that put them on the map.

It delivers on every promise in a sleek, incredibly catchy package and does it all in under 50 minutes. Yes, it’s music made by young adults obviously aimed at young adults. Yes, it could be more subtle about its influences. And yes, it’s going to make a whole lot of year-end lists.

Juno is bursting at the seams with pop idiosyncrasies, thirteen tracks of controlled chaos. ... It’s also a remarkably cohesive album.

The Basement Tapes Raw, like the original ’75 release, blends brilliant performances with pure curiosities. What’s remarkable, though, are how many beautiful, emotionally daunting moments came into being during these rather informal sessions.

The remastered mixes highlight how incredibly complex the arrangements were originally, a testament to the true magnitude of Led Zeppelin’s vision all those years ago.

Kendrick can’t be Pac or know everything it took to be him, but he isn’t going to let doubts stop him from making groundbreaking music. With To Pimp a Butterfly, it’s never been more apparent that he’s doing just that and prepared to stride past any and all obstacles.

Forgotten Days is arguably the best doom metal album of 2020 and an impressive label debut. Thanks to Dunn’s minimalist production, the album is a sonic pleasure, and it’s instantly more listenable and accessible than Heartless.

Tomorrow’s Hits doesn’t boom like The Men’s early material (namely, 2010’s Immaculada and 2011’s Leave Home), but it’s more rousing instrumentally than last year’s New Moon.

OK Computer never stopped sounding timeless. In its new form as OKNOTOK, unreleased songs feed off beloved B-sides, forming a web that supports the concrete themes of the original album so as to make its points even sharper.

Lil Nas X’s 15-track rookie album is filled with raw emotion, honesty, and a lot of insight.

Torn Arteries has an absolutely rotten personality, but one soaked with black humor and charm — not to mention stellar riffs and performances — for those with the patience to get to know it. Those looking for unrepentant brutality can look to Cannibal Corpse, but those looking for something more complex need to taste this masterpiece of bitterness.

Yeezus feels very proto- something, the roots of some aesthetic that has yet to be minted. It’s revolutionary at its most urgent, as on “Black Skinhead”.

Paradise Lost have found an almost ideal balance between grit, atmosphere and songcraft. What Obsidian lacks in lyrical subtlety or song variety, it makes up for with sonic depth and sheer catchiness. ... Paradise Lost float above the fray, synthesizing aggression and accessibility in every song. It’s hardly a new trick for these Brits, but that they’ve made it par for the course makes their career all the more remarkable.

For Adele, 30 is an emotional breakthrough — a refreshingly candid body of work that is revelatory. While the album is about “divorce, babe,” the record’s 12 songs go deeper.

Lemonade marks Beyoncé’s most accomplished work yet. It is the perfect combination of the sharp songwriting of 4 with the visual storytelling acumen of her self-titled record. Here, we see Beyoncé fully coming into her own: wise, accomplished, and in defense of herself.

It shows that the Some Girls era was, and remains, one of the most productive of the Stones' career.

Push is in complete control of his flow, his delivery, and his pen game is sharper than it was 20 years ago. ... It's Almost Dry is the perfect complement to Dayonta, creating Pusha's very own gangster saga on wax.

m b v creates a new timeline for My Bloody Valentine, and one that recalls the past in a broader and bolder light. They’re better for it, their catalog is stronger for it, and by album’s end, they’re still the best at swirling guitars.

The exploration and craft put into Blythe’s lyrics, along with the stunning musicianship of each member, allows for an exhilarating work of pure heavy metal. This album isn’t just an awesome release from Lamb of God, but a perfect record to unite metalheads as one.

All Mirrors is a successful example of how being bold and staying true to yourself pays off. Undeniably, this is Olsen’s most cohesive, self-aware, and searing album to date, and the era of Olsen is far from finished.

We’ve Been… is unmistakably the sound of an artist in their prime, hitting at all the conceptual points that they set out to reflect while remaining true to their strengths. ... We’ve Been… is certainly her strongest, boldest experiment as a songwriter yet.

White briskly blows through each idea and wraps up the album in a tight 40 minutes.

What Sawayama has successfully captured with Hold the Girl is the healing power of pop music, and the catharsis that can come just as easily with an arena-ready banger as it can with a feral scream.

Wet Leg is by all means a daring debut for the duo, demonstrating that the success of “Chaise Longue” was not at all an accident.

Fossora is filled with Björk’s reliably lush, sensual instrumentation and poetic lyricism, at times playing like a thematic and musical companion to its predecessor. ... Across its delectable slate of richly orchestrated songs, Fossora’s best tracks are also the most personal.