One of the most important anthologies to come along in quite a while.

Bottle of Humans was an amazing album, immediately hailed as a classic. Selling Live Water improves upon that album in every identifiable category.

Ys is one of those rare sophomore albums that shatters exceedingly high expectations.

School of the Flower easily ranks as Ben Chasny's best work thus far.

A silky, bright, singing-in-the-shower masterstroke of joy and elation.

With Neon Golden, the Notwist have created a daring album full of different sounds and textures. While this might sound like a textbook post-rock album, it is without a doubt a record firmly anchored by its pop sensibilities.

On Chutes, Mercer’s voice is singing right next to you, and the change works wonders.

While every Ivy League dog kennel worker with a paycheck from Blender or Revolver may write dissertations about how Outkast re-invented pop music (and if we follow that logic) then Madvillain simply destroys the boundaries.

Wonderful Rainbow is a brilliant record and has upped the ante tremendously for Lightning Bolt. They managed to take every single aspect that made Ride the Skies such a great record and intensify it severely, all the while showcasing incredibly tight and complex musicianship – knowing when to hold in the reins and when to set them on fire.

Against all expectations, Brian Wilson has achieved what should have been impossible, and has produced what may be the year's most thrilling album.

An instant classic. Few records contemplate such grandeur and fewer still achieve it.

Occasionally, it feels like there’s a manipulation going on somewhere, a cloud of hype that obscures both the band’s actual virtues and its shortcomings.

Summer Sun is a stunner, a subtle but substantial collection of non-sequiturs that displays the scope of Yo La Tengo’s tweaked-out serenity.

It is perhaps Oldham’s best work yet, and somewhat ironically, his most accessible as well.

Acoustic guitar, electric often played clean, and politely-tapped drums have never married pop beauty and frightening moodiness like they do when Supreme Dicks hit a stride.

Shaking The Habitual is quite simply a triumph, a bold and experimental statement.

An ambitious, wrenching, majestic album.

The Suburbs is a really good record, but it's clear that indie rock is not in Kansas anymore.

It may be an unexpectedly traditional and conservative album, but it’s also an unexpectedly beautiful one.

The most surprising aspect of DNWMIBIY is that for a double album, the quality control is high and the sequencing is especially effective. ... In the meantime, DNWMIBIY is the first album to join my best of 2022 list.

Even more than their last record, the fine A New White, For Hero: For Fool is a wonderfully sprawling mess.

Three full studio albums into their reinvigorated latest phase, and Swans’ ability to surprise remains as potent as ever To Be Kind might just be the most startling and uncompromising of the trio, although these qualities take time to unveil themselves.

Malkmus has the same fractured pop sensibility, but his music is more expansive than it’s been before.

The trio skilfully carries the track ["Fyra"], and the record, towards a gentle dissolve into the clouds as the drums fade out entirely, leaving the dulcet bass and guitar tones to play off one another in the closing moments. Sublime.

Out of the Shadow's blissful indie-pop tunes are as affecting as they are catchy.

Like grief and its ghostly aftermath, Konoyo is enveloping, disorienting, even voluptuous, resistant to narrative and rich in sensation, and is one of 2018’s most vital records.

It seems that every element previously employed by the Microphones is recycled here in masterpiece capacity.

Superwolf contains some of [Oldham's] most startling work yet.

There’s a Dream I’ve Been Saving is an engrossing 107 song compilation of weird artistry that panders to all the trends of its era, that being 1966-1971.

This record is a wonderful accomplishment – instead of relying on tricks and methods explored on earlier records, Herren expands via reflection, tracing sounds back to their roots in hopes of finding a new path.

While a lot of their peers have attempted (unsuccessfully, mostly) to beat down the doors of California's psychedelic myth, Sic Alps have taken their time and found their own way there; in doing so they've created one of the best records of the year.

Loud, large and unrelenting, Hate is stunning, orchestral pop.

Their most accomplished and astounding album to date.

Deerhunter has come into its own, and the halcyon result is not to be missed.

It’s an arresting record that doesn’t pull strings or elide with gimmicks, nor does it preach or try to persuade. You needn’t believe in a higher order to realize that Seven Swans is an expression of something stirring, something beautiful.

Almost classically psychedelic at times, with the overdriven saturation of too much light, motion and volume applied to every aspect of the music, this ensemble... represents the best of gritty, pre-funk groove music, Day-Glo popcorn cooking in gasoline, rattling like a machine gun.

He sacrifices none of his newfound momentum on the fantastic Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, his sharpest, wittiest, most resolute album in over a decade.

Their pithy discography--a kind of ur-record of indie-pop, ripped off knowingly and unknowingly--is part of their magic.

There’s no question that Y is an essential, classic album, but it’s also a unique one in that it is both chaotic and robust enough to be very open to reinterpretation in the right hands. Bovell clearly qualifies, and the result is a companion album that can serve as a through-the-looking-glass partner to the original, easily able to stand on its own.

A schizophrenic palate of honeyed soul, downbeat electrix, timeless hip hop and bare-knuckle beats, these 31 tracks (spread over 44 minutes) are packed with triple the hooks – and suffer from attention deficit disorder (to the listener’s benefit).

One Beat joins the likes of Fugazi's In On the Killtaker and Bikini Kill's Reject All American for its impassioned new-world resistance, and could very well be the greatest triumph of punk independence since Black Flag.

A stunning collection of unpredictability that has to stand among the best pop albums of 2003.

The breadth of imagination, experimentation and diversity on display across these four sides of vinyl is nearly unparalleled in modern non-compositional music... With this record, Dilloway secures his place as one of the great solo figures of modern noise.

Tru is a juggernaut, wreaking Mascis-style mayhem with a bubblegum heart.

Absolute Dissent reaches a few new peaks, no doubt. The band is still challenging itself, much like art punk peers Wire, The Fall and Nick Cave have in the past decade.

It’s a majestic, often breathtaking collection of some of the most important electronic music of its time, where Voigt managed the seemingly impossible task of bringing the forest to the disco, or vice versa.

There’s no question that Where You Go I Go Too is one of the year’s most coherent, craftily executed albums.

Granted, there will be some that cling to the lo-fi eccentricities of that debut, but while Oh Me Oh My... may have won him heaps of critical praise, Rejoicing in the Hands is the album that backs it all up.

Beirut’s brilliant debut album is full of grandeur and intimacy, with accordions, ukuleles and brass instruments complementing contemporary notions like drum machines and digestible song structures while simultaneously channeling the ancient appeal of Balkan folk music.

The Unicorns manage to polish an array of pawn shop instruments into miniature masterpieces.

A lot of what's contained on this disc reaches for the transcendent and often attains that lofty goal. Even when it doesn't, though, it's still very much worth the listen.

Five years on, We Are Monster finds Raijko Muller so confident and articulate that Rest comes off in comparison like a set of hastily scrawled clutch notes.

Blacklisted rings with lost voices and strange journeys, and does a better job of balancing hope, innocence, and darkness than just about anything I’ve heard in a while.

An intense fifty minute ride through the minds of one of the best new bands to emerge in recent memory.

Someday the Smithsonian will file this sprawling musical celebration into their collection between Van Dyke Parks’ Discover America and Norman Rockwell’s Saturday Evening Post covers -- joyous, generous Americana filtered through a singular sensibility.

It’s particularly satisfying to hear confident music like this, played with the fiery purpose of those who pioneered it over the last two decades.

Neon Bible is so successful because it showcases big ambition without ignoring the small things.

End Times Undone is another exceptional album from an artist who doesn’t seem to make any other kind.

Contradiction proves mesmerizing across Space Heavy’s tightly executed 45 minutes.

What’s surprising about ONoffON is how different it sounds from those previous two records, and yet how well it follows their lead.

Fortunately, the huge elemental diversity on G&G is more spread out than on previous efforts, leaving breathing room and allowing each well-crafted sound to sink in.

It’s dark and brooding, fiercely sparse at times and blindingly dense at others. Footwork is no longer an appropriate descriptor for this music. With Black Origami, Jlin has transcended her roots to build a language all of her own. And simply put, it’s brilliant.

Mind Hive is concise yet full of restless intelligence, musical ideas and willingness to push boundaries. Taut, tense, not a wasted note, moments of great beauty, 35 minutes of Wire contains enough to fuel a multitude of pretenders.

Game Theory turns out to be The Roots’ finest record to date.

Fans will consider the show essential for its historical significance and the quality of the setlist, but the album’s energy pushes it beyond a completist live album, making Live in Brooklyn 2011 a wonderful cap to one of experimental rock’s greatest discographies.

[A] seemingly out-of-nowhere collection of quiet masterpieces.

Its 42 minutes are comparatively modest, sure, but there’s no question that the man behind the boards here has his finger on the pulse of what may be missing most in electronic music right now--a central reference point. In Colour is that star, the record to hold everyone else’s narratives together.

Golden Era, the smartest, funniest, most urgent hip hop joint of '11 by far.

The result is an album that can stand easily with Slowdive’s other heights and that manages the extremely tricky feat of sounding like the band that fans love and missed while at the same time marking a new step forward. The

For the first time in his career he has made an album that is clearly not a product of “Beck”, the single-syllabled entertainer, but rather that of “Beck Hansen”, the person.

It’s heavy in concept but sprightly and reverential in its execution, its hallucinatory breadth reminiscent of the outre jazz of Sun Ra and the wily funk of Parliament, of mid-’70s Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock.

Henki is an extremely entertaining tightrope walk between restraint and free rein, its well-earned moments of excess and exuberance genuinely joyful. It’s a ridiculous and brilliant record and makes an extravagant last-minute bid to sit among the best albums of the year.

The applause will only grow louder with the release of The Bright Mississippi. It’s quite simply one of the best albums we’ll hear in 2009.

Last Exit is a truly excellent album, one of the best of 2004 so far. But what is truly exciting is the promise Last Exit holds for the future – for that of the Junior Boys themselves and the countless others it is sure to inspire.

It's one of the best live albums released by a modern "mainstream" act that I can think of. No exaggeration.

Some of the best songs that the Louvin Brothers ever wrote.

God Bless Your Black Heart is one of the best noise rock records in recent memory – and not in the sense that it’s bafflingly original, but in that the Paper Chase are amazingly good at what they do.

The performances are some of the most articulate and explosive in the band’s enviable catalogue, while also making room for moments of exquisite tenderness. ... The album in Deerhoof’s discography that Miracle-Level is closest to in feel is probably 2008’s Offend Maggie, where the band effectively balances ferocity with sweetness, dissonance with anthemic melody. At this stage in their career it feels miraculous that Deerhoof keep on releasing music that’s quite this vital and inventive.

Packaging quibbles aside, this is a great set.

On Your Own Love Again is something else again, at least a personal landmark and maybe a classic. Simple, straightforward, but more than it seems, this is one of the best albums of 2015 so far and marks the emergence of a very distinctive songwriting talent.

It’s an old trick: happy music, sad words. But Quasi has elevated the strategy to an art form, and it’s nearly impossible to resist the sugar rush of the band’s sound in collision with Coomes’ black musings.

Essentially, the Brians don't really need to innovate that much anymore and instead are just fine-tuning their craft in glorious ways.

Considering the host of absolutely killer tracks, London Zoo might just be Kevin Martin's finest album, which is astounding considering the man has been making music for two decades.

Some of the finest, yet frustratingly overlooked folk rock of the era.

With this encyclopedic set, Smith delivers yet another convincing musical document for his consideration as one of the most accomplished composers/bandleaders currently working in creative improvised music.

Big Boi isn't an MC; he's a songwriter. That distinction is what separates him from other rappers, and it's what makes Sir Lucious--an album whose elan is instantaneously felt and whose spirit only becomes more invigorated with each listening--such a pleasure.

So when I say that Yours, Mine & Ours sounds too good to be true, I'm resolved after much deliberation that this is an entirely positive thing: it is impeccably conceived, executed, and produced.

These songs are like aloe vera and St. John’s wort, all natural and healing. Though none of them are exactly happy, you find yourself relaxing into them, letting things go, breathing deeper and feeling measurably more able to go on with whatever’s next. ... It’s going to be one of the best records of 2021.

Damon and Naomi and Kurihara have made art out of what was in front of them, and it’s a gorgeous, emotionally resonant reminder of the times.

The interplay of Gibbard's shyly introspective vocals with Tamborello's dense and meticulous backdrops works surprisingly well, at times better than anything to date from Death Cab or DNTEL.

At little over the half hour it is a snapshot, but any recording of this Quartet contains multitudes to explore, marvel at and enjoy.

Sometimes it seems almost sleight-of-hand that any music could have so much going on and yet be so spacious.

Camera Obscura’s comeback album is a thing of real beauty. Campbell writes movingly about memory and friendship. Looking at what was rather than regretting what might have been with an honesty that goes directly to the heart of things. Look to the East, Look to the West is one of the most poignant albums of the year so far.

With a solid emotional through-line and a few sonic surprises, Cinder is a musical novella, whose narrative compels you to its last luxurious line.

Protomartyr has raised the bar high enough for any bands to follow, so high that most won’t even know it’s there.

The result is that rarest of prizes for a band that’s hit 25 years old: a record that stands not only as a genuine step forward in their body of work but also as one of their very best, an album as harrowing and transportive as anything else they’ve done.

The Bad Seeds have not made a record this ambitious, well, ever, and the results are rewarding, thoughtful and challenging.

Make no mistake – the beats are still rigid, dabbling in taut funk and squelching electro as much as snotty punk moves and glorious polyrhtyhms. These nine songs, however, ring with a clarity of purpose and a true intent that was previously altogether lacking, presenting a far more cohesive image of Murphy and his many strengths.