Requiem for Jazz is a complex record, requiring sustained attention and careful thought. Though it lacks the fiery rage and visceral immediacy of 2020’s LIVE, its nuanced critique of jazz’s role in Black history is an important and necessary continuation of the conversation that Bland began over six decades ago.

Mythologies sounds like the work of an artist stepping out of his comfort zone in search of personal creative fulfillment. It might be equally rewarding for the listener if only any of these pieces were as memorable as Daft Punk’s songs.

For all of her self-flagellation, Teitelbaum is far more potent when she’s pissed off.

Whereas the distorted tones smeared over 2017’s Pleasure could make it seem as if she were squaring off against her guitar and microphone, Multitudes mostly sounds as cozy as a winter sweater that’s three sizes too big.

72 Seasons, at a marathon 77 minutes long, delivers everything you could possibly want from a Metallica album in 2023, and so much more on top of that. Too much more. Like Hardwired, its predecessor—the same length, incidentally—72 Seasons is both a thrill and a slog.

Compared to the careful sprawl of triple-LP Sr3mm, which artfully unwound the brothers’ divergent styles and production tastes while avoiding lulls, this outing can feel formulaic and less adventurous at times.

Perhaps the point is more about feeling good than seeming interesting, and at least the piano equivalent of cowboy chords makes sense in the Americana context. Any given moment sounds wonderful, though not much lingers beyond a deep sense of calm.

No Highs ultimately works as an example of what ambient music can be, rather than a suggestion of where it might go.

Half of rage is confronting the sorrow that births it and watching it metamorphize. Witnessing the chrysalis is With a Hammer’s most generous gift.

The smaller stakes of Stereo Mind Games feel healthier and rewarding; the music is still vulnerable, but anguish no longer consumes every moment.

As Hartzman’s lyrics delve deeper into a rich, suburban mundanity, her bandmates respond with their most dramatic and explosive performances.

A collection of laid-back grooves and sultry meditations on love, loss, and the human experience.

The full enjoyment of Imagine This Is a High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities requires some imagination of your own, a sort of listening past the vaporous surface of the music. Like teenage Holden at the radio, you may sense a magical world there, just beyond what you can hear.

1982 is their best album since 1986’s Force. ... Attractive in its distillation of received pleasures, 1982 functions as a history lesson about a fecund era, and, boy, they own the warts too.

Newman’s fastidious, occasionally fussy writing ensures a level of quality control as he tinkers around the margins, even if his bandmates never quite catch the spark.

In these early recordings, Elton’s passion and dedication pleads to be heard. Whether nitpicking intros almost to the point of nausea or infusing vitality into each syllable like a mad scientist, a young Elton is constantly straining towards vein-popping perfection.

Despite some murky production by Josh Kaufman of the Fruit Bats and Bonny Light Horseman, the Hold Steady turn these songs into weird, vivid snapshots.

Deerhoof are at both their most whimsical and most energetically approachable on Miracle-Level.

Dipping into her lower register, she stuns as a contralto. I found myself rewinding her runs on hymnal parts of “Heart on My Sleeve” and could’ve sworn I was levitating during the awe-inspiring bridge of “Pray It Away” and “Make It Look Easy.” ... The emotionally charged conversational interludes and narrative intros (“Do you ever wonder, like, who else is fucking your man?”) are out of place amid the redundant themes and mind-numbingly online songwriting.

Real intimacy is what you find on The Record, the melding of what’s yours and mine—a favorite Joan Didion quote, songs by Iron & Wine and the Cure, passages from Ecclesiastes—until what’s left is something greater than the sum.

The songwriting lives up to the production value, pleasant but lacking much purpose.

To paraphrase the great Roy Kent, real love should make you feel like you’ve been struck by lightning. 6LACK manages some sparks here and there, but the tingles fade fast.

Iyer and Ismaily’s hypnotic interplay leaves the listener unmoored in time and space. The grand sweep of Aftab’s voice is a galactic super-wind capable of carrying you off to wondrous new worlds. The force of their collaboration is so much greater than the sum of its simple parts that it borders on the mystical.

The move toward emotional exorcism on The Art of Forgetting is nearly as startling as Rose’s previous stylistic pivots. ... But individual songs, as carefully articulated as they are, tend to get swallowed up by the overarching psychological thrust of The Art of Forgetting: This is a mood piece capturing a specific frame of mind, even a particular era.

Brown meets JPEG’s tempos with alacrity, flashing a singsong flow on “Orange Juice Jones” and mirroring the jittery horn fanfare of “Burfict!” The short bursts don’t provide space for Brown to stretch his limbs, yet he remains a virtuoso in miniature.

Liturgy have always brought a proggy, sprawling ambition to their music, but rarely have all the pieces locked into place so elegantly. 93696 can be pulverizing, but it’s also gentle, and amid the brutality lie some of Hunt-Hendrix’s prettiest and most ornate songs yet.

He maintains the foggy tufts of reverb and sing-song melodies of his predecessors, but his lyrics trade unrequited crushes for more practical pining.

Chua creates landscapes out of the hollow spaces within her. Each track becomes its own kind of home, or at least a safe harbor.