While the album isn’t quite the overhaul that quote makes it out to be, there are enough twists to catch longtime fans off guard. Even with eight albums to their name, The Hold Steady continue to prove that consistency doesn’t mean going stale.

He's faithful to his musical vision, even as he expands its scope, though there's a fair degree of sameness throughout that makes it a somewhat monochrome listen. Still, it never feels like a chore to weave through Ross' honest, personal songwriting.

While Years is pleasant enough, with Somewhere, there’s more of a palpable milieu to these songs that pushes it from good to great.

What's being attempted here is sensational, an unmissable combination of common emotions and abstract anxieties that shouldn’t work. And yet, when Lindeman shares with us, these songs explode with the air of something incredible.

The Body's latest exercise in amplified bleakness, a blend of muck and misery whose existence almost requires a term stronger than “doom” to succinctly and conveniently explain it. To call The Body’s music “doom” is tantamount to calling the rapture an unexplained and coincidental spike in lengthy vacations.

The Future Bites is the worst sounding album he’s ever put out.

Weezer’s maddeningly inane lyrics sometimes work, but they aren’t doing much to move the needle here. At least the album sounds nice, as that’s more than you could say for plenty of previous albums from Cuomo and the gang. We might as well enjoy it.

The hazy production in Sunbeams does, to an extent, water down some of Parks' poetic musings and reduce them to pleasant background music. Even if there are hardly any low points here, the forceful sentiments of past songs like Angel's Song and Romantic Garbage are sorely absent—both of which are just mellow as this project but more musically rewarding.

Cooler Returns plays out best if you go with its flow. Musical flourishes, references, and inspirations abound, but if you let yourself get lost in it, there is a lot to enjoy and not too much to worry about.

Shame could've settled when, instead, they've outsmarted their post-punk contemporaries with their apolitical, yet powerfully-charged message about sticking it to the doldrums.

While Meek isn’t fully out of the shadow that Lenker and Big Thief have created, Two Saviors makes a fine argument that he should be taken seriously as his own artist.

Overall, it's nice to spend a little time sharing Kurt Vile's ongoing journey.

Going from an awful opening half to a solid backend was hard enough, but the real villain of Magic Touch is Name’s bitter perspective. On an album about breaking up and getting back together, he isn’t a narrator that you want to spend time around.

We Will Always Love You is an impressive mediation on everything that matters, and of letting go of what doesn’t.

Even though we get a catchy moment of goofy, snarling country midway through, the album is a result of the emotional clarity that a year in quarantine provided. Swift has written about curdling relationships splendidly in the past, but there's a new dimension to her writing that wasn’t there before. Onward.

Even with the shifting styles under Nasty’s verses, this is the sort of explosive debut that is downright unforgettable.

Chugging, jangling versions of "Honey I Miss You" and "Life in Vain" are tuneful and serviceable, stripping out Johnston's idiosyncratic touch while faithfully aligning to his simple, primal songwriting style. On the other hand, their version of Good Morning You sticks to the original's scrappy melodicism, and at a minute and a half, doesn't overstate its welcome.

It’s not shocking that the band delves into unreleased material by Yo La Tengo’s James McNew or an ultra-obscure single by mid-70’s underground band Mirrors. Elsewhere though, the band’s early country roots come to bear on George Jone’s Where Grass Won’t Grow, and the gentle drift of Stevie Wonder’s Golden Lady appeal to fans of the band’s minor key mid-period. Worthwhile and weird.

Although Marika Hackman’s covers album lacks for originality in the title department, she more than makes up for it over the course of the ten tracks.

If only Plastic Hearts followed Midnight Sky’s lead, we’d have an album of disco-rock that felt true to Cyrus’ strengths.

Stapleton’s writing is solid, but his vocals, arrangements, and instrumentation imbue most of these songs with something remarkable.

Throughout these 11 songs, there’s a conflict between whether the characters are ready to move on or are fighting to go back to how it was.

Even at their blandest, and truthfully their dumbest, AC/DC make a compelling case why they're so good at this rock n' roll business. As it turns out, the secret is to stick to the formula until their dying day.

For most of this album, Costello switches between percussive anxiety and odd ditties with ease.

While it starts strong, the weaker second half makes Serpentine Prison a mixed bag. It doesn’t feel like a definitive statement album, more like an opportunity for Berninger to stretch his legs. There’s a good amount of work to enjoy here, but it’ll mainly make you want to listen to The National instead.

The Mountain Goats’ tamer approach, however, isn’t bullet-proof; some tracks simply get lost in the shuffle. The slow, sparse structure of The Last Place I Saw You Alive undercuts its poignant and introspective lyrics. Meanwhile, Pez Dorado, despite its decorative percussion, sounds too similar to the preceding Tidal Wave. Getting Into Knives does pick up by its final third, however, relying on more accessible rock tropes.

It’s a sharpening of the ideas introduced on Addiction to Blood, performed with clipping.’s classic graveness which only supports how scary this album can be.

Though not quite the standout the band promises early on, it does end things on a mournful yet triumphant note. It caps off one of Pallbearer's most approachable statements to date, where they bring new life to their usual approach as they stick to their core sound.