This sense of loneliness haunts Kozelek’s best work, and it’s in full force throughout April, arguably the finest album of his career.

Perfect for the learned music scholar, the Goth mom on the go and the curious young listener alike, Still In A Dream: A Story of Shoegaze 1988 – 1995 is a masterpiece in the art of box set compilation, one that sets the bar high for any enterprising opportunist looking to anthologize an entire subgenre.

Take your time, shift your sonic expectations and enjoy some of the most daring, creative and truly beautiful music ever recorded.

A masterful sophomore disc on which every weak rhyme, guest and beat has been ironed out through months of hard work and several blown deadlines. [Oct/Nov 2005, p.120]

Third is far and away the best, most punk thing in the Portishead catalog: a deeply transgressive album that bears a passing similarity to its predecessors but leaves most of the baggage behind in favor of a full-blown reset.

A unique, remarkably ambitious 22-song cycle. [Aug/Sep 2005, p.114]

Full of lush harmonies, grandiose orchestrations and poignant lyrics, these ambitious songs have lost none of their innocent melancholy over the last three decades.

We keep hearing that rock and roll is a feeling, right? The Stones inhabited that feeling seamlessly here, mainly because the murk fizzed and fused those seams together.

With the 25th anniversary edition of London Calling, Epic/Legacy has outdone itself.

This is not easy listening; on the contrary, it requires a real commitment from the listener. But it’s a commitment that’ll be amply rewarded.

Each edition of the Sgt. Pepper’s reissue features the new Stereo Mix that was lovingly crafted by Giles Martin, the son of the Fab Four’s producer George Martin. And it is a marvel. ... You’ve heard these songs hundreds of times but they have never sounded this present.

The songs on The Cutting Edge are just as brash, bristling and amazing to hear as they were when they were first unleashed half a century ago.

Bright Future, though, is not only her most impressive solo album to date, but it’s also a genuine competitor for the best album she’s ever been involved with.

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.

They've constructed something beautiful.

Her newfound embrace of violins, violas and cellos elevates her shadowy, often synth-infused rock to extraordinarily goosebump-inducing heights, making All Mirrors her third consecutive (and likely best) masterpiece to date.

In the world of Prima Donna, black death is radical. Author Paul Beatty came to the same conclusion in his satirical novel The White Boy Shuffle, but Vince does it in 20 gripping minutes. Never has so much been done with one little light.

We’re going to be talking about this album for years to come.

As a remastered package, the Butch Vig-produced Gish does deliver for both hardcore fans and casual listeners. What's so unique about the package isn't only seeing the band's first attempt at a full-length recording, but it also fills in the space between Gish and the amazing jump that is Siamese Dream.

The standout package here is unsurprisingly Siamese Dream, which is filled with an abundance of demos, alternate b-sides and acoustic versions of songs. One needs to look no further than Corgan's newfound onstage confidence in the "Live at the Metro, 1993" DVD included in the box to see that the Smashing Pumpkins have gone from a band with great ideas to a band with great songs.

She has never sounded more confident. Van Etten’s fourth album marks the true arrival of a singer who’s been on her way for a long time, and thinking of her as anything less than a career artist is certainly a vast underestimation.

Popular Problems is a fine addition to that legacy. At 80 years old, Leonard Cohen is just beginning to hit his stride.

In an era of hype and hyperbole where such a word has lost its meaning, Old Ideas is in the truest sense a masterpiece.

The good news is that the extras that come along with the albums are fantastic. There’s not much that the completest won’t have heard, but most people will be really happy to have the best of the band’s B -sides, extended 12-inch versions and EP extras collected on three CDs.

With all the hype and fast tracking to fame, it’s astounding that the rest of the Coming Home holds up to such unreasonable expectations. Bridges pays homage to an era so judiciously and so personally that it’s hard to fault him as derivative.

You Want It Darker is better than either of those records [Old Ideas and Popular Problems], and may contain the best music he has created since Various Positions came out in 1984.

Messiah churns the “old school” in ways that bristle with vitality, yet are as fresh and urgent as anything on radio.

My Bloody Valentine successfully followed up a decades-old classic with m b v, an album that stands as confidently, beautifully and masterfully composed as its predecessor.

Chrome Dreams, despite sitting on a shelf for nearly 50 years, falls into our laps as one of Neil Young’s boldest works.

Servant of Love--Griffin’s first new work since both 2013’s reflective American Kid and Silver Bell (recorded in 2000 but released 13 years after the fact)--takes the Maine-born songwriter to more complex, yet spare musical planes.

American Radical Patriot is a treasure that’s flat-out perfect. Music doesn’t get any better than this.

Another Self Portrait is absolutely essential listening for Bob Dylan fans. It may contain the best music you’ll hear all year.

Hurray for the Riff Raff not only expands the umbrella of “Americana”; it challenges the very structures on which we hang it, and the legacies of pain that accompany them.

Carrie & Lowell is a demonstration of why Stevens sings songs, of why we listen to songs: to feel less alone, to make sense of the things that are hardest to make sense of.

The record is an absolutely evil stunner from front to back, top to bottom, head to toes and everywhere in between, and whips up the same kind of radiant, strange awe that the band’s overdriven catalog has so generously perpetrated album after wicked album.

Here in the Pitch is a serenade of our own unique endtimes, packed with rollicking, sugar-sweet verses and vocalizations you can twirl your body to and curl up and anguish over all the same. And, at a mere 27 minutes in length, Pratt wastes no time with us. The whole project is tight as a wire.

The result is an unspooled revelation, a supplicant’s distorted glee—a celebration which Hayter leaves pointedly open-ended.

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.

A Man Alive is an endearing listen and has all of the elements of a complete work—even pop-centric singles in “Astonished Man” and “Nobody Dies.

Girl Band’s latest is a startling upending of any and all expectations you would dare place upon a modern rock group.

Currents is a record you should be excited for, paying attention to and ready to consider the best of the year.

Moments of levity (“The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite” and “Man On The Moon”) and righteous anger (“Ignoreland”) cleared the sinuses but otherwise, the tone of Automatic is marked by doughy pressure and woozy beauty. The remastered version of the LP brings that to the fore as well as emphasizing the skin-tingling intimacy of Michael Stipe’s vocals throughout. ... This expanded edition of the album (three CDs and a blu-ray disc featuring all the promotional videos and the album mixed in Dolby ATMOS) offers a more fully-rounded understanding of Automatic.

Taken as a whole, Girly-Sound to Guyville is a dizzying deep dive into Phair’s world before her breakthrough, and at times, it comes off like one of those bulletin boards in a cop drama, covered in photos and colorful push pins, with string connecting the dots. For folks who’ve loved and lived with Phair’s music for the past quarter-century, it will be endlessly fascinating. But even for the unfamiliar, this is a foundational work of indie rock worthy of careful attention.

On Dark Twisted Fantasy, West surrounds himself with gruff collaborators like Pusha T of Clipse and Raekwon of Wu-Tang Clan.

Barring some future set that includes vials of the musicians' blood, sweat, and tears, this will stand as the definitive version of Icky Mettle-an answered prayer to new and old fans that makes these songs sound startlingly present.

Invisible Hour is poetic singer/songwriter fare at its best, and this is Joe Henry’s masterpiece.

MIA is so assured here... The critical party line is that MIA’s previous effort ///Y/ was an artistic failure. ... Surely those naysayers will declare this a fine return to form.

Ty Segall has made a massive album that not only celebrates that freedom he’s carved out for himself, it also effectively summarizes the journey so far. And it’s pretty darn listenable to boot. It may very well be his greatest accomplishment yet.

At 26, Musgraves has kept her wonder, honed her focus and remained true to her core.

It’s another glorious achievement for an artist who has created so much amazing art since arriving into the world fully formed way back in 1982.

Beautifully more simple than any of our mythmaking delusions, Blonde is Ocean’s life as he experiences it: fluid and fluctuating, one man in motion. This is what freedom sounds like.

It's just so utterly satisfying.

One of this record’s biggest achievements might be building out the character of Jenny while managing to not sacrifice her central mystery.

For the ruminating about the world and wanderlust, lullaby’s potency comes from affairs of the heart, love lost and sought, and the jagged loneliness of failing to stay bonded.

Each track deserves mention. Knowing Superchunk, Diarrhea Planet, Ben Kweller, Andrew Bird & Nora O’Connor, Mike Watt and the Missingmen are just a few of the other stand-outs shows why Bloodshot, two decades in, remains so compelling.

Indie rock may not be dying, but it’ll be hard for people to make it sound as alive as Toledo does on Teens of Denial. This is the sort of record where you wish like hell you could hear it again for the first time and that’ll keep rewarding return visits for years to come.

Cramming what should be an unworkable heap of concepts and sounds into a deliciously volatile 35 minutes, Nothing Valley is a bracing blend of scraping noise and tender melody, not unlike the recipe used by Speedy Ortiz.

The production overall is impeccable and the sequencing shrewd; the tracks feel visceral and visual--you can almost see them as they hurtle by. The album’s overall effect is less deafening than blinding.

Treats is just a whole goddamn lot of fun to listen to. It's a supremely raw and visceral pop masterwork, one appropriate to rocking out with headphones on, windows-down bumping on car stereos, four-A.M. warehouse dance parties and countless other summer moments that'll soon have soundtracks courtesy of Sleigh Bells.

While it’s certainly still working for him now—This Is Happening is, in all respects, LCD’s best album—it doesn’t take much to imagine the act becoming a tired gag a couple more albums down the line.

Sleeper is an album worthy of adorning your shelf until the shelf itself crumbles.

Transgender Dysphoria Blues is a perfect storm of great songwriting paired with some timely, frank admissions from Grace.

This is an album about vision, movement and manifestation. It’s about removing oneself from the familiar to tap into the brain’s ability to create unprecedented and inspiring art. Success.

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.

She has put in the time to master her instrument of choice, and she combines that mastery with top-shelf compositional skills. As a result, she sounds like no one else.

True to the tone of the record, Bowie is almost a spectre throughout [Blackstar].

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.

Beyond the approach that Ceremony is taking on The L-Shaped Man musically--a simmering post-punk sound that evokes the best of that genre’s late ‘70s/early ‘80s heyday--you can’t get away from the pain and despair that vocalist Ross Farrar experienced. He simply won’t let you.

The group has evolved by revealing that sentiment is eternal. RTJ3 sharpens that revelation and encases it in lustrous, dazzling gold. The crooks had the jewels all along.

She hones in on her emotional and sexual connections both to herself and others post-breakup. The truths Hackman discovers along the way, illuminated by songs both inventive and entrancing, are enough to make anyone want to be her human friend (or, at least, a rabid fan).

Olsen shares graciously in her music, and if you are willing, Burn a Fire for No Witness will change your world. Or, actually, it will change how you see your world.

Kiss Each Other Clean has the potential to please longtime fans and generate plenty of new ones.

The enduring message is that there’s no tribulation that can’t be overcome with unwavering honesty and durable companionship—a hard-won and time-worn truth that also happens to translate into brilliant music.

Don’t blink--no mere mid-career album, Monomania registers as an absolute impact event, a massive dirty blast marking the moment Deerhunter’s steady trajectory spins out of control.

From the first sung note of Hummingbird, Local Natives are frank in their presentation of a serious album, challenging listeners to heal along with them; cognizant that investment is proportional to remuneration.

The scaffolding of ANOHNI’s voice across these 10 tracks is remarkable, and the way she excavates a deep, unrelenting love within them through accessible and awing prose is magnetic, thoughtful and intricate. From a lyrical place, My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross enacts an exotic balance that is so rarely seen in contemporary music.

The most fascinating aspect of this collection is how the artistic scales within the band tipped back and forth in these early days before they found the true balance that carried them through the six studio albums they made post-1984. Within this box set, it takes all eight discs to get to that point, but the moment-by-moment journey is a fascinating one marked with some remarkable pop songs.

Here, he dresses his music in full regalia--with whistles, horns, organs and marching-band drums--and it’s exquisite.

It’s a true piece of art, and we’re lucky Godspeed You! Black Emperor gave listeners a proper document.

Sylvan Esso is as cerebral as it is sexy.

There is no end to the nuances and subtleties that lay within. Find your starting point and start exploring.

Powerfully, the evolution of the songcraft on Muchacho doesn’t arrive as a random left turn but instead progresses directly out of Phosphorescent’s own canon.

Adult work, Ghosts hits the gut, the soul and the grey matter.

She writes songs that hover entrancingly, enticing the listener not with tractor-beam beats or huge hooks, but with a persistent and wholehearted interest in reaching your heart and speaking to it in a way that only it can understand.

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

Not every song is perfect, but perfection is boring. What we need in these weary times--and what Passion Pit brings--is exuberance. Manners delivers the elusive feeling that everything will be alright. Or, just maybe, that everything already is.

Recalibrated as a looser, more energetic band, The Helio Sequence has created a euphoric, career-defining album.

Little Honey finds Williams in celebratory mode, with raucous rock, bluesy testimonies and tongue-in-cheek twang.

Unlike Limbs, Pool never strains by adhering to a methodology. It just feels like a collection of songs—very fucking transportive songs.

This is a big-idea album in a way none of his work was before.

Left to his own devices without any interference from outside interests, and an astounding album of dark, sultry music like this is what you get in return.

With both immediate appeal and density that demands long-term digestion, it’s one of those rare debuts that manifests a fully-grown, deeply engaging sound.

The magic moments found on Untouchable speak to Kelly’s swaggering confidence--as if that weren’t perhaps alluded to enough in the album’s very title. As a result, the ambitiousness of his work seems increasingly more destined to join the canon of timeless pop from which The Cairo Gang’s songs find their roots.

Rausch is something to get lost in, a long stroll free of the noise of modernity where the little details can draw near and take your breath away with their simple beauty.

Whether exposing light or dark, or some blank hue in the middle, Barnes has all but bulls-eyed his status as a brilliantly daring artist on Lousy.

With Fire on Corridor X, All the Saints seem less interested in renovating the house that noise built than burning the whole thing to the ground.

Feels Like is a debut of the same melodic stripes as Weezer’s Blue Album, and it comes as a package deal with all the emotional honesty and intensity of their Pinkerton.

This is an album that is custom-built to be experienced in one 41-minute sitting, either with a pair of headphones on marveling at every sonic swan dive or laid in the background to guide you through a task. In either setting, Vision Fortune is your ideal soundtrack.