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.

To her immense credit, Apple never flinches at such uneasy insights and insoluble contradictions, which makes The Idler Wheel a tough but rewarding listen.

Nine albums and eight years in, it’s time to stop trying to figure out what the hell Animal Collective--vocalist/guitarist Avey Tare, percussionist/vocalist Panda Bear and knob-twiddler Geologist--is, and just enjoy the orgasmic rush of danceable rock.

Bright Green Field is easily Squid’s most musically varied and ambitious work yet.

When it comes to Aaron West, it’s easy for the plot mechanics to consume much of the conversation. But In Lieu of Flowers contains some of Campbell’s best melodies and soaring choruses.

It’s a document that is crucial to anyone working to understand the evolution of the UK music scene and a welcome addition to the library of any discerning pop fan.

This time, believe the hype.

Clark has said she had to take over production because she couldn’t figure out how to articulate the sounds in her head to somebody else. Listening to the finished product, it’s easy to see what she means. The surreal, slippery “Hell Is Near” is unlike anything Clark has done before—and particularly difficult to fully capture with words. Broadly psychedelic, a collage of 12-string guitar, piano and hydra-synth creates a song that feels like its own pocket dimension.

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.

In spite of its minor flaws, it’s the cornerstone of Kiwi indie music, an essential collection that retains its freshness and vitality.

A gritty girl dug in, she embraces her Bob Dylan overtones (the harmonica on “My House”), Roy Orbison steel cry and mariachi Eagles-tinge (“I Miss You”) and a tumble of revival slap ’n’ stomp (“Stupid”). This is no conventional pop-country supernova.

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

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

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

She hacks away at the extra fluff and molds every song to feel as cathartic as an enlightening sob session with your therapist. We’re left with 10 raw, rock-solid tracks that feel just as restorative for us as they clearly do for Jordan. Valentine is proof that a breakup album doesn’t have to be sad—it just has to be powerful.

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.

The album drags at points; with 22 tracks and a 70-minute runtime, some of this material would have been better off on a mixtape. But that’s a minor flaw in an otherwise superbly-executed gangster epic.

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.

This is an album of remarkable consistency and sparkling beauty. If her music hasn’t clicked for you yet, listen to this record until it does.

The whole thing is a bit ramshackle, but when he listens to his wife, Bad as Me is as good as anything Waits has ever done.

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

On MASSEDUCTION, Clark remains as unpredictable as ever, though there’s one thing fans will have gotten right: so far, at least, Annie Clark has proven incapable of writing anything less than a knockout pop song.

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.

It stands as a sometimes-confusing document of a particular time and place in the story of this constantly evolving art project.

TV on the Radio is that rare band able to simultaneously identify the pitfalls of modern life and offer a spiritual alternative... That the band does so with music that's at once readily accessible and refreshingly unique is simply the crowning touch. [Jun/Jul 2006, p.118]

Call Me If You Get Lost doesn’t strike the same emotional resonances as Tyler’s last two LPs, but it isn’t meant to. ... hat’s the crowning achievement of this record—the way it sharply reminds every listener that the early entries in an artist’s discography are not parts of their past meant to be forgotten.

By channeling her anxiety into wonderful, shaggy, relatable and supremely catchy songs, she’s made Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit one of the most compulsively listenable albums to come out so far this year.

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.

There are stretches when a more detailed approach would have helped center some of the more free-flowing material. Personal points to a great direction in West’s run as Rival Consoles. He’s not quite to the final destination, but he’s well on his way.

According to Rosenstock, it was recorded with friends in secret, and finished just before it was released. You can hear all of that in these songs, which crackle with urgency and fun. POST- feels less like an album and more like a document of tightly knit people working hard to make something that feels cathartic and good.

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.

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

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.

The songwriting across all 11 tracks is accessible and familiar—and yet, Cilker’s world that she’s created is fully under the rule of her genius penmanship. It’s sharp and far-ranging; anyone who has run from something can tap in and find ecstasy; anyone who has stayed put can achieve the same baroque fate.

His latest is a stunner of a record, with songs that are stark in their simplicity, yet emotionally rich in a way that can catch your breath in your throat or leave your eyes suddenly damp.

The only thing about Destroyer's Rubies that might shock existing fans is that Bejar's execution, ambition and passion have been buffed to a high shine. [Apr/May 2006, p.102]

There’s a confidence and vulnerability Brittany Howard fearlessly reveals on this album, which is more adventurous and riskier than Jaime.

Only God Was Above Us is about transformations. It represents the idea that even with growth and change, an artist—or just a human being in general—can preserve their core. It’s high-brow art in that way. But if you, like Koenig, can appreciate the art of a good walk, it would also just make for a great soundtrack to your next mindless stroll.

MAGDALENE is the sound of an artist gluing together the million tiny shards in which she found herself after an explosive breakup. ... FKA twigs broadcasts her pain just as vividly on less metaphorical MAGDALENE tracks.

Letter to You is also a letter to himself, to the music and to his steadfast collaborators in the E Street Band, past and present. It’s a potent reminder that together, they’re as good as it gets.

undun is a brilliant reminder of the power of the emcee as storyteller, the possibility of 40 minutes of music lending itself to a thoughtful character and plot.

A fitting farewell to a distinctive voice silenced too early.

Not only is this Radiohead’s most straightforward, organic-sounding album since The Bends, it finds the band shedding the bulk of its trademark anxiety while remaining indomitably themselves.

The trio delights in creating songs just to tear them down and rebuild them again in a different way, giving the album a dissonant, experimental edge.

Lonerism expertly balances heady textures with effortless melodicism.

The album’s 11 songs are spontaneous, fluid and entirely indifferent to genre as they pour out of her like the torrential rains of an evening thunderstorm.

Bandana may deal with some weighty topics throughout its 46-minute run time, but its impressive flow—both in Gibbs’ rapping and their well-thought-out tracklisting—leads to a compelling but relaxed listen.

Even though the album is crushing, the band’s penchant for melody is what elevates Foundations of Burden above otherwise comparable records from this year.

Orquídeas is a masterful ode to Uchis’ ancestral roots. A project that artfully skywalks across a variety of Latin genres, including dembow, bolero, salsa and reggaeton, the project proves to be her most sonically ambitious to date—and boasts all-star level features to boot.

The album’s features are among the best in the Weeknd catalogue, highlighting love and loss spanning decades.

Black Tambourine can be amateurish: "Can't Explain" seems as if it's being held together with chewed-up licorice and broken guitar strings. But it also builds to a fine frenzy that fans of Vivian Girls will find pleasantly familiar.

Aside from the power of the music and lyrics, the set draws on Cave’s compelling persona: part priest, part sideshow barker--crooning one moment and eviscerating the next. While this has always been the core of his talent, on Abattoir/Lyre it is particularly rich and rewarding.

Antony flourishes like a rare orchid in a New York hothouse, brandishing his voice like so many delicate petals. [#14, p.120]

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.

Instead of just beating around the prog-rock bush, Thursday now embrace their artsier unknown.

This record sounds like four musicians coming together, telepathically attuned to each other’s ideas, reveling in the strange mystery that unfolds when they play together under the same roof—a fragile sanctuary from the collapsing world outside.

La Dispute picked a perfect time to make a classic album in the post-hardcore spectrum that might be considered a classic outside of genre, too.

It's not the mindblowing masterpiece the critics are so dizzily carping about, but as a milepost of the current state of world electronica it remains strong throughout.

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.

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.

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

Complicated Game is brilliant album, dense and thoughtful as McMurtry swirls around inside the heads of another set of fascinating characters.

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.

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.

Lahai is a transformative album that explores themes like afrofuturism and magical realism across 14 tracks that span a multitude of genres, including soul, rap, jazz, dance, jungle and West African music. And it’s a record that’s as intimate as it is imaginative.

It's like watching the sun rise over distant mountaintops, over and over, familiar and captivating all at once.

It's as lucid a marriage of the eneffably strange and crayon-bright catchy as 2007 is likely to see. [Apr 2007, p.58]

The results of Toledo’s re-imagination add up to enough to make this feel like more than just a perfectionist’s pursuit.

With his old-timey Upland Stories, Fulks matures into an important voice.

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

Isbell’s increasing skill as a storyteller, and the natural affinity he has for melody, combine to make Something More Than Free a masterful piece of work.

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.

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”).

The relentless heat of My Woman can be exhausting over the course of 10 searing tracks--the addition of a throwaway would give a weary listener time to regroup. But Angel Olsen’s fearless and eloquent embrace of raw emotions in all their messy splendor ultimately feels oddly uplifting, the way it always does when you witness a gifted artist at her best.

Despite his quiet voice and instrumentation, his music refuses to recede into the background. It commands your attention in every conceivable way.

The 12-song collection ensnares listeners with its tight song structures, yelping melodies and energy delivered via middle-of-the-neck pitched guitar riffs.

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.

Once again, Hubbard has proven his worth after 40 years in the business.

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.

In other words--even though the mood is more menacing than morose--it’s vintage Cave.

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.

By any reasonable aesthetic criteria, Southeastern is a triumph.

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.

I Killed Your Dog dazzles with its musicality, but its emotion is what takes it to the next level.

As powerful a witness for the region--Memphis, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas--as it is a lovely quilt of musicality, braiding blues, folk, Appalachia, rock and old-timey country, this is balm for lost souls, alienated creatures seeking their core truths and intellectuals who love the cool mist of vespers in the hearts of people they may never encounter.

Though Painted Shut only clocks in at 41 minutes total, it feels like a much lengthier record. For fans of Hop Along, that should be just enough. For new listeners, it’s a thorough introduction.

While Hadreas’ lyrics made the most powerful moments of Perfume Genius’s 2010 debut Learning and 2012’s Put Your Back N 2 It, Too Bright folds its words into startling, varied instrumental textures.

As serious as they clearly took their playing, the music never lost its sense of playfulness and joy, with an inviting quality that draws people in to respond to it with movement or their own instrumental contributions. It’s an entourage you want to be a part of.

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.

The key to The Seer's delicate noise-beauty contrast is its sense of direction. It's what keeps the album's three crazy-long epics (particularly the half-hour-long title-track) from fading into wallpaper or bleeding out from excess.

He’s just as bummed out as ever on Purple Mountains, and he still makes being bummed out sound better than just about anyone else.

The gems on All Hail West Texas capture the pain and beauty of humans’ entanglements with each other.... These days it’s the loneliness of the album, and just the idea of the space that is West Texas, a vast and largely unpopulated sprawl, that hits home.

More revelatory are Krauss’ splendid R&B turn on Little Milton’s 'Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson' and Plant’s Dr. John impersonation on Allen Toussaint’s 'Fortune Teller'--just two of the many eye-openers on this surprising, and surprisingly effective, collaboration.

Vulnicura marks a bold return for such a storied singer.

The vibrant and varied arrangements are plenty approachable.

CSNY 1974 offers a deep and vulnerable portrait of band at the very height of its powers.

Never quite forsaking what brought them, they’ve created a new world for post-country country--as musically satisfying as it is hormone-peaking.