Although Carry Fire seemingly follows the same formula as his previous effort with the Space Shifters, 2014’s Lullaby and…The Ceaseless Roar, his sound is ever-changing, experimenting with the science of otherworldly instrumentation.

TYRON is an exciting follow-up project whose bifurcated structure encapsulates the duality of slowthai’s effervescent rap persona and the evolving interiority of Tyron Frampton.

The Magnetic Fields’ eighth album, provides yet another example of why Merritt belongs on the shortlist of America’s greatest songsmiths.

On the surface, TRIP’s concept sounds like the kind of diehards-only project that would fit on the back half of a career-spanning boxset or as a high-priced Record Store Day release. Instead, Lambchop continue to subvert expectations by making TRIP an essential chapter in their recent creative hot streak.

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.

The eight tracks here were intended as experiments in sound, and Vega shows almost no interest in conventional song structures or, for that matter, melody. Instead, he focuses on atmospherics, creating moods that are frequently disjointed, sometimes oppressive and often deeply charismatic.

Overall, the album is an honest, and at times heartbreaking, exploration of life’s struggles and losses.

This sense of fearlessness permeates this album. Simple Minds positions themselves perfectly on Worlds: not trying to relive past victories nor trying to match up with the sound of current chart hits. Kerr, his longtime bandmate Charlie Burchill and the current lineup of the group remain true to themselves, with a wonderful collection of dramatic, thoughtful songs that contains messages that can serve both personal and universal concerns.

It’s lovely and streamlined, the musical equivalent of a Saab.

The Big Moon demonstrate both musical and lyrical versatility on Walking Like We Do. It might seem like a predictable move for a guitar band to unleash a keyboard-heavy album number two, but unlike other bands who have deployed this method, they don’t go so far down the wormhole that they lose their original appeal.

“Take It Back” aside, Dinosaur Jr. tend to get by on a fairly limited sonic palette. Yet the trio continues to find compelling ways to fuse their core musical elements into songs that resonate, on albums that almost never misfire. Sweep It Into Space is merely the latest example.

He takes a minimalist approach to the nine songs on Starter Home, focusing mostly on acoustic guitar and his warm, slightly rumpled voice. There are adornments here and there from violin, keyboards and steel guitar, which add texture and atmosphere to songs that seem unassuming until you listen closely enough to hear just how devastating they are.

There are still irresistible dance grooves here, but also more segments that are likely to call for headphone introspection. It might even be safer than that out-of-control feeling on Budos Band III.

On Scout, Samia makes her own promise to stand by her loved ones, without the sentiment becoming sticky-sweet. The songs focus on the act of cherishing, but deserve to be cherished in their own right.

Big Picture is a successful meditation on tension, an act of sitting in the discomfort. Fenne Lily has become a veritable expert on the subject, and her approach to narrating that process is engaging and novel.

Despite that mid-tracklist lull, How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?’s existence is welcome. ... Artists want to work with them, and it’s apparent on both Big Red Machine albums that those who choose to do so enjoy it, and therefore make music we enjoy, too.

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.

Depending on your perspective, then, it is either surprising or it’s expected that Strange Ranger’s new album Remembering the Rockets finds the band settling into a sound and settling down.

Ants From Up There feels like the work of a band figuring itself out. ... This is a record that sees Black Country, New Road reestablishing themselves.

At least the tension between his addiction to depression and his longing to escape it has, on this record, produced a music that’s not defeated, but appropriately tense.

True to form, this brisk, exhaust-scented third album makes an ambitious return to the Boss' scenic Friday night carnival for a familiar but still-mighty wallop of muscular, crying riffs and good old-fashioned restlessness.

The whole EP feels familiar, either from the carryover from Bird's previous albums (most notably Break It Yourself) or from things you've heard before but can't quite put your finger on-it doesn't shock or change the course of rivers, but it does invite, and welcome, and maybe pour you a cup of tea and ask about your day.

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.

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.

Displaying more of her raucous side, Warp and Weft is filled with tracks that easily find themselves among the best of her impressive catalog and manage to exceed expectations.

With The Boy Named If, Costello and The Imposters show they are still capable of kicking each other under the table at the restaurant, showing their fangs to the manager when they’ve been told to leave.

Songs like “marjorie,” “happiness,” “closure” and “tolerate it,” all full of Swift’s hard-won wisdom, are the most representative of what evermore really is: a peacefully intimate record.

The languid pace that they lend to the majority of the songs here suits them just fine, but put up against the peppier numbers, you may long for a bit more variation. At the same time, You Tell Me concocts such a spell with their debut that the journey will still delight and intoxicate.

The few bonus tracks here don’t necessarily help enrich the albums, outside of the welcome inclusion on the Material World disc of “Bangla Desh,” the 1971 single that was a precursor to the benefit concerts in New York. If you fancy yourself a scholar of the Fab Four and all their endeavors before and after, this is essential listening to aid you in getting a little closer to appreciating Harrison’s growth as an artist and as a human being.

The songs on American Band, for the most part, are well constructed, catchy-enough tunes that don’t quite rise into the first rank of the group’s deep and impressive catalog.

Overall, Fragrant World is a sexy, infectious compilation of conventional musical tropes, filtered through Yeasayer's dark kaleidoscope.

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

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.

Unfortunately, Nightlife is a bit short, cramming the pair's diverse and ambitious arrangements into a six-track EP when the record would perhaps deliver a more cohesive sound if given more room to grow.

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.

An album of relaxed arrangements for serenades best performed in the dawn. Once the expectations for Perkins are flattened, the idiosyncratic album becomes a welcome entry to his untraditional career.

As a whole, Holy Fire is a bold effort from Foals, but like on Total Life Forever, there are few clear standout tracks admist a lot forgettable mood-setting filler.

Subtlety is practically extinct. As a result, The Queen of Hearts demands a patient listen and a willing ear. Happily, this clear appreciation for folk nobility reaps its rewards.

What hovers over this lovely, late-night listen is the unavoidable passing of time: a nostalgic filter through which each groggy gem should be viewed.

WINK is a filling, nutritious meal: good for the soul and brimming with flavor.

Between the middle-of-the-metronome songs ("Keepsake"), mild bridges ("Handwritten") and ballads ("Mae" and "National Anthem"), the most riff-heavy, driving songs on Handwritten push the album from a good one to a great one.

Major/Minor is nothing short of very good (with emphasis on "very").

It’s a dirty-sounding album, full of scuzzy red-line guitars and overdriven vocals, but even all that speaker-busting grit doesn’t hide the alluring melodies Bains threads among the mayhem.

It’s refreshing to know there are bands like METZ putting out such quality rage like the 11 songs on this most exceptionally enthralling hello for today’s youth to thrash along to with the same sense of reckless abandon their parents were able to extol as members of the Sub Pop Singles Club.

The record is refreshingly eclectic, adding several new layers to Rae's previous blend of classic soul and modern R&B.

They've made one of the most counterintuitively accessible albums of the year.

The three years that have passed since the band's debut has left Bell Orchestre a far more confident act than the one that once served as the house band for a Montreal dance ensemble, one that simultaneously expands and tightens its focus with an album that ultimately inhabits its own place on the pop-music spectrum.

Even if the Beyoncé-Jay Z marital saga falls short of being a feminist revelation, there are plenty of instances where Jay Z pushes mainstream hip-hop narratives forward: For instance, he sweetly celebrates his mother, an out lesbian, on “Smile.” And while other rappers boast about fast money, he discusses the importance of investing in order to create lasting wealth for generations to come.

Fans of Frightened Rabbit will feel right at home with the dynamic song structures and visceral lyricism while newcomers will be able to appreciate this album as much more than a one-off solo release, but rather a refreshing take from a songwriter looking to jump out of his comfort zone.

Irreverent, funny, and ruefully sad, High and Inside will not appeal to everyone. But if the intersection of baseball and rock 'n' roll" is meaningful to you, it's a stellar reminder of why the game and the power chords still matter.

While their quiet folk songs are not a thing of the past, Good Woman benefits from the poppier textures and shiny new grooves implemented with help from Congleton.

The Mavericks understand the potency of a band that plays as a solid unit and embellishes that sound accordingly--not quite brazen, but flaring with machismo.

Like meeting an old friend after years apart, The Soft Pack is surprisingly, comfortably familiar.

An album that strikes a balance between thorny and accessible in a way that’s smart and tuneful.

For the most part, you also won’t find the simplistic catchiness of their debut, but that’s not the point of their second LP. Shame are in a different, increasingly dejected headspace, and they poured their anxieties into a more considered album. Drunk Tank Pink is more varied in pace and inspiration.

Parcels feels miraculously out-of-place, conjuring ghosts of music movements past. But, with its perpetuation of millennial angst and ability to offer release through dance, it does so in a way that feels both necessary and relevant to our present day.

Much of b’lieve remains mellower and more cognizant than Vile’s previous works, blending organic and inorganic sounds.

There’s still more than enough fuel in Encore’s tank to heartily recommend it. I’m just waiting for him to dare a leap into the unknown.

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.

With tunes for dancing, thrashing and falling apart, of Montreal’s latest effort is a fitting start to 2020. The pre-drinks may have been a trip, but UR FUN is one party that you don’t want to miss.

Each performance is lucid and brutal, rattling audiences with its unstoppable fervor. Sometimes it’s hard to envision this adolescent version of Sonic Youth while knowing what’s to come for them, but it makes for an all the more enthralling listen as we imagine how it must have felt to be on the precipice of greatness.

This second Broken Bells album is going to be the Random Access Memories of 2014. Only it’s a way better record, brimming with energy, urgency and something Daft Punk’s pop breakthrough is missing: an appropriately dirty sonic edge and--if you can collect your thoughts amidst all the booming bass and squint your eyes just right past the blinding DJ lights--some damn fine songs.

If their aim was to respectfully recreate the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie, consider that goal met, as well. No matter their decade of influence, Grapetooth’s first album will have you dancing into the night with a glass (or bottle) of Two Buck Chuck in hand.

The Late Great Whatever is a thrill ride built from top-shelf materials.

This one captures the band near the end of its Boys and Girls in America tour, and is a fine, representative sample of Craig Finn’s wordy tales of debauchery and Tad Kubler’s crunching power chords.

Faithfull knows she has much more past than future, which gives her cover an intense melancholy that seeps naturally into the rest of Horses and High Heels. She is, in other words, a true pop connoisseur, blessed not only with a distinctive voice but with an understanding that songs can change dramatically with age and experience.

The album's lyrics don’t always make sense, but then again, English isn’t their first language, and words aren’t the point here, the danceable beats and moody ambience are.

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

The lines are often not so clearly drawn, and there are shades of 13, the 1999 post breakup album that Albarn made with his band Blur throughout, but the dark, foreboding clouds that hover over everything here will feel familiar to anyone who has picked up a newspaper or opened their Twitter accounts at any point in the last 18 months or so.

Shopping isn’t trying to become more commercial or appealing on a wider scale, but they undertook this sonic shift because, as a band that has long been heralded for its dance-y vibe, the incorporation of electronic elements seems to be a natural progression in order to make the most well-rounded version of what their music conveys.

While Crazy For You sounded like fog rolling in over the bay with its reverb-heavy production, The Only Place effectively burns it off, even when Cosentino's dear-diary lyrics are at their gloomiest.

There is a lot of variety--a lot of music, really--here, and with 15 tracks that top out at just north of the 50-minute mark, it's a lot to take in.

The simple fact that Aimee Mann continues writing songs around these distressing observations and putting them out on such achingly beautiful records seems proof that-despite all the twisted, cutting truths she's spied under the lens of her artistic microscope--she still somehow clings to the sable cloud's silver flash.

For all its production merits and accomplishment as a tasteful ‘80s electro throwback, Museum of Love’s downfall is that it’s only nine tracks (and one is a 56-second intro).

Leon Russell has nothing to prove, so his will to rappel off musical cliffs and soar into boogie, big-band jazz and tavern immersion’s rarified air is that much more satisfying.

It’s not clear on Out of My Province what conclusions Reid reached, if any, but maybe this is one of those times when the journey is the most important part. It’s certainly resulted in a rewarding album, one that ought to serve as a breakthrough for an artist on her way up.

Pollinator their 11th album, is fun, imaginative and quintessentially Blondie--it’s punk’s “good old days” retooled for a wretched century.

At their best, the Allah-Las still conjure the tones and attitudes of bygone decades, but at its weakest, Worship The Sun degenerates to mono-tempo drone.

The arrangements are consistently dynamic and clear, but Tegan & Sara’s wordy vocals steal the show.

Although Endless Summer shines a light over the dark veil Sóley’s previously worn, its lyrics retain plenty of their solemnity.

Always is not an easy album to enjoy, but it's a harder one not to.

Marble Skies is at its best, however, where Django Django pushes outward hardest and farthest--in two very different directions. On one end there’s “Sundials,” a beautiful ballad built atop a zig-zagging piano line that lifts the technical wizard’s hat off this band, offering a clear look at the human beings beneath. (The song’s jazzy, harmony-heavy coda is a delight, too.) On the other end is “Surface to Air,” a concoction of humid pop, hiccupping beats and guest vocals by Rebecca Taylor of the British band Slow Club.

The results are mostly successful; occasionally a strange sound seems shoehorned into a perfectly good Decemberists song.

Ramona can be overwhelming when taken in as a whole, and that’s something that might ultimately keep many at arm’s length from the album. But, if you let Grace Cummings in, Ramona might just surprise you yet.

Space Invader is good rock album, and it’s an even better guitar record.

The features on Flower Boy are well chosen and cohesive, and so is the production.

Even the most drawn-out, mind-bending stretches on the album serve a purpose, managing to avoid sounding like sonic filler.

Lynne has always been a commanding vocalist, and age has only sharpened her delivery and given her more to sing about.

More of a long, leisurely ride than a bundle of cuts, Do Things is a pleasant, shiny trip.

Several generations removed from the origins of their chosen idiom, the Carolina Chocolate Drops are nonetheless the genuine article.

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.

For all of its unimpeachable Khruangbin-ness, Texas Sun is the Bridges project Coming Home’s fans probably anticipated from his sophomore outing.

No matter what life throws at them, Moore and Riley are a safe harbor for one another, just like their music is for anyone who’s a romantic at heart.

As a treat for the most passionate fans, it’s a winner, but by focusing on only one aspect of the band’s identity it doesn’t register as much as almost every other record they’ve ever released.

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.

Throughout, there’s a dynamic contrast of ultra-femininity with talk of violence, power, and crouching wrath.

THICK lay it all out in a way that isn’t subtle, but that’s okay. Their vocals convey emotion as raw as their instruments, and that alone is something worthy of praise when studios frequently make bands sound cookie-cutter.

If it’s true that Lydia Loveless’ jets are starting to cool, Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again shows that their music still throws off plenty of heat.