There’s a pleasing weightlessness wending its way through The Soft Cavalry’s 12 tracks, alternately augmented and offset by Clarke’s lyrics, ranging from tender to grim to destructive. On paper, that reads as confusing; on the record, that stew of emotional expression coheres nicely, each ingredient blending with the others in Clarke’s dream pop base.

Her eclectic song structures and subtle melodies with a tendency to stick help give these songs an indeterminate specificity, like confessionals where her audience can fill in the details with whatever needs unburdening from their own souls. Maybe the sense of place in her music, then, is whatever place it needs to be, for whoever needs it.

First and foremost, the sound quality of these 11 tracks are a major improvement, with Birgy’s vocals mixed above ground, not buried. The performances sound sharper, too: Guitar strings are crisp, keys dance with verve and horns occasionally streak across the sky. Even the experimental touches—a weird echo here, an abrasive noise there—sound like you can reach out and touch them.

The overwhelming magnificence of “Dawn Chorus” distracts—but not detracts—from everything else. There’s a good chance ANIMA will be remembered as “The Album With Dawn Chorus On It,” and that’s not a bad problem to have, just one that unfortunately makes it much easier to ignore the other incredible tracks on here. It’s just what happens when you make the centerpiece of your album one of the best songs you’ve ever written.

This tender collection of stories and songs float and flit, at times reaching the grandiosity of a movie score, but they also suggest the kind of calm we crave in the midst of this hectic existence. Korkejian is a folk magician who knows how to harness the genre’s long history of acoustic storytelling and fold in something entirely her own. Her second studio effort does both, majestically and intelligently so.

What The Gus really has going for it is that it can serve as an entry to Mulcahy as easily as it can be enjoyed by longtime fans: a solid, if unspectacular entry to his lengthy back catalogue. It doesn’t deviate from his trademark formula, a style that’s worked for him throughout his career, but it never betrays it either.

If you’re looking for experiments with song structure or eclectic instrumentation, this probably isn’t the album for you. If you want something you can crank up at backyard barbecues or in the car with the windows down, well, The Black Keys have two words for you, and they’re in the album title.

The difference between old and new is more distinct on tracks from The Silver Globe. ... They’re not required listening, but it is interesting to hear Weaver recontextualize these works and, in turn, provide a reminder that songs are living things. And if you’re looking for something to tide you over to Weaver’s next proper album, Loops in the Secret Society might just do the trick.

A fun romp through the most succinct Jack White material in a decade, a collection of songs that will thrill crowds across the world until White moves on to whatever his next project is.

The contrast between style and intent has an amusing effect on the listening experience; Gold Past Life’s material spans years, but the record breezes by its 39-minute duration. Time flies when you’re mulling over your life choices.

An experimental, genre-less and extremely noisy sound to exceptional results. Schlagenheim is beyond weird. Schlagenheim is a legitimate one of a kind record. Schlagenheim is a masterpiece.

She doesn’t experiment much throughout her debut, but Pilbeam knows what she does best and sticks to it throughout. Her dream pop niche in the indie rock world is sure to win her loads of new fans going forward, and with her debut, she establishes herself as not only one of its rising stars, but also one of its best songwriters.

Bad Books’ take on it all could technically be considered dad rock, but on III, masculinity is an afterthought. At the record’s forefront is just three friends using their respective talents to create a collection of songs about the messy business of living.

One could get away with lazily DJ-ing a late-night party by hitting play and letting Late Night Feelings run all the way through, a possibility that attests to the record’s consistency and the comfort it offers despite its darker themes.

Crumb leads you deeper into the woods only to make you yearn for more, more, more. It’s easy to imagine that this might lead to some listeners to feel underwhelmed by the end of their first listen or two, but it also might be what lures listeners back for repeat spins of Jinx.

Originals offers a tantalizing glimpse of Prince as an artist whose creativity extended in so many directions at once that his own discography couldn’t contain it.

Tracks like “Natural” and “Around the Block” are lethargically catchy, but few songs actively try to grab you with a hook, a refreshing move in the days of Spotify-catering singles. Shapiro really stretched herself on the album, recording nearly every instrument herself in her bedroom, with the exception of the mouth trumpet and violin portions. Her songwriting results in melodies both beautiful and iterative.

Lust For Youth would be most gratifying as a poetic indulgence or as the perfect music festival set in the dead of night, but their entrancing guitars and synths and exuberant percussion would quench the thirst of anyone looking for a pensive album with tantalizing, well-produced textures.

Years to Burn distills the qualities that distinguish Calexico and Iron & Wine as individual artists. If it’s another 14 until we get to hear them play once more, it’ll be a sin against their talents.

Between 1975-84, he made Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River, Nebraska and Born in the U.S.A.—five outright classics. Though Western Stars doesn’t rise quite to that level—it’s an impossibly high standard—Springsteen’s latest entry in such a storied catalog more than holds its own.

This an indie record for the ages, a wonderful listen where each song is completely essential to the project as a whole. Midnight is an incredible record, owing, but in no way indebted to her pitch perfect partnership with Toledo, one that’s further catapulted by Chura’s distinctive voice and extraordinary songwriting chops.

Though it could use some tightening—it is a double-album, after all—there’s a joke for everyone, and a very funny one at that.

Ultimately, Black Friday is a constantly modulating love song to the very human experience of clinging to other people, but through her sharp writing, Kempner offers insight on how to rely on ourselves when everyone else leaves: “Nothing worth loving ever sticks around / But you.”

Tuscaloosa showcases Young’s full range, which makes it a rare glimpse of a now-iconic performer at a moment when he was working to find a balance between satisfying himself and pleasing his audience.

What the album lacks in fine-tuning it makes up for in sheer experiential pleasure. It’s a half hour bop for the American experiment’s gradual decay.

Like a prayer, The Saint of Lost Causes best listened to alone and deliberately. It’s too close and intimate to put on when there are others present unless they also plan on listening in silence. It’s a lot to ask the modern, harried soul to lay low and meditate on a record, but listen any other way and it’s all, well, a lost cause.

The Dots has a flowing energy and musical sophistication that’s never static, and their experimentation with different genres, rhythms and tempos appears to derive from a place of sonic exploration—not obligatory diversification.

IGOR is a commendable, yet flawed album, one that further challenges what we can and should expect from a rap album in 2019.

With We Fall, Josephine Wiggs has built a picturesque bridge between ambient chamber music and pop songwriting. Artists have been peering from one stylistic shore to the other for decades, but Wiggs travels between them with exceptional agility and poise.

Destroyer starts thumping with the first track and never stops; the tone might change, but the listener’s desire to stomp the accelerator on the open road won’t.

Rather than fixing a steady gaze on our isolating and destabilizing present, Reward often taunts, pokes, glances, and winks--gestures that pester and provoke without leaving much of an impression.

What’s disappointing about A Fine Mess is not just that the songs are unremarkable but also that they don’t deviate from the band’s usual approach in any notable way. There are no oddball experiments here, no genre strays, no real risks to speak of. There are just five more songs that sound a lot like Interpol, for fans for whom that is always enough.

Dedicated could’ve easily been either a woebegone heartbreak record or a carefree, lovestruck free-for-all had it been dreamt up by someone else. Instead, thanks to Ms. Jepsen’s talent for processing feelings, it’s an intersection of those two ends of the pop spectrum and a daring display of chart-topping sounds from across the decades.

The National have put out another album that could easily be argued as their best--and it may be easier to make that claim now than ever before.

There are beautiful moments on Living Theatre, but this time, the consistency is missing.

On U.F.O.F., Big Thief embrace their more subtle and mystical sides while capturing a wider array of landscapes--the cosmic (“U.F.O.F.”), bucolic (“Cattails”), domestic (“From”) and urban (“Betsy”).

It’s time well-spent: slow-burning, dynamic, emotionally resonant and representative of Charly Bliss in 2019.

No matter what speed they’re going, though, Versing all the right tools and sounds and instincts. They’re a very promising band. They just need a little more time in the oven and a little more distance from their influences. That’s the kind of thing that comes with time, and Versing has plenty of that ahead.

This Mess Is a Place is exactly the kind of album we need in 2019. It sounds like rainbow sherbert and friendship bracelets. It eschews irony and defeatism. It calls us all to build a brave, colorful new world together--and have one hell of a good time doing it.

It’s worth noting that the band’s emphasis on songcraft, on making a point, pays off in a way that not every track here does.

Invisible Light has the aural quality of a relic tucked away in a cavern deep beneath the earth, waiting to be discovered by future generations, warning them of disasters and embarrassments they maybe could’ve avoided if they’d just dug the damn thing up a few years sooner.

There’s not necessarily any closure here as Finn brings his trilogy to an end, but there is a sense of completion. After examining these characters in different lights, from various angles, it’s as if he has done what he can to make their stories resonate. Whatever he decides to do next will indeed be the start of a whole new war.

Throughout Father of the Bride, a record with half-baked political commentary (“Something’s happening in the country / And the government’s to blame”) and lazy wordplay (“All I do is lose but baby / All I want’s to win”), it feels as if Koenig turned away from what made his band so great in the first place, instead electing to adopt a sound that doesn’t necessarily fit him, one that comes off as derivative and frequently boring.

Oh My God, the dizzying and fantastic fifth album from the increasingly prolific folk-rocker, is preoccupied with the language of exaltation, from its gospel-choir refrains to its outrageous album cover, which depicts Morby, shirtless, posing beneath a famous painting of Saint Cecilia playing piano for the angels. Somehow, none of this scans as ironic or overtly hokey.

Grim Town makes growing up seem--well, grim--but Monds-Watson skillfully captures its bitter realities as well as the stirring memories that become life fuel.

With 16 albums behind them, it would be easy to repeat themselves and crank out another dull routine. But Darnielle and company have more respect for their audience than that, producing an album with the potency to draw in new listeners and give thanks to those already in their company.

Throughout Laughing Matter, Hanson and Burrows’ lyrics take everything known about defined forms and senses and turn them on their head—sounds can be swallowed, the future’s neck can be cut and life can eat into life--and the album’s improvisational jams, winding outros and emotionally crushing melodies result in perhaps Wand’s most realized release yet.

Broderick ensures that her voice articulates clearly in the production, more so than on her previous solo album Glider (2015). This choice does justice to the observant poetry that shimmers through her finest lyrics.

It’s Lizzo’s energy solidified--everything you love about her, wrapped up in one twerkable package bursting with bold statements, bad bitches and, perhaps most notably, bops.

Jade Bird is an album of loose change, a pocketful of shiny, well-written nuggets that might give off a lot of flash individually but when put together don’t equal the sum of their parts. Thankfully, Bird’s singular musical style--a chalky blend of roots-rock, country and pop--and her mighty, mighty roar cancel out any thematic fumbles entirely.

If Social Cues isn’t a bad album by any stretch; it’s nonetheless, in the band’s discography, surprisingly generic.

Dogrel is an album of tremendous ardor and vivid landscapes, and interspersed with an Irish underdog spirit, Fontaines D.C. are nearly untouchable.

The album is a singles collection and as such, isn’t meant to have a cohesive liner structure. It’s also short, seven lean tracks with no filler, a reminder that Jones has enough talent and self-awareness—those two are rarely in concert with each other—to try her hand at multiple genres without stretching herself too thin. Some takes are better than others, but none of them are ever boring.

They already ask us to follow them on a slow path colored by skipping, jazzy tunes like “Lessons” and deepened by the rich drones and humming strings of “The Workers of Art.” Trying to crack open a conversation about epistemology in the process is asking a lot of folks that might otherwise set this album running in the background.

Jurado possesses a gift for elevated simplicity, and this quality graces In the Shape of a Storm and gives its ten songs a pleasingly rounded shape.

Both poppy and heady, intelligent and reckless, and sometimes bordering on absurdist, The Seduction of Kansas calls into question the social landscape of the American heartland and poses Priests as punk’s resident anthropologists. First heralded as post-punk heroes, Priests are now much more than that: They’re post-genre saviors bringing vital discourse and sharp observations to the table, still preaching the punk gospel along the way.

When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? has its faults, not quite hitting its full potential, but it gets damn well close, delivering an infectious record for the post-party hangover.

Not everything has to be pure pop, but nothing else on Brutalism even comes close to sounding like a complete song the way [“Body Chemistry”] does.

Titanic Rising doesn’t feel blissfully adrift. Instead, it feels like Mering knows exactly where she’s going.

The Big Freeze trades the raucous guitars and bold hooks of her earlier work for subtler musical textures on songs that open into more expansive interior worlds. She relies more on her voice, which has both warmth and clarity in proportions that vary with the volume of she utilizes.

On The Line, her best solo work to date, finds her trading chaos for peace and pain for parties. And West Coast rock combined with piano glam and Lewis’ lyrics makes for a most celebratory listen, indeed.

With the majority of the songs maintaining a steady stride, Farrar shares his conviction with authority and insistence. Those are the qualities that allow Union to remain true to its common core.

This is an emotionally multi-faceted album to luxuriate in.

The wavering focus keeps Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3 from ranking among Snider’s best albums, but even his middling material is stronger than a lot of songwriters’ first-rate stuff. Even if the album doesn’t hold up in its entirety, the bright spots here are plenty worthy of attention.

The Modern Age is a record to get down to. Most of all it’s a terrific comeback for a band that rose to fame and flamed out much too quickly.

Folks who don’t appreciate an aesthetic planted firmly in the eras of grunge and Camaro rock likely won’t change their tune on hearing It’s Real’s stomping power-pop stylings (assuming they’re generous enough to give it a shot in the first place). People who read that description as a promise of Good Times, on the other hand, will embrace It’s Real as Ex Hex’s return to the modern day rock ecosystem.

Warm and thoughtful as the intentions behind it, the music on Relations at times skirts close to the territory occupied by those Persuasive Percussion albums that clutter up used LP bins.

Atmospheric and evocative, Gold In A Brass Age is as easy an entry point to Gray as it a continuation of an impressive career for already-established fan. It’s an album that demands a listen in full, rather than piecemeal or on shuffle, allowing the whole mood to permeate.

This Land proves Clark knows his way around a soundbooth, too, not to mention the news cycle. He’s a restless artist in the best way, and if he keeps chasing those kinetic blues, there’s surely only more good to come.

The Devil You Know masterfully walks the line between politically charged while remaining , perhaps tragically, timeless. But it’s also an immensely listenable album, a fully realized emerging of the band’s true power in crafting edgy, electric songs.

The resulting album is an imaginative indie-pop chronicle of millennial malaise. Throughout, Donnelly sings in a thick Perth accent, and her vocals are dotted with audible laughter, theatrical flourishes, inspired instances of talk-singing, and other oddities. It’s almost as though her stories can’t quite be contained within the limited space of the songs themselves.

GIRL probably won’t drum up quite the same level of critical spectacle as Golden Hour, but Morris’ endearing and earnest second album is country-pop polished for radio that still feels down-to-earth.

The mood can be a lot to endure for the course of one album, especially in comparison to the lighter, looser touch that Chapman took on his ‘70s albums like Millstone Grit and Rainmaker. But the music that he and Gunn (with some assistance from B.J. Cole and Sarah Smout) designed has an openness and a ramble that befits these songs. It would be dishonest to try and slather these tunes with effects and or electronic intrusions.

Other artists, such as Florence and the Machine are creating better, more interesting music with the same techniques. Seek them out instead of wasting your time on this one.

Meg Duffy’s humble, comforting vocals will help cushion the blow that will inevitably come with any relationship, and their poetic aptitude results in a record that’s just as therapeutic and affecting on the written page as it is in sung form.

Texas Piano Man is exactly what it sounds like: a cross between country-blues and piano-pop. Ellis surely knows his way around the keys, and his fifth studio album is funny, frank and alive. It’s a storyful, self-realized album that also happens to be a hell-of-a good time to listen to.

Triage is full of fun, catchy melodies that waste no time grabbing your attention. Fans of 2010s indie pop bands like Foster the People will eat this by the spoonful. Webb is an Aussie pop prince and a keen producer, and this album, even if it occasionally slips into lyrical drab, sounds like the career-honoring record he needed to make.

It’s challenging music, especially for newcomers to their sound. What makes the challenge rewarding is the elasticity of their work, giving the record a sense of scope that underpins the gonzo array of aesthetics they’ve sewn together here. South of Reality, ultimately, is a great album, but more importantly, it’s a great adventure.

The skill she shows elevates her above much of the competition, imbuing her with a decided level of class and credence. King wears that crown well.

Mazy Fly is idiosyncratic, but in a thoughtful and imaginative way that is too appealing to resist.

Ultimately, American Love Song is a soundtrack to accompany today’s struggle for survival, a paean to those that are daring and determined despite all the odds. If it’s not Bingham’s best effort to date, and it may well be, then it’s certainly his most unflinching, and with that, his rawest record yet.

Sunshine Rock is bitter and hopeful, full of rage and promise. It’s an album that defines a moment in all its ugliness and the rare moments of beauty that we have to keep fighting for.

Crushing is the brave story of a woman--and an artist--coming into her own. Securing that agency, however, was no walk in the park. Jacklin clearly had to sort through mountains of wreckage to arrive here, but the album’s autobiographical nature is what makes it so affecting.

Despite its front-loaded tracklist and one song that sonically doesn’t fit (“American Canyon Sutra”), Tip of The Sphere is great for both the casually-interested listener or the seasoned listener looking for something to slowly melt into and later pick apart.

Pursuit of Momentary Happiness isn’t as consistent as its predecessor, but its moments of punk gusto find Yak at their mightiest peak.

The results--as evidenced by such songs as “Gwennilied,” “Aom” and “Koad”--are lush, lovely and inspirational, all exquisite examples of sublime repose simulated through delicate, dreamlike designs.

What Webb has created is so rich, so delightfully off-kilter, that an auxiliary listen is necessary the same way another sip of pickleback is necessary.

The end result is an incredibly inoffensive album, one that’s perfectly lovely without offering any striking new ideas or features that make it memorable.

Pratt has a very, very restrained way of supplying strength and relief during our hectic moment. Her songs are so quiet they almost don’t even exist, but maybe that’s how we need to feel for just a moment--like we’re just air.

Girlpool’s trajectory from Before the World Was Big to What Chaos Is Imaginary proves how an album can be many things: a meticulously cohesive monologue delivered by multiple voices, or a notebook stuffed full of intriguing yet somewhat dispersed ideas. What Chaos falls into the latter category, though its title includes a self-referential wink that implies the band both perceives and embraces the work’s disarray.

Why You So Crazy is fun for the brain and the body. Weird enough to find something new with every listen, while remaining as slick and infectious and delightful as much of the Dandys’ dandy discography.

The 11 songs on Olympic Girls are all lush and bold (mostly) acoustic ballads, but each leaves you with an aftertaste all its own. The songs are charming ruminations on nature and humanity that, with their anti-chaotic energy and eerie sound effects, feel almost out-of-place in 2019.

The album does not aim to recreate arrangements from a half-century prior; the emphasis is on radical reinterpretation, and that mission succeeds.

The songs on Tides of A Teardrop are slow-tempoed and even-tempered, but in a way that feels emotionally powerful. That calm nearly becomes monotony as the record edges to a close.

Better Oblivion Community Center is the kind of warm and fuzzy record that provides listeners with a soul-lifting ending no matter which path they choose--to collapse into the arms of its devastating lyrical woe or to jump onstage with Oberst and Bridgers and bask in its giddy musical benevolence.

It’s danceable, sure, but there’s a sinister edge, and the album spans more than just your classic ska and reggae beats. It’s easy to listen to, easy to get lost in. Music to fight the power by.

You have to make a dedicated effort to give it a couple of listens; no song immediately jumps out. But like a delicious meal, it’s worth chewing over slowly, savoring what each song brings to the palate, and each listen brings out something new. By the third spin, it will be like an old friend has joined you at dinner.

TOY make a strong case for Happy in the Hollow as their most cohesive and compelling record. The record’s intense, shadowy first half and airy, graceful second half culminates in an mercurial odyssey that unabashedly celebrates TOY’s eccentricities.