It’s exciting to see an artist lean into their intuition and embrace their own creative influences—and that shines through on What Happened To The Beach? in a compelling way—but the album as a whole seems to be figuring itself out alongside its listeners.

These songs sink their hooks into you immediately and, by the time you realize your foot is tired from tapping, the tracklist is three, four notches ahead of where you once were. And that is because Ducks Ltd. have such an acute knack for lulling worn-in, familiar pop tropes into exciting, bright and trebly guitar-forward arrangements. Harm’s Way is frenetic and warm, seamless yet meticulous.

Prelude to Ecstasy is one of the strongest debut albums in recent memory, an incredible introduction that creates an inescapable feeling that we are bearing witness to the birth of a generational talent.

Courting condenses themselves on New Last Name into smaller, more straightforward indie rock. But the moments when they escape those confines exude with personality and color. They match O’Neill’s post-post-modernist irony more closely.

What Three Bells gives us is more than an hour of his musical stream of consciousness roaming wild and free—the results are unpredictable, imperfect and utterly fascinating.

Carlisle’s third album doesn’t have the same sweeping scope as its predecessor, which was boisterous, messy and open-hearted on songs embracing a certain worldview: “Your Heart’s a Big Tent,” say, or “I Won’t Be Afraid.” In some ways, though, he digs deeper on Critterland, an album that is more about making the best of heavy circumstances.

What an enormous room’s production reaches the same high watermark as prior efforts like Three Futures and Silver Tongue, but struggles to land with the same impact.

People Who Aren’t There Anymore is an extensive portrait of an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. But even then, Future Islands are still finding new ways to polish a diamond on this album.

Though devoid of obvious lyrical or sonic cartwheels, Blue Raspberry’s calm, steady sense of purpose carries through, creating a gorgeous, ruminative contemplation on queer desire that will leave longtime fans and new listeners alike bobbing their heads—and reaching for their thesauruses.

Like A Moon Shaped Pool and Suspiria, Wall of Eyes is moodier and more sparse, like how a tree is in the winter. The tracks are like long branches stretching out, each textured by their own idiosyncrasies, complications and sonic movements, but are still clearly part of the same root.

While inspired by numerous corners of art and creation, the influences seamlessly blend into a cohesive and thoughtful tracklist. The imperfections and hinderances embraced by the band allowed for their boldest project to date.

While loss, pain and connection have always defined Sleater-Kinney’s work, Little Rope feels especially imbued with an emotional acuity and intensity, one that I don’t think they have captured this potently since “One More Hour.” For all of this, Path of Wellness did set the bar low, and Little Rope has some sloppy writing and one too many lackluster moments. .... Despite these shortcomings, Little Rope shows us that Sleater-Kinney are well worth sticking with.

It’s a brilliant next step into the intersection between alt-pop and New Age, offering an over-the-top spiritual experience with enlightening reflections on the power to crush and regenerate.

Big Sigh is a knotty, downbeat album that shows the English singer/songwriter stretching herself sonically while still maintaining focus on her pet subjects.

Orquídeas is a masterful ode to Uchis’ ancestral roots. A project that artfully skywalks across a variety of Latin genres, including dembow, bolero, salsa and reggaeton, the project proves to be her most sonically ambitious to date—and boasts all-star level features to boot.

Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((World War)), is both the best work of branch’s career and the most fitting send-off one could imagine for the late trumpeter.

All three of these songs [the title track, Forever Well, and Spend the Grace] find Full of Hell and Nothing at their most integrated, where the lines between them disappear and a new form starts to take shape. They also provide a glimpse of what’s possible when two bands truly push beyond collaboration into an entirely unexplored new space.

Atlas is ambient neoclassical at its finest; stirring and introspective without succumbing to sameness, furthering Laurel Halo’s extensive, unpredictable influence on experimental and electronic traditions.

It’s a subtle album, built around gentle, dream-like musical arrangements that belie the tougher sentiments underpinning these songs.

Though it’s true that this is not a “new” record, it’s still a crucial addition to not just Lenderman’s discography, but to the compendium of contemporary live material altogether as we know it.

You can cook a hard-boiled egg quicker than it takes to get through a Kurt Vile song, and we love him for that. The stretched-out jams on Back to Moon Beach are consistent with the last 15 years of his sound, yet it holds some of the greatest work Vile’s done in nearly a decade.

Moving in this decidedly uncommercial new direction is a bolder step, which proves him to be the sincere and genuine artist that his biggest fans always knew he was.

Throughout the rest of the project, Parton’s original tracks (including “World on Fire,” a stadium-ready stomp-stomp-clap protest anthem) and faithful renditions of classic rock favorites help her get the band back together for one last encore shine through. At age 77, Dolly Parton sounds fresh, brand new and like she’s having the time of her life.

Quaranta is Danny Brown at his finest—and his most personal. It’s one of this year’s best albums: a no-skips project from an artist committed to stepping into the light and putting his best foot forward every day, despite the clouds that sometimes obscure the sun.

On their journey up and down (and up again) this gamut of human emotion—from anger (“Blowback”) to confusion and disillusion (“Addict,” “Can I Borrow Your Lighter?”) to misery (“Catch A Hot One”) to love and gratitude (“Herbert”)—Spiritual Cramp sound exceptionally tight. This may be the best-sounding record I’ve heard this year.

In less capable hands, such a painstaking interpretation would be rendered redundant, but the wounded innocence of Marshall’s voice ensures that her versions remain piercingly evocative—vital, even.

Hadsel is the sound of a weary man dealing out his thoughts on a table in a cabin far away, and using extraordinary musicianship to put them in order. The result is a lush, majestic album.

Heaven knows has more intricate songwriting and a wider scope [than her 2021 mixtape to hell with it].