That Lucero often focuses on guys like that [screw-ups] doesn’t diminish the power of those songs, but it makes it harder for any one of them to stand out when there are so many solid options. On the other hand, the fact that Lucero has made it 25 years singing about bad luck and worse choices is, in its own counterintuitive way, something worth celebrating.

That’s what makes the sonic pivot on All Fiction feel so special; the band changed because they wanted to, not because they had to.

Its arrangements are intricate and densely layered so that every song reveals itself to you more and more upon revisiting.

Here, they sound self-assured and steady, like a group that understands what they have and makes the most of it.

Paul centers the intricacies of home/coming across 12 pristine tracks, each pushing post-rock to its most beautiful extreme.

This Stupid World, the Hoboken trio’s first proper full-length in five years (not counting the ambient lockdown quickie We Have Amnesia Sometimes), is very good indeed, a dreamy and reflective song cycle that welcomes us into Yo La Tengo’s private world while leaving ample mysteries unexplained and secrets untold.

The artist’s stories work as not-quite-parables, with no message tumbling through and pushing everything along, but certainly asking the listener to spend time with whatever part of themselves they see in the twists and turns. And even when it’s hard, Shauf’s music makes self-reflection a temptation too inviting to resist.

After forays into other sounds over the past decade, The Men have come back to their old digs, kicked in the door and cranked up the amplifiers. It’s as if they had never been away.

Cyclamen is a bold reintroduction to Núria Graham, a confident demonstration that, nudged into fresh sunlight, experience can always blossom into beautiful new forms.

Every Acre is a profound listen, one that reveals more wisdom the more you surrender to it. McEntire has discovered painful truths in the process, without ever letting herself or our history off the hook.

Ultimately, One Day comes with an interesting narrative that gives people like me something to write about, and as an experiment, it was surely a challenge and a creative accelerant. These are all good things.

Where Honey celebrates the diverse community that informs Samia’s experience as a person and an artist, Honey does not necessarily give back, returning an inconsistent set of identities that do not always highlight what makes her a promising artist. Samia instead sinks into the honey like quicksand, encasing her to the point of occlusion.

Along with the mesmerizing musical arrangements, what makes Carvings compelling is the balance Habel finds between acknowledging the fleeting span of any one life, and her determination to find meaning in the transience. In that regard, Carvings is at once a eulogy and a celebration.

The result is familiar—it’s undeniably a Margo Price record—but a little extra fiery.

Miraculously, Moin sound like every band they have been influenced by while remaining completely inimitable.

SAP does not contain a single bad song, but the record is lengthy.

Please Have a Seat is a testament to NNAMDÏ’s unconventional musical vision and how no matter what genre he wanders into—whether it be hip-hop, indie rock, electronica or bubblegum pop—he stays true to who he is. It’s also a wondrous adventure for anyone who is willing to hold on through its twists and turns. Most importantly, it represents the complexity Black artists possess.

At its best, The Ruby Cord is able to convey as much story via the timbre of Dawson’s voice as it does through his verbose lyricism. Dawson brings no shortage of compelling narratives to this record, continuing Peasant and 2020’s propensity for song-length vignettes that thematically snap together when put in sequence.

A Swollen River, A Well Overflowing is playful at its core, taking familiar images and refracting them or replacing them with changelings.

Mering sounds like she feels cornered by the current state of things and unsettled about our future. It is a testament to her skill and vision as a musician that she can make such circumstances sound so good.

While the characters on CAZIMI aren’t always at peace, it sounds like Rose is. Even as she experiments with new sounds, textures and situations, the country-rock queen remains a reliable source of genuine stories.

The performances were captured and mixed by frequent Rubin collaborator Ryan Hewitt, with the kind of dry and honest clarity both Young and Rubin have chased throughout their careers. But if there are any faults in the final album, it’s simply that this is only a slightly above-average collection of songs from Young at this stage in his career.

He comes at these songs with an easy familiarity that tells you he didn’t need to spend a lot of time learning them, because he had long since absorbed them into his very bones. Also, the guy can flat-out sing, which is something he doesn’t get enough credit for. ... The one real knock against anything on Only the Strong Survive is that the definitive versions of most of these songs are so solid that even he can’t find much to improve upon.

The best moments come when the duo find a balance and Drake falls back on his crate-digging prowess. ... Sadly, there’s not enough of this to go around, making Her Loss another disposable Drake project that will fade away in a few weeks—one that could have been so much more.

Alpha Zulu may not be the best Phoenix album, but it is another reminder of their artistic stability and growth, a genuine triumph for a band with seven albums in tow.

Makes Me Sick Makes Me Smile is the soundtrack to the nights we spend wrestling with if we should forgive them or just forget the whole thing. Instead of trying to neatly package the mess we make, Pretty Sick create something that sounds as massive as the way it all feels.

There are lo-fi treasures throughout this collection that stand with some of Pollard’s best work, like “Big School,” “Gelatin, Ice Cream, Plum” and the meditative, d-tuned “Johnny Appleseed.”

Swift’s lyrics can still cut like glass or cast a spell. No matter what era she’s in, it’s the stories—more than anything else—that will always work the hardest. That’s why Taylor Swift is pop royalty. When she tells you she’s a mastermind, believe her.

One of Stumpwork’s greatest strengths is its tension between curiosity and apathy, opposing forces that clash throughout the album. Often, it feels like oblivion is winning.

On The Car, they deploy Fitzgeraldian tendencies, throwing a party with a lingering, enigmatic atmosphere. As long as there’s a mirror ball, you can be assured a fun time.

Whether it’s the start of a beautiful musical friendship or just a flash in the cast-iron pan, Crutchfield and Williamson’s I Walked with You a Ways is roomy, real and charming, and it’s one of the best Americana albums of the year and a powerful display of songwriting skills.

There’s a whole lot of ambition on display here, especially in the second half of the tracklist, and all of these disparate pieces somehow come together thanks to Ross’ confidence as a songwriter and arranger. Simply put, if this isn’t the sound of a band leveling up, then I’m not sure what is.

Whereas her first album had a more bare-bones acoustic feel, this one takes on a more produced sound—and in this movement in a pop direction, it feels like Sparke could have worked to make her sound a bit more dynamic, pushing further outside of her comfort zone than she did. While Dessner’s production fills out her sound nicely, it also blurs the boundaries between her songs, allowing them to bleed into each other if you’re not paying active attention.

Rolling Golden Holy is a contemporary folk classic with songs that wouldn’t have sounded out of place 50 or 100 or 150 years ago. It’s an ageless album for the modern age, by a group coming into the full scope of their abilities.

These are all top-shelf tunes, and they serve as evidence that Rankin and O’Hanley are among the best pop-song writers working today.

Although the handful of newly pared-back songs would theoretically give him a broader space for these more approachable laments, the band don’t yet sound comfortable in this zone, and their work often masks Kiely’s hideous charms. At its best, Most Normal, which Gilla Band produced themselves, reflects the group’s newly gradual creative process.

The tranquil and atmospheric flow of the album is a perfect canvas for Rossiter, who tends to bellow more than sing. His rich and emotive voice can sound at times like that of a much more timid Jeff Buckley, and with the album’s open feel, it has space to stretch, rather than snarling, like on some of the band’s more tense moments.

Aggression doesn’t fully return until nine tracks later on the aptly named instrumental “Trolla Gabba,” and then again on the back half of the title track. These explosions are among the album’s most riveting moments, but you have to clear the muck before you get to the fireworks. ... That effort eventually proves worthwhile: Many of the musical risks pay off once you get accustomed to the songs. And despite her occasional failures, Björk still illuminates enough of her story to remain compelling.

As is the case for many Lambchop albums, there is sadness and melancholy, but on The Bible, there’s more hope for a better tomorrow. Wagner sounds rejuvenated after following a different path on the way to making this record than on Lambchop’s three previous albums in just as many years.

Whereas previous YYYs albums are built on thrills and speed, Cool It Down drives us with its almost manic instrumentation at every corner, subdued and despondent pleas in its lyricism, and an intoxicating, frenetic energy.

Rice, singing [on "Light Industry"] about “Bennie and the Jets and dreary weekend sex,” plays perfectly into the song’s hesitant mood. It’s the one moment on Gulp! where his audible exhaustion fits, a song that makes you wonder what the rest of the album would have be like if only the band could translate Rice’s weariness into something more suited to their strengths. Instead, Sports Team take a swing with Gulp! and barely make contact.

Alex G’s ability to widen the aperture of his work with each album, and not alienate his audience, speaks to just how much he’s able to pinpoint and define what stands out within his work. God Save the Animals is just the latest reminder that, as his tastes expand, so too does his sonic palate.

Death Cab for Cutie underscore their range and numerous eras on Asphalt Meadows. Uniting the past and the present, it’s the perfect mnemonic for this band’s legacy.

Her robust voice keeps these tracks on the right side of the cheesy/affecting divide, exemplifying Hold the Girl’s niftiest trick. Often, when Sawayama looks back on her past to inform her present, she leans into her new collaborators’ radio-pop bona fides and sings her way into earnestness.

With their first two LPs, they proved themselves to be self-aware witnesses to their own histories and heartbreaks. With the third, however, The Beths solidify themselves as expert observers of the joy and anxiety that define our time.

It’s this kind of versatility and attention to the heft that different forms of blackgaze songs can take that makes Dimensional Bleed a remarkable listen, as gargantuan and awe-inspiring as the scenes Holy Fawn set.

Sometimes, the album switches styles so quickly, you can practically hear Parks tiring of one toy, dropping it and moving on to the next one that catches her eye. This is not necessarily a bad thing; NBPQ is as thrilling as it is, at times, jarring.

It’s best to take When the Wind Forgets Your Name in the spirit offered. That is to say, it’s a rewarding one-off project on songs that underscore Martsch’s talent as a songwriter and guitarist, while also showing him in a different light. May all his future collaborations be so inspired.

Spirituals is an album that takes admirably big swings in its desire to shake all constraints off, and inevitably, there is messiness in the movement. The risks pay off, but leave some of the tracks in the album’s middle stretch to play supporting roles.

As far as box sets go, Against the Odds is a textbook example of how to do justice to a band’s legacy.

Punk in sentiment, pop in sound, and political for the fact that it exists, All of Us Flames weaves justified fury into a testament to community, borrowing from sounds of the past to envision a less destructive future.

Flood doesn’t quite reach for the same comedic relief that its predecessor gleaned. But that’s a good thing—both records are necessary in Donnelly’s canon. She could’ve easily made a second record about the assholes of the world who move beside her (the well is, unfortunately, always brimming with material), but maybe the most remarkable thing about her sophomore effort is that her independence is a wrecking ball.

These are musicians totally in command of their sound, devoted to every specific artist and genre that influenced it, but there remains enough levity that it never gets bogged down by perfectionism—sometimes just caring is enough.

Jacklin displays a newly developed maturity in PRE PLEASURE’s 10 near-perfect songs, while maintaining her talent for crafting hooky indie rock that often catches you off guard with its emotional weight.

Hot Chip is a band you can count on to consistently make crowd-pleasing records, and Freakout/Release is a well-rounded addition to their discography.

Darnielle is having so much fun splashing around in the cinematic world of gory retribution that his delight is, perversely, inclusive and inviting.

Hour of Green Evening remains engaging even at its most lethargic. ... There’s a mystical, almost hallucinatory quality to Becker’s songwriting.

Much of the joy in Reset comes in instances like these where Lennox and Kember wholeheartedly embrace the sounds of the past with a distinctly contemporary approach.

There aren’t many surprises in the album’s 37-minute runtime that will rope in the unconverted. But for those who can’t get enough of it, Kiwi Jr. are doing this kind of music better than just about anybody right now, and with Chopper, Gaudet and the rest of the band justify their standing amongst their influences.

God’s Country is as deftly ugly as its namesake, searing in its approach, forcing you to confront the black heart at the core of a rotting nation.

Love the Stranger, Friendship’s first release with Merge Records, hits like a call out of the blue from an old friend, touching on the passage of time, its disappointments and humble victories, and the struggle to stay kind whether or not the world returns the favor.

Even if Surrender and HIIAPL aren’t 100% dynamite from start to finish, it’s clear Rogers is consistently capable of creating special (and yes, spiritual) moments in pop music. On Surrender, Rogers is in communion with her collaborators and her listeners, and that’s a path to something lasting.

As much as it is very much a folk record, Florist is its own climate, a true suite of compositions that balance each other out and are full of bursting potential, but never overstay their welcome.

For all her strong feelings on Take It Like a Man, Shires remains a poet at heart. If her lyrics here are often forceful, they’re also always evocative and sometimes even elegant, whether she’s revisiting her fondness for bird imagery or seeking the thrill that accompanies a new relationship.

This is far and away the best the band has ever sounded on record. ... Then there’s the songs, which are perhaps the strongest collection both Dallas and Travis have assembled since their 2010 masterpiece Darker Circles. The majority of the material here finds the band playing in their muscular, gothic mod-garage mode, with the two brothers singing in perfect, spectral harmony.

Emotional Creature makes it clear Trifilio has a gift that’s not going anywhere. Keep an eye out for Beach Bunny on a phone near you.

Entering Heaven Alive is seldom actively bad, but the most interesting component of either of White’s 2022 albums is that, well, there are two of them.

Though it mostly lacks the direct punchiness and instant gratification of an album like Schlagenheim, it provides a unique musical escapade that dashes deftly between genres and the depths of the human experience like a charging bull. Black midi isn’t here to charm you or to prove anything—they just want to take you to hell and back.

While Beatopia is an imperfect record, it is a level up strong enough to show something great on the horizon.

The album illustrates Veirs’ recovery across its 14 tracks with a deft and assured hand.

As you might expect from a band that once bordered on power pop, Love Is Yours strikes most powerfully when Mulitz and Baker explore faster, more jubilant sounds.

On GUV IV, Cook’s songs feel fuller and more fleshed out.

Whether she’s swimming around in theories about space and time, or just riffing on a few scales to make a love song, Spektor’s words and melodies on Home, before and after are a dazzling delight.

The result is her vastest music yet, a cavernous sort of middle ground among orchestral, Gothic, pop, opera and industrial music that feels apt for barreling through obstacles both global and personal.

This doesn’t negate the power of Sometimes, Forever, a record that will be noted for its big swings, but rather reinforces it. When a band is able to thrive both inside and outside their comfort zone, it is built to last. The release of Sometimes, Forever is just another indication that Soccer Mommy will persevere in the face of an industry that is always changing.

It’s one of the most challenging and rewarding releases Perfume Genius has ever attempted. ... Ugly Season continues a hell of a winning streak for Perfume Genius, a group that has ascended beyond expectation.

The new album is a return to form. Yet Ultraviolet Battle Hymns and True Confessions still manages to range far and wide.

Farm to Table, in some ways, is Bartees’ sunrise. It’s proof of his undeniable spark. As Farm to Table demonstrates, Bartees Strange is only getting started.

Hinton’s own voice doesn’t show up on his latest LP, but it doesn’t have to. His songs tug at heartstrings all the same, and in a cultural landscape where “Does this make you feel something?” is now the predominant question, Mercury is sure to prompt a resounding yes.

Big Time is emotionally devastating, but never toes a line of melodrama.

Between the stylistic achievements that feel refreshing without over-referencing, the truly deadpan delivery on a coiled bed of noise, and (at last) some proper sequencing, Versions of Modern Performance is a smart record that prove Horsegirl to be the real deal.

Throughout the album’s twists and turns, Millan and Campbell build off each other’s energies the way they always have, asking and answering each other with grace and sensitivity.

After clocking more hours in the studio this time around, the band sound even more assured. On Blue Skies, those telltale hooks manifest themselves again on nearly every song.

Heart Under is simultaneously ghostly and glorious, a wretched yet emancipatory tornado of distorted dissonance that places the band among the vanguard of the British Isles’ ever-crowded post-punk scene.

At 21 tracks, Cruel Country is, unsurprisingly, a bit too long. ... As it is, it’s an album that gets back to basics and shines a spotlight on a particularly uncluttered version of Wilco that offers a little something for everyone.

And Those Who Were Seen Dancing certainly isn’t the first album to put a fresh spin on the psych aesthetic, but by shrugging off its constraints, Parks has left her own definitive mark on it.

As usual, the people in Finn’s songs are vivid and compelling.

If Grim Town focused on what mere survival looked like, then If I Never Know You Like This Again captures the gnarled frustrations and contentment alike of a life fully lived.

He sounds in command of his voice on this record in a way that he hadn’t yet reached in his past two releases. While truly every track on Harry’s House has something to admire and embrace, the ninth song, “Daydreaming,” is a standout for one simple reason: Styles uses a sample for the very first time.

They show they don’t need to burn down what they’ve built and start over—they can grow outward, not just upward. These songs are some of the best and most inventive they’ve done, and they prove that Porridge Radio, while always burning brightly, are no mere flash in the pan.

Preacher’s Daughter produces a crater-deep impact that commands respect and attention. Where one may knock some of the power ballads for sameness, one might instead find consistency, an album grounded in the artist’s inspirations and narrative mission that is, above all, tantalizing. It is hard not to crave more.

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers rejects conformity and leaves its flaws in on purpose, featuring some of Kendrick’s best and worst songs of his career.

For now, A Light for Attracting Attention is a versatile beacon for Yorke and Greenwood’s groovier side, and a remarkably assured debut that—let’s be honest—doesn’t really feel like a debut at all.

The progression of Morby’s most recent albums hinted at the true extent of his musical ideas, but that honeypot of talent and wisdom didn’t truly run over until now. Still, Photograph doesn’t overshadow his other work—rather, it honors it all.

When a band have been so focused on their brand for as long as Florence + The Machine have, it’s easy for them to box themselves in, muting their power; instead, Dance Fever is the sound of a band finding an escape route, rediscovering what makes them special.

The combination of her voice, her ever-deepening talent as a songwriter and musical arrangements that are well thought out but not fussed over makes We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong a potent addition to Van Etten’s catalog. Whatever else the album title refers to, she’s been going about her music exactly right.

It’s their best album since The Suburbs.

Even though LP.8 is a triumph in tone, it’s disappointing to listen to a record that feels as though Owens was self-conscious knowing the accessibility of the releases that came before it. ... But on the other hand, it would be foolish not to chase the muse, and this album is definitely born from the bleak times in which it was created.