Written and recorded before the final split, My Echo is like a transmission from inside a disintegrating relationship, heavy with all the hurt and hope and fear and frustration that comes with it. Despite the tumult, those aforementioned consistencies of Veirs’ work remain unwaveringly present on My Echo.

Heidecker still struggles to escape from the grip of his own humor. His inability to set himself free of his comedy sometimes undermines his darkest lyrics’ gravity, but in a year so defined by life crumbling to pieces, there are worse things than laughing amid the wreckage.

Although this album probably won’t be his last, it nestles itself nicely among the singer’s existing body of work. Serpentine Prison displays infinite promise from an artist who has already given us a catalogue that has made a lasting impact on rock music as we know it.

She may not be the most compelling lyricist among her peers, and her melodies place her squarely in the middle of the pack, but when she’s at her best, her sparkly songs reach incredibly catchy heights and exude clarity about a confusing time in one’s life. With Fake It Flowers, she’s on the cusp of something great, and only time will tell which side she falls on.

It’s a listening experience that’s as satisfying and rewarding as those aforementioned records. With a band as assured and stylistically unique as Future Islands, a choice to stay in their lane can only mean more good things.

Common to all these songs is the confidence of a band who have leaned on each other through trouble and grown stronger for it, learning to better work together and making the most of their hard-won creative chemistry.

Savage Mode II is a worthy successor to the original, building on that initial moment that made 21 Savage a household name. Adventurous, introspective, and thoughtful, it’s just what the world needs from the rapper at this moment, even if we didn’t know it.

Loveless has a massive, powerful voice that she uses to great effect, though the effect is even greater, and hits even harder, when she blends it with a measure of restraint instead of going full-bore all the time.

Occasional lulls are superseded by his dense vision and quicksilver genre flashes. Hearing Strange come into his own is not only essential listening in 2020, but it’s also reflective of the current complexities of American culture, demographics and socio-economics.

“Free,” is also one of its most interesting, as Meath all but whispers her way through a reflection on love and illusion while synth chords (but no beat) gently pulse around her. The middle of the album, though, lines up too many tunes that never catch fire, and thus run together. ... To its credit, Free Love does close on a strong note with “Make It Easy.”

The recording has a dry, boxed-in character that, for better or worse, defines the listening experience. In strictly psychoacoustic terms, the band feels disembodied from the audience, from the room, and from itself.

Arguably, Ohms is at first blush nothing new for Deftones. What it is is an engrossing refinement of what they’ve become over years of risk-taking and experimentation.

What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? is mostly Public Enemy doing what they’ve always done—offering insight about what’s happening in the world around us and prodding folks to wake up and do the right thing. It’s a space they’ve held for over three decades, and one where they’re always welcome.

Haunted Painting is a record full of exciting dance bops courtesy of Dupuis. Overall, it contains layers that make it perfect for the Halloween season and aware of the current social and political climates. Dupuis is able to happily immerse listeners into her world—one filled with the thought-provoking lyricism that becomes easily consumed through addictive instrumentation choices, be it synths, larger-than-life orchestrals or punky performances.

With an 80-minute runtime, The Ascension feels overwhelming in its second act. ... But worried as it is, The Ascension isn’t without joy.

Upon first listen, Shore lacks the immediacy of Fleet Foxes and 2011’s Helplessness Blues—at least from a sonic standpoint. But frontman Robin Pecknold’s astonishingly thoughtful lyrics quickly bring the listener back up to speed, at times recalling the grandiose scope of Crack-Up’s more cheerful moments, even if the instrumental indie-rock stylings are lagging a bit.

Anjimile touts his hard-won strength throughout the record. A debut this scintillating sets the bar quite high for the 27-year-old songwriter, but, as we quickly learned—he is already up for the challenge.

The Universal Want is about learning to live with desires we can never fully satisfy, accepting the highs and lows of a cyclical existence. Doves transcend time on The Universal Want, a graceful rebirth that not only justifies their reformation, but also serves as a reminder of the ability they had all along.

Hannah is another solid piece of output from a dedicated and thoughtful lyricist.

By track four, a whimsical-by-numbers reverie called “Dinosaurs on the Mountain,” American Head starts to fall off an American cliff. The tempos are slow enough to deflate even Coyne’s considerable charm, and the record’s rootsy, pastoral spin on the Lips’ sound is undermined by the band’s maximalist production ethos. Nearly every song is overstuffed with queasy synth textures and sleek, digitized strings, and Coyne can’t resist warping his vocals in a grab-bag of ugly processors.

The trio has consistently blended their Nashville roots with classic rock and a stoner rock outlook in their previous albums without ever tripping over themselves and falling into a rut.

Where Dying Star offered only glimmers of hope that Kelly’s garden would someday flourish, Shape & Destroy is a modestly verdant landscape as far as the eye can see—maybe not “tall and purposed” quite yet, but healthy, happy and headed that way.

She proves herself as a compelling vocalist whose tenderness and power are equally entrancing. The rich instrumentals heighten the emotional capacity of her songs, but never overshadow her vocal talent.

On The Third Gleam, The Avett Brothers take a step back from all that gloss and shine and just focus on the songwriting, the harmonies and the dynamic between three musicians in a room. Hearing The Third Gleam is like stepping into a sunny, peaceful clearing after hours of running through the woods.

If Kelly Lee Owens gently opened the door between dream pop and techno, Inner Song rushes through it and builds a world where ecstatic, curative, untethered electronic sounds abound. Owens’ strides are most evident in Inner Song’s club cuts.

That it’s No Joy’s most ambitious album yet, as Paste pointed out in highlighting Motherhood as one of August’s most exciting releases, is not up for debate; that it’s their best is not much more of a discussion.

While Whole New Mess may not be the same grand statement as All Mirrors, it also isn’t trying to be. Even when playing the same songs, Olsen’s performance alone leans into different emotional textures than the music she plays with her full band, and though this may not be the finest example of her solo work, it remains a distinct testament to the stylistic range of one of today’s most compelling singer/songwriters.

Androgynous Mary is as morbid of a record as you’d expect from a bunch of L.A. punks. They’re disturbed, but entertained; they’re young, but disillusioned. If Androgynous Mary were a place, it would probably be a strange corner in the dark web controlled by Zoomers with good intentions and confused brains.

On their twelfth full-length studio album, Twelfth, the Old 97’s dish up another dozen cuts of jagged roots-rock that further cement them as masters of the tunefully twangy.

By cycling through so many varied musical styles in the pursuit of bristling self-reflection, Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was offers an easy way through the endless morass of bad headlines and worse outcomes: Dance and sing.

These ambient drones might sound unfinished, but in their unhurried, unpretentious vibrations they capture the timeless yawning void of our current daily existence, the perennially narcotized blur of our homebound, shutdown society. (It’s also, um, great music to write to.) If you’re sympathetic to Yo La Tengo’s less formal and radio-friendly moments, you might respond well to this one.

On close-enough inspection, it proves to be a gamble pays off, at least for listeners with the patience to allow the music to reveal itself over time.

The chillwave movement has always channeled nostalgia—warm echoes of a distant past, faded and warped into a new aesthetic. Purple Noon, though, mostly just elicits nostalgia for the glory days of chillwave itself.

There’s no con on Total Freedom—just a welcome progress report from a musician who took the time she needed, and returns stronger and wiser than she was before, with a first-class collection of songs to prove it.

“Can’t Decide” and “Compensating” (featuring Young Thug) showcase Aminé’s impressive skill of making his vocals—which sway between syrupy cadences and hard-hitting verses—effortlessly melt into quirky melodies.

Microphones in 2020 contains some of the year’s best, most reflective and probing lyrics. Elverum’s mastery of language is impressive thanks to his ability to capture an intangible, fleeting feeling without coming across as pretentious or out of reach.

Stands bravely on its own, inhabiting a newfound world, and it’s both idyllic and tragic. It’s placid and romantic, but it’s also broken and trying to heal.

This is exactly the type of ambition you want to hear from a young band. After making such a peppy, instant classic debut, they weren’t intimidated by the thought of a Sunday stroll album, and they reached newfound emotional and sonic heights in making one.

Kenney may not always have the right language to describe her love and her worries about it, but where words fail her, her unabashed musical rhapsodies speak volumes.

While it occasionally loses itself in the past, Old Flowers doesn’t rely solely on nostalgia for its power. Andrews never wallows. She is somehow able to be both full of regret and gratitude at the same time. At its very best, Old Flowers recalls the melancholy piano sing-song of Tapestry and the forlorn love songs of country greats like Emmylou Harris and Linda Rondstadt.

Where 2016’s The Bird & The Rifle teemed with broken people and broken relationships and The Tree was slower and more somber, these 10 new songs feel lighter and brighter, buoyed by personal reflection and the joy of familial connection.

One of her best, most perfectly-produced projects ever. In folklore, she wrote a quieter, more thought-provoking chapter in her constantly shapeshifting story.

This record encapsulates a unit who have perfected their chemistry so much that they are approaching their prime with precision, passion and grace. As the ladies continue to propel forward, it’s important to remember Under My Influence as a bold collection of thoughts and experiences that tap into a generation of women who maybe don’t even know they need it.

The result is Dehd’s best album to date, a significant upgrade on their sound that finds their Windy City DIY scene-honed amalgam of surf rock, shoegaze and dream pop at its most melodic and expressive. The trio demonstrate newfound levels of intensity and focus on Flower of Devotion, leaving minimalism behind in favor of glossier compositions.

Gaslighter is the best country album of 2020 because it forces empathy onto the listener while reminding us we don’t have to be superheroes to make a difference.

The concept behind the music can only be as moving as the music itself, and, thankfully, Protomartyr delivers. The band’s knack for meaty percussion and jagged guitars continues.

These songs wouldn’t soar quite as much as they do if Garvin’s lyrics weren’t so bittersweet and full of imagination.

With Jump Rope Gazers, The Beths add new layers to the sound they began establishing two years ago, and those layers are as touching as they are revealing.

Price has definitely upended expectations, by gutting her way through the disappointment, self-doubt and financial peril of a musician hoping for a break. She’s earned hers, to be sure, but That’s How Rumors Get Started suggests that she’s still getting her bearings after such a tumultuous ride.

It’s a shame there are not enough songs where Pop’s talent can shine on its own. Only six of 19 tracks feature Pop Smoke solo, not including the intro, outro and “Dior,” which is a bonus track that also appears on all of his previous tapes. ... However, there are still many highs.

Dream Wife have tapped into that certain je ne sais quoi that makes for a compelling emotional outlet, even if their energy is slightly dampened on So When You Gonna…. Their vulnerability shows strength and playfulness are the best weapons against malaise on their new record, proving themselves to be a much-needed balm in 2020.

The Lemonade Stand is a good country album just about any way you spin it.

As she walks the walk and talks the talk, she makes it clear that KiCk i is her fullest vision yet for herself, the culmination of eight years of musically and visually rocketing outside the box, bridging seemingly diametrically opposed forces, and pursuing her muse no matter how strange others might find it. When she lets out a soft chuckle at the track’s end, she’s earned it.

This album is their strongest, longest collection of songs to date, and it is enormous, but the HAIM sisters have tamed that ambition into something effortless.

Homegrown establishes itself as its own rightful—perhaps even required—chapter in that legacy, yet another bold statement from one of the musical giants of the last half-century.

If Parts wasn’t enough proof, Fantasize Your Ghost makes it clear that Ohmme can run circles around most rock bands. Their use of fascinating texture and consideration for every layer of their songs—whether subtle or overt—is a gift.

Tucked in among the record’s memorable melodies, clever arrangements and impressive guests are a steady stream of details that lend plainspoken perspective to Bridgers’ emotional highs and (mostly) lows. These kinds of details ground her work in the same way shading makes a still life painting pop. They make them feel not just sad, but real.

These songs politely roll in like a sleepy cloud of fog, each one a little puff of mist no more distinguishable than the one before it. There are highlights, of course.

These songs feel immediately familiar and timeless—you could have sworn you heard these melodies on so-and-so’s album from 15 or 25 years ago, but it never feels contrived despite obvious comparisons throughout.

Though they’ve tucked their ideals into the music so that they serve the songs, the themes on Good Songs For Bad People are nevertheless as resonant as ever.

They treat hip-hop as a universal and political language that transcends identity, relying on the mechanics of the genre as a vehicle to tell meaningful stories, even if it means driving that vehicle directly into the building. RTJ4 is the perfect soundtrack to the revolution, especially the one not televised.

The Prettiest Curse shows the band at their expected peppy standard, maintaining the youthful punk-cum-surf-rock vigor they’ve built their name on for damn near 10 years. They’ve grown up, whether they meant to or not, but they haven’t lost their edge. They’ve merely sharpened it with their best work to date.

In heading Sideways to New Italy, Rolling Blackouts C.F. continue to make a strong case as one of Australia’s most vital rock acts, if not the world’s.

While the similarities to both his contemporaries and those who came before him are impossible to ignore, there are few musicians who could pull off singing about an aspiring building inspector and make it so equally funny and sweet—but Hutson possesses a rare balance of critical wit and soul.

A nice surprise in a year full of unpleasant ones. It’s also one of the best experimental releases of 2020 so far. Continuous Portrait doesn’t depart dramatically from the lively ambient sweet spot of Inventions’ previous work, but it does expand the duo’s sound to make deeper use of one element usually absent from Explosions in the Sky: the human voice.

For the most part, the songs are compact, with only the closing instrumental, “Weekend Wind,” passing the six-minute mark. Jeremy Earl’s falsetto is at its most confident and versatile, gliding over tunes that explore the headspace newfound fatherhood has brought him.

Although their synth work and melodies are memorable beyond belief, this album’s poignance, delivered with a good-natured determination, is what takes the wheel and makes it a synth-pop milestone.

Even if nothing on here rises to the career-best heights of 2003’s Apple O’ or 2005’s The Runners Four, it’s another strong album from a band whose sheer continued existence (and refusal to bend to conventional recording standards) often feels like a triumph of absurdity in the face of encroaching hopelessness.

While the album is successful at crafting smart and danceable music, it lacks the fervor that defined their 2018 EP. This isn’t to say there aren’t gripping moments of sonic intensity on Gentle Grip that more than satisfy the more frenetic yearnings of Distance Is a Mirror.

Where A Brief Inquiry… excelled due to its exceptional pop songwriting and well-calculated sonic departures, Notes… is far too ambitious and self-aware (“Will I live and die in a band?”) for its own good.

A fully realized collection of 11 songs that are at once polished, precise and visceral. Williamson could not sound more in control, or less concerned about it. The effect is, well, enchanting as she breezes through tunes that pull you into the center of rich musical arrangements so unobtrusively that you’re sometimes not quite sure how you got there.

A few skippable songs don’t change the scale of Sumney’s accomplishment. With an auspicious debut in his rearview mirror and a blinding future ahead, he made an album that crystalizes the current state of his art and advances his worldview while at the same time clearing a path for whatever he wants to do next. Perhaps the only thing more exciting than græ will be seeing where Moses Sumney goes from here.

His effort to overcome the body-brain gulf is more apparent than ever throughout No Shape follow-up Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, on which Hadreas loses control of not just his body, but his heart. As ever, his voice and music contort and warp in tandem with his anatomy.

His best impulses he keeps channeling into his music, on seven albums and counting, and the result is a body of work that often feels indispensable. Isbell is a songwriter’s songwriter, but the songs that result are for all of us.

On her solo debut, Williams goes beyond all expectations to create an experimental and multifaceted picture of pain as she opens up the door into a new decade of her life.

Making a Door Less Open isn’t as memorable as its predecessors on its own: Toledo’s vision as a whole never feels truly fleshed out, representing the first legitimate misfire in the career of one of this generation’s most talented indie-rock songwriters.

Diet Cig are growing and changing right in front of us—they’re still all the bands they’ve ever been—and proving that their journey is one worth following.

Agitprop Alterna is far more elegant and thoughtful than your average shoegaze album. It pulls from a wide variety of moods and sounds, but its textures are always a source of joyful awe.

Good Souls Better Angels is proof that even legends like Lucinda don’t just leave their best work behind them one day: They keep writing and making as long as they can, challenging people to listen to their newest music with the notion that it could be some of their best.

After demonstrating intimacy and charm on her earlier material, English shows with Wake UP! that she’s capable of making a bright, big-sounding album. Once she gets around to combining those sensibilities, well, look out.

Brother Sister is a down-home record, the kind only people who are related to each other could make. It’s the sound of two people reminiscing about childhood while trying to survive adulthood.

Here’s betting their sophomore effort significantly expands Dogleg’s sound. Or maybe they spin too fast and break apart. Either way, Melee is a worthy debut for a very promising band.

Antartica might fall short of the punk-pop immediacy of debut album cuts like “Motorbike” and “Goodbye Texas,” but it’s another fortifying garage punk record, hellbent on trying to shake you out of your shoes. After two punk stunners, this Los Angeles trio has every right to apply “caution hot” stickers to their guitars.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters is exactly what so many expected it to be: brilliant. ... Fiona Apple can do with a piano, a handful of percussive items and her urgent voice what some could only hope to do with an entire orchestra.

Sawayama is an exhilarating reminder of a bygone time when boy bands ruled all and commercialism ruled the boy bands. That era is long gone, but that particular brand of maximalist pop is back, only better now than before.

Diamond Dreams is immersive and solidifies Shabazz Palaces’ stature as one of the few hip-hop projects to emerge in the 2010s and create a wholly distinctive genre unto itself. Its intergalactic textures don’t resemble earth, but that’s a welcome escape at a historic moment when earth doesn’t feel particularly inhabitable for humans.

Benton’s follow-up, Lost in the Country, is another pleasantly tuneful listen, but it doesn’t quite deliver on that promise. Its 10 songs sit and simmer in Trace Mountains’ sonic comfort zone, while most of the surprises seem to have been left behind. The result is an album that’s perfectly likable, but not much more.

At just 36 minutes, it’s her shortest record thus far, but it’s simultaneously Marling’s most straightforward, musically simplistic record to date and her most beautiful release yet.

The album achieves a powerful sense of place, capturing the city and its innumerable narratives.

Far Enough would have likely benefited from shifting toward shorter, more undeniably riotous songs like these and away from the several more complex, seven-minute-or-so songs present, but when you’re fighting the good fight, is there really time to fret about the little things?

Bruner’s playing—and, increasingly, his writing as well—is so distinctive he’s able to own it even as he tones down his outsize personality. Many modern artists have mined these sounds, but few have honored them quite like Bruner does on It Is What It Is.

WOMB is uncomfortable yet poignant as an exploration of suffering and subsequent healing in a multifaceted way. Using fuzzy ambience, pitched-up vocals, and watery synths, this album takes listeners on a disorienting, Willy Wonka-like boat ride through a bloody journey of femininity.

The Honduran-American artist proves that raw personal narratives and dance pop can happily coexist, picking up the mantle from forerunners like Robyn.

Every time The Strokes tap into their old power, they get distracted by a shiny but fruitless new direction. But not every risk here is a wash. ... Despite The New Abnormal’s surprises, it tends to resonate most when The Strokes don’t try to be something they’re not.

Catholic Action have broadened their palette far beyond the jumpy guitar pop of their debut. While adding faint touches of synth-pop, post-punk and art rock, they’ve managed to retain the exuberance that sets them apart.

Heaven is irreconcilably an album with staying power, one we’ll be referring to years from now as a benchmark for the sound of rock n’ roll and R&B. Tumor is an enigma, one who will continue to prove their sleeves teem with new tricks.

Now more than ever, the escapist quality of music cannot be underestimated. Little Dragon heartily delivers on that front throughout New Me, Same Us, opening the door to a candy-colored world where the beats are chill and every word is sung softly by Nagano.

When an artist completely and beautifully upends the conventions of an entire genre, they’re probably aware of their capabilities. Saint Cloud is the sound of Katie Crutchfield at her most conscious, comfortable and controlled.