Gibbs is a masterful curator who knows who to match his flows with, like on God is Perfect and Look at Me, splicing soul loops, movie clips, and inventive beats etched into his gruff vocals. The beats are an attraction in itself, but make no mistake: they wouldn't be as good if Gibbs weren't behind the mic spitting his poetic yet matter-of-fact observations.

Olsen immerses herself into an intricately crafted and honest piece that doesn't resonate as distinctly her own.

Vile Child is a debut LP that is rife with a resounding honesty and an airtight dexterity.

Hamish Hawk is an outsider’s outsider with a fast-track ticket to natural treasure status. In a just world, the majestic Angel Numbers will make him a breakout star.

There's a marked inconsistency in her voice—something lilting, sometimes guttural--navigating her usual distress with a presence that is as hammy as it is heartfelt.

It’s beautiful, inventive, catchy, heartbreaking, addictive, and bursting at the seams with ideas. It captures a performer truly at the top of their game, throwing everything into a project so that not one second is wasted. It’s a record that makes you fall in love with music again, a record you feel privileged to experience and a record that imparts fundamental human truths.

While this is one of Springsteen’s most genuinely energetic and exciting releases in ages, it isn’t constantly uptempo.

A work of art, slightly rough around the edges and a little makeshift, but tremendously beautiful all the same.

The good news is that there is no real filler on the album, but this uniformity of quality equates to an album where every song is good, but where few are really great.

While much has been made of Jubilee being an album about joy—and in some ways, it is—the majority of the third Japanese Breakfast album captures a full breadth of emotions. ... It’s on the back half of this album where things don’t click as strongly.

It’s as brazen, bold and brilliant as anything it’s done thus far. It is, as Thom Yorke claimed, very minimal. Yet, the album never sounds half-finished, but instead focused and refined. It’s as vital as anything the band has done.

The Woods is solid, well crafted and intensely energetic, but a magnum opus it is not.

This album is incredibly intriguing and was executed beautifully.

Monoliths & Dimensions, present O’Malley and Anderson’s sonic murk as something to delve into, their inescapable walls of low-end suddenly beaming with purpose and a million and one instruments.

The process of writing this album was personal and intimate, but the end result is a confident, bold debut.

Bandana is one of the most satisfying rap records I’ve heard so far in 2019.

While doom metal is typically considered too droll and meandering for most non-metal fans to penetrate, Foundations of Burden transcends the genre so well that submerging oneself in the album’s striking melodies and crushing riffs feels almost effortless.

One of the most spectacular and intense albums the group has released yet.

As it is, Joy As An Act Of Resistance is shot through with stand-out moments, a great offering that you suspect will well and truly bring the house down when the band hits the road.

The narratives it employs are true to life, the reverb drenched instrumentation was rightfully summoned, and the substitution of dark undertones over lighter sensibilities that such genre was commonly known for were ditched with good reason. No wonder Slumberland has wholeheartedly embraced Black Tambourine's influence to their label. That's good enough reason to bring another of independent music's long forgotten cult stories into the forefront.

This will surely be counted as one of the most remarkable, individual, and adorable albums of the year.

The most noticeable difference from his previous work is that the three are symphonic, they have parts, and those parts are distinct, either marked by a certain loop, bass ostinato, drone, or tempo.

The result is the most compelling case in years on the potential of the journey—the insights to be gleaned, the friendships to be strengthened, your own potential waiting to be untapped. Albums like DNWMIBIY make you believe in magic again.

What makes M.I.A. so good is her simplicity. Not quite electro-clash, not quite hip-hop, not quite grime, she's a world onto herself with little more than a groovebox and her voice to sustain her.

On Negative Capability, she captures John Keats's timeless view on artistic beauty with genuine conviction.

Abstractions give way to specifics, and the result is a cascade of feelings, ideas, and images overlapping and enhancing each other in the listener's mind.

Although For Emma, Forever Ago works best as a concise listen, as each song segues naturally into the next, tracks like 'Blindsided' and 'For Emma' quickly rise as shining standouts.

The electronic work is fantastic throughout Plunge, never adhering to presets and making full use of every beat, burst and throb. When coupled with Dreijer’s slick, razor-sharp vocal you have a monster of a record that gets more impressive with every listen.