The hour-long LP often plays out like an experimental 80s fever dream, but it’s still anchored by The Weeknd’s broody sonic DNA.

Across Suddenly, Snaith surrenders to the current. If you do, too, you’ll find a rich and rewarding listening experience.

Boucher's production prowess, beautifully complex and ambitious songwriting, is self-evident on Miss Anthropocene.

Have We Met is another new departure, yet it still has that familiar strange storytelling swagger that’s at the heart of Destroyer.

If Cry Cry Cry had the feel of a band shaking off the cobwebs and getting used to each other’s company once again, Thin Mind leaves no doubt about Wolf Parade’s continued vitality. You instantly feel that renewed vigour in the storming first seconds of the opening Under Glass.

Andy Shauf’s new songs are fictional but feel oh so real, especially if you live in Toronto and even more especially if you live in Parkdale and frequent Skyline, the diner where most of the Toronto-based musician’s new album takes place. ... There are new melodic and rhythmic risks taken.

Lyrically, Styles is at his best when he’s biting. 0000... He’s not exactly mining unexplored territory. But, he’s an Internet Boyfriend – and Internet Boyfriends are non-threatening. As he inches closer towards the adult pop contemporary charts, Styles is thankfully owning his one-fifth of the One Direction power-pop legacy.

Cohen’s voice is at the centre of all the songs – present and passionate, the unmistakable deep rasp even better matching his searching weariness the older he got. And it’s all here, that never-duplicated mix of sex and death, the sacred and the profane.

Jesus Is King provides an undeniably moving and distinct new chapter in the book of Kanye. Whether you choose to skip it or place it high on your mantel, its cultural significance is only bound to grow.

Her sad-girl persona, thrust upon her unwittingly by music media, transforms into its most dramatic form. It’s a brazen sadness echoed through crashing symbols and spacious synths. The songs are devastating, but also nourishing: it’s a whole new version of Olsen.

Recorded in her cabin in the woods of New Hampshire, the album has a strong connection to nature and draws on themes of survival, healing and spirituality. ... Not all tracks sound like club hits, however. Deep Connections has a soft, ethereal quality created by synthy arpeggios and My Body Is Powerful samples soothing nature sounds – birdcall and distant howls – over a pentatonic scale.

It’s more polished than most S-K albums, but it’s still a flurry of frenetic chords, caustic drum beats and yelps and hisses from Carrie Brownstein and Tucker. Clark gave The Center Won’t Hold a very modern filter and sheen, but Sleater-Kinney still set the tone.

Piano, reverb and guitar fuzz make it Del Rey’s dreamiest and most cohesive album since 2015’s Honeymoon and her most rock-inspired since 2014’s Ultraviolence. The National Anthem singer adds new shade to her ongoing California period, re-evaluating the narrative of life in the United States that she’s built her brand on.

Beyond the amber waves of grain, Purple Mountains offer fans a feast of food for thought.

The album evokes images of oceans, lakes and rivers in not only the album art, song titles and lyrics, but also in the overall atmosphere. Songs fluctuate like water, varying from tumultuous and joyous to still and tranquil. They flow with ease.

It’s rock ’n’ roll for 2019, though the band calls it simply pub rock. Either way, it’ll get a mosh going.

Musically, it's considerably less abstract than his last solo album, 2014's Tomorrow's Modern Boxes. Like the other albums under his name (including last year's Suspiria soundtrack and his pseudo-solo side project Atoms for Peace) it's more electronic than rock, but there's a warmth to it you wouldn't expect.

An all-you-can-eat steak buffet for listeners. ... The musical arrangements are even sparser than Callahan’s last studio album, 2013’s Dream River, yet his foghorn voice remains intimately pushed to the forefront of the mix.

Like fine wine, Bill Hader or Gillian Anderson, Greys are only getting better with age.

Their lush and vivid sounds feel like a reaction to change--and the self-reckoning required to move forward.

Full of 80s college rock and 90s indie rock feel-goodness, the band’s debut album Football Money will no doubt fool throwback slackers into adopting this band as their own.

In a tight but varied 39 minutes, Tyler is exploring the sonic terrain in Flower Boy with a narrative concept that, like a non-relationship, feels endless and all-encompassing, then hard not to put on repeat.

The wild, bludgeoning crest of the album’s centre gives way to the soft, yellowing bruises of its final third, revealing that the band can be just as disarmingly potent and complex even while exhibiting the utmost restraint.

Improvised music already lends itself to the unpredictable qualities of the elements, but Tagaq and company also find their strength in building patterns. ... Her vocal performance on the record is inspired. It arrives like a violent current that you have no choice but to lose yourself in.

Pierce has called Brutalism his most honest work yet, but personal detail aside, it’s an incisive album about the prevailing mood of the moment: anxiety. The lyrics might be grim, but the music encourages us to stick it out.

Titanic Rising is a leap forward for the self-described “nostalgic futurist,” yet Mering’s core musical gifts remain intact. Her voice holds you like a steady flashlight beam in a meadow fog.

Her evocations to dance, be present and claim space are the most potent and political moments.

The album can’t help but feel like an appetizer. So, yes, it is too short, but that’s the point. We can be hungry for more, yet still satisfied here. That this is Vol. 1 means there will be a Vol. 2.

In 1995 at the Source Awards, Andre 3000 made an iconic callout: “The South got something to say.” In under 40 minutes, Solange re-asserts the claim on a grander scale: the South has still got something to say.

Jacklin sings like she’s reading entries from her journal back to herself. The confessional quality is amplified by minimal, unobtrusive production that places her superb voice and her acoustic guitar forward.

[Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored is] the most jarring song on the album, which is otherwise her most mature and cohesive yet.

She adds magic to the mundane, cracking it open to reveal multifaceted nuances: longing, pleasure, resentment, jealousy and also self-love.

It’s an inward, headphones-on plug into a young man wrestling with varying levels of success, from codependency and addictive behaviour to self-acceptance. It’s the sound of Zayn grappling with toxic masculinity.

Recorded last summer in Los Angeles, their debut 10-track album effortlessly showcases both Oberst’s and Bridgers’s strengths as songwriters who are unafraid of literate vulnerability as they explore subjects like loneliness, privilege and estranged family.

It’s characterized by both futile resignation and hopeful nostalgia. That’s a generous way to write, and Phoenix stands as a complex, giving record backed by some of Pedro the Lion’s finest musical compositions.

Assume Form doesn’t have the instant gratification of his 2013 album, Overgrown--arguably his best--but it gradually pulls you in like a soothing balm. ... It’s still a James Blake record, but with brighter synths and more natural instruments. Any moments of darkness are balanced with light.

Her music is generous in its illumination of depth. There’s a sense of solace on the record. Everything before was a hard reckoning, and she knows trouble is never far off, but she’s breezy here. Comfortable, even.

Foxwarren doesn’t feel like Andy Shauf and his backing band; it feels like a creative, cohesive group.

Her voice, while gorgeous, is not big in range--its beauty lies in its candidness and presence. She sings like she’s personally sharing intimate tales with each listener.

Starter Home is country music for intellectuals, but he still hits those classic country tropes: longing in Waiting and alcohol as a cure for regret in Drinking With A Friend. His voice is velvety and smooth with texture, vital for a mature sound.

It’s less cohesive than the high watermark he set with Malibu, but hitching a ride back to Oxnard is a freewheeling and occasionally exhilarating quest into Paak’s sonic curiosity.

With production duties primarily hot potatoed between Hagler and Kenny Beats, the beats and feel are consistent and strong while not getting in the way of Staples’ flow, which is elastic and modern without losing an inch of his clarity and bluntness.

Paired with Quezada and Thulin’s frantic soundscapes, Obey is a reminder that the steeliest demeanors can belie a raging cauldron of emotion. By the time the album’s short 38 minutes are over, what seemed at first like ambivalence feels more like transcendence.

It falls short of the band’s more certified classics like Death Is This Communion and Blessed Black Wings, but Electric Messiah feels basically satisfying--like a meal ordered from your favourite restaurant. A heavy, greasy, gut-ballasting meal.

It contains some of her poppiest and funniest material to date, taking her minimal techno and Italo-esque electro rhythms into unabashedly melodic territory on the joyous So Right while swinging in the opposite direction with warehouse-friendly industrial sci-fi instrumentals Burn Me and Workaholic Paranoid Bitch.

Art Of Doubt shows that you can still find comfort in the sounds of your past, especially if the bands who shaped you have adapted and evolved along with you.

Master Volume is a delightful, precise record. The band are at the top of their game on it, but it still feels like a no-stakes basement jam session between three friends. Maybe that’s why they’re so contagious: the Nil aren’t for the culture, they’re for the kids.

Twice nominated for Britain’s Mercury Prize, Calvi has consistently delivered brilliant albums. This new era of openness only serves to push her to more relevant and engaging levels.

Fans of AnCo’s more upbeat and animated works probably won’t love this album, but it is successful in its experimentation and as an affirmation that they have and always will have something unique to bring to the table.

It’s sometimes surprising when you discover that pop songs, as loud and vibrant as they often are, can be quite devastating. This is especially true on Mitski’s excellent fifth album. ... It’s a bold record, rising and falling over the course of 14 tracks.

In getting their own group back together, the Internet have delivered their most fully realized project to date.

Death Lust is an extreme album in which Williams bares his raw, overcome soul over ear-splitting guitar noise. As harrowing as it can be, it’s transcendent rock music that feels unparalleled so far this year. Durham Region should be proud.

Side A is mostly introspective threats, neurotic boasting and paranoia about enemies. Side B is the same but with a focus on women and his love life. As with most of his releases, it works perfectly--but for 25 tracks to work is undeniably impressive.

As each conflicting quality is reconciled, it’s never compromised or downplayed. They sound both aware of and immersed in the culture surrounding them while fully settled into their own reality as billionaires. In essence, they are Black, rich and famous, in that order.

The album favours a downtempo pace, and Smith’s superstar potential is apparent on close-to-final song Tomorrow. But it’s the mid-album entry The One, with its swirling string arrangements and ambiguous tension between defiant lyrics and aching delivery, that suggests Smith’s ascent is far from over.

The album is a delightful access point to the cloudy emotional zones Bernice have always occupied, from a warm place of Snuggie-bound safety.

The record’s simple presentation and briefness make for an engaging change from the epic crossover attempts of his prior LP Darkest Before Dawn.

Tell Me How You Really Feel is her most inward-looking album but also one that pulls back to engage with bigger political and cultural conversations more directly than we’re used to from her.

Lyrically, Beyondless is occupied with notions of excess, from the endless cycle of war, to switching one dependency for another, to indulgence and appetite. It works because the band fundamentally thrives in extremes.

There might not be any outright smash hits ready for radio and curated streaming playlists, but it’s a well-paced album with strong replay value. Cole doesn’t sacrifice any inch of rhythm or melody while detailing his cautionary tales.

The greatest strength of the album is that you don’t think of the original artists while Ndegeocello is singing. Some will feel she’s been reckless with beloved jams, others will fall in love with them all over again, and many will discover a new side of them even if they’ve heard the original a million times.

There’s still an indomitable punk fury, and A Productive Cough is the most hopeful Titus Andronicus record yet.

Many great pop artists build imaginary worlds with sets, costumes, music videos and artwork, but Gwenno achieves something similar using a richly detailed soundscapes that gradually draw you in deeper.

Remy is at her most confident as a writer and singer on Poem, and, by working with others, she’s created the fullest realization of U.S. Girls yet.

These details--textures, feelings and moods translated into sonic imprints--elevate the work to a cohesive and impressive debut. It’s proof that taking time, both in creation and in listening and metabolizing an album, is more valuable than ever.

With Uncle, Duke & The Chief, they confidently step into calmer, more spacious sonic terrain and lean on classic pop songwriting. The nine songs still take plenty of left-field Ruffian tangents, but they come in brief, controlled bursts that add personality and colour.

You could boil Freedom’s Goblin down to “rock,” but the 19 songs offer 19 flavours of the genre--a testament to how many delicious recipes you can still make out of vocals, guitar, bass and drums (and, in this case, a dollop of horns).

It uses funk, jazz and simple loops that blend elements of rap’s spiritual origins with more recent sounds in a way that allows Rapsody’s throwback lyrics and casually complex bars to shine.

Not every song sees atmosphere, theme and emotional power meld seamlessly--a collab with composer Sarah Hopkins called Features Creatures feels like a b-side--but when those elements coalesce the result is all-encompassing.

When the album is taken as a whole, its full beauty is floodlit--a rare experience in the age of singles.

The wistful elegance of the music makes Luciferian Towers a peculiarly gorgeous portrayal of our threatening political reality. Xenophobia is on the rise and we seem to be on the brink of nuclear war, but at least we’ve got this album to provide the soundtrack.

It’s relatable while remaining singular, and unsurprisingly it’s also (mostly) bangin’.

The expansive, heavenly textured, rambling blues jams that make up a good part of the record preserve some of the improvised spirit they were created in.

Though melancholy, the album never wallows or gets stuck or even treads water, largely due to all the movement constantly happening in the vocal and piano lines. It feels like an exploration rather than a sealed-up document of the past.

But it’s when she cuts loose from the serene guitar-voice template also favoured by her like-minded collaborator Bahamas (whose Afie Jurvanen is credited as “senior advisor” here) that the album really shines. Lush strings (arranged by Lindeman) bring a new richness to the songwriting, while upbeat tracks like Kept It All To Myself and Complicit showcase more playful vocal turns (the latter closing with a choir of layered vocals) and dense, twangy melodies.

Antisocialites doubles down on Alvvays’s strengths while also helping the band carve out a stronger identity within their well-established sound. By highlighting the band itself, Alvvays one-up their exciting debut.

Throughout, on both killers and filler, the singer sounds like she’s having so much fun.

If there is a difference between albums one and two, its the slightly twangier vibes and a structural emphasis on keyboard and guitar breakdowns that could be extendable live. It’s not hard to imagine Something To Tell You translating well to Haim’s amped-up stage show.

How The West Was Won stands on its own as a clever, mature and scathingly witty record with memorable melodies and choruses. It also marks the return of a true rock ’n’ roll anti-hero.

Ti Amo feels like the kind of escapism Phoenix and their compatriots could use right about now. And the fact that it’s the most summery music they’ve ever made is like a big, red cherry on top.

As on their previous two records, the rewards here are in the refinement, the well-wrought voices and the sublimely subtle performances.

Assists aside, Land of Talk continue to showcase Powell’s singular musical vision, sounding a hopeful, tuneful note in her long-awaited return.

On 2014’s Too Bright, Hadreas expressed liberationist sentiments, played with gender and made his queerness confrontational. This time, those themes are felt more heavily in the way he channels familiar riffs, structures and themes into something so singular, unsettling and beautiful.

Countless rappers claim to have transcended the game. Kendrick Lamar actually does. There’s the sense his ambitions on DAMN. are even larger, reaching toward something more universal, fateful even spiritual in its reach to find the link tying all contradictions together.

Unless you’re only listening for Bejar, Whiteout Conditions should not only satisfy but also open your mind to just how versatile the New Pornographers can be.

No doubt some of the album feels overly sanctimonious. ... And yet Tillman’s prophetic songwriting makes Pure Comedy one of the first--and best--post-Trump albums in what’s sure to be a long line over the next four years.

Sincerely, Future Pollution still sounds distinctly like Timber Timbre, and stands up easily against their other albums.

You can hear allusions Dylan has made to some of these lyrics in his own work over the last few decades, which makes the collection all the more revelatory. And he sings as gorgeously and clearly as he possibly can, as if it’s more important to him than ever that we feel his love.

A Crow Looked At Me is an unsettling, awkward listen and it might (probably will) make you cry. It’s also a tribute to an amazing 13-year love story (the penultimate song Soria Moria encompasses Elverum’s childhood longing, how he met Castrée and their instant connection) and may turn out to be one of the strongest albums of the year.

He allows the various sounds, guest features and flavours of the production, which he and his crew adopted from all over the world, to steal the show.

Over lush, sprawling production, Longstreth meticulously crafts a starkly honest account of a fall from grace and a rise back into it that embraces growth and forgiveness.

As its cover and length (the usual eight songs) suggest, Near To The Wild Heart Of Life is unquestionably a Japandroids album. Some may yearn for more of Celebration Rock’s high voltage, but by changing gears they’ve added more depth and variation to those shout-along choruses we love so much.

The xx have always been concise pop songwriters, but now they seem interested in approaching the gates of pop nirvana.

This album is full of bangers and achieves what so many hip-hop heads, old and new, are longing for: music with a message, loud and clear.

Her flow is kaleidoscopic and hearing her turn phrases with Jamaican reggae artist Chronixx on LMPD or trade verses with fellow Londoners Chip and Ghetts on King Of Hearts is an imaginative escape in itself.

A triumphantly outspoken, brash blast of incisive songs informed by inequality, displacement, joy, loss, humour, working, time’s passage, wit and sick production.

The dizzying array of styles and themes always entertain, and D.R.A.M.’s confidence as both a singer and rapper allows him to pull these threads together.

Touch doesn't live up to the wild standards of the local group's ballistic live shows, but its focus on connection elevates it to more than just riff-blasting fun (although that's in good supply, too).