DEACON delivers on the fantastic promise that Wise's earlier work - most notably his debut LP soil - has shown. He brings a creative, eccentric, and intelligent sound to alternative soul.

The title track showcases May’s ability to create a noir-type atmosphere by singing in a hushed, breathy voice with clipped phrasing. Sadness and sorrow seem to flow from her soul. The other cuts may suffer from being generic, but they reveal May’s ability to sound professional.

Lyrical monotony aside, Violence Unimagined turns the page onto an exciting new chapter of a most colorful and remarkable history.

Stott’s latest may be the most inviting record in his catalogue, perhaps even an entry point into his funereal sound-world. It’s also one of his best.

The world is full of beauty and noise, and Claire Rousay has the uncanny ability to translate these disparate elements into a gorgeous, unique musical journey.

Several songs address contemporary issues concerning race, personal responsibility, and generational guilt in oblique ways that make one think while having a groove on. It is meta-funk without the heavy bass and other genre tropes. The music is more experimental and strange, even while being rhythm-heavy. And the lyrics are avant-garde and innovative.

Over 49 tracks, you get examples of the hits, the misses, and the curiosities. The good, the bad, and the ugly. But every track is a little bit fascinating.

Long segments don't even feature Beyoncé, which can be trying on the album but in the film are understood as the accompaniment to dance routines and skits.

Dancing With the Devil… The Art of Starting Over is Demi Lovato like we have never heard before. She is sassy and carefree while serious about her identity and personhood in a way she has been itching to be for years.

It doesn't get bogged down in a particular style. It's not a pop/funk hybrid. It's not minimalism. It's a combination of many different styles from a country that was enjoying national prosperity and using all the tools at their disposal to make unique artistic statements. As a result, it's one of Light in the Attic's best compilations in awhile.

STATE’S END! is another wonderful chapter in a book we hope will continue to be writ for years.

Cheap Trick certainly aren’t innovating stylistically or challenging themselves here—they basically just stick to what works—but they still do an exceptional job delivering precisely what fans expect.

This is truly a virtuosic tour de force. Every time you hear a new Jane Weaver album and think to yourself, well, that’s about it, there’s nowhere she can go from here, and then she goes to yet another level, forging still new paths.

There's something light and joyful, even as the lyrics turn dark and the music turns abrasive. And somehow, VanGaalen keeps it all fun, whether he's stressed out or not.

With Dream Weapon, Genghis Tron don’t so much transition as achieve transcendence of everything they once were. And the change is so fully realized that it renders notions of genre loyalism utterly moot.

This strategy of laying low works for Smith, while intellectually one may question it, the resulting music sounds skillful and accomplished.

Aside from a few unusual performances, Way Down In The Rust Bucket might tell us anything we didn't know, but it provides plenty of excellent music from the right band at the right time.

Rose sings and plays with buoyant energy. Her melodies are simple and cheerful. The lilt in her voice suggests the silver lining in every cloud. The lyrics may express a mixed message, but god darn it, Rose isn’t going to let it get her down. Or maybe, more importantly, it’s not going to keep her down.

If you liked the pound and grind of Tomahawk’s self-titled LP or 2003’s explosive Mit Gas, or, better yet, past work from Denison, there’s stuff to like here.

Promises is a genius work, a victory for slow releases and the spacious. Sanders sounds as much ahead of his time as ever, while Floating Points again proves the efficacy of well-executed minimalism.

Though Chemtrails isn’t quite Lana’s strongest album (that’s still Norman) nor is it the most iconically Lana (that’ll always be Ultraviolence), it’s an intimate, emotional, and largely successful renewal of her artistic vows: to follow her heart, her muses, her unfashionable desires -- no matter what it brings out in other people. It’s rarely easy to be Lana Del Rey, but Chemtrails will make you glad that somebody is doing it.

All the tinkering Ross does at home has done it for Wild Pink.

Overall, Justice is better when Bieber takes the listener to his own room than when he's reading the room. He shines in the most emotional songs ad is competent in making you dance too.

Believer has enough sonic range and emotional heft to make up for its occasional misfires.

It's a bright and breezy pop album with a dark, dark heart.

An uncommonly beautiful album that promotes peace, unity, and shared love for the power of music.

The songs on Topaz bang around in one's head more than one's heart.

It’s the sense of time passing and time co-existing with other times that stays with you, to the point that it becomes almost an experience of existential exploration and wonder.

Their sophisticated arrangements don’t waste a note or make a false step.

Pick a Day to Die is an album that pushes limits. Many bands claim to talk about working with a broad musical palette, but Sunburned Hand of the Man genuinely walks the walk.

The album still hangs together though, despite the two skits, the covers, the reheats. Its sheer exuberance shines through in what is a sub-40-minutes headlong sprint from start to finish.

He brings in some effective collaborators (most notably Bonny Light Horseman buddy Josh Kaufman) for yet another strong album, well-timed for its false-spring release as a cure for the grayness of a long winter.

Producer Mike Viola does a great job filling the frame with music but still allowing the sound to breathe. There is a sense of internal discipline. Both players let loose yet share an awareness of each other’s needs to be expressive. That allows the melodies to build atop each other. The songs don’t advance so much as find a stasis where both players hit a groove.

Maybe this is their best album.

The ride is smooth enough that you never quite feel the acceleration of the vehicle.

For a collection of compositions meant to accompany dancers and an assortment of visuals, Invisible Cities seems to lack the frenetic pacing that such a commission may require. But the album is nonetheless an inspiring and often invigorating experience and will likely guarantee more multimedia projects of this variety.

A comeback that not only beats expectations but has an excellent claim to be the band's crowning achievement (so far).

The good news is that Yol proves Altin Gün's versatility, reassuring listeners that the group can walk down many paths and still take us on a fabulous trip.

In Ferneaux is evidence that even if one guy has conceivably "done it all," there's still plenty more to do.

As The Love Continues is a solid gold reminder that while Mogwai may no longer be the future, they deserve and reward every ounce of continued love. A happy 25th to the old team.

In the end, despite the rowdy noise of the album's first seven tracks, it's the gentler songs on the second half that genuinely highlight Slowthai's voice. He has responded to the global pandemic with an album that not only acknowledges but revels in the complexity and, yes, the ugliness of human relationships. But in response, he's made some beautiful music.

What we have here are some hazy but deeply unsettling observations, carried along effortlessly on a bed of delirious voices, sailing over music quieter, slicker, and tighter than that on Goat Girl's debut.

Her stylish performances are consistent with the excellence found on the rest of the album.

The album is full of bright, poppy hooks as well as interesting, brainy sounds that make for a thrilling and engrossing listen.

The beauty of The Wide, Wide River allows the coziness back in without making concessions to Yorkston's continued development and desire to push beyond traditional folk music. This collaboration with the Second Hand Orchestra is more heirloom than hand-me-down.

In recent times, Gore seems to have become less interested in writing the kinds of instrumental hooks and taglines that made some of his best-known pop hits so indelible. But there, three minutes into "Howler", comes Gore's best hook in years, decades maybe. ... None of the other tracks on The Third Chimpanzee reach such atmospheric heights. But the tense synth lines on "Capuchin" and the more uptempo groove and subtle, interlocking marimbas on "Vervet" are more indications of Gore letting his instincts come to the fore.

If you are cool with the lighter, quirkier, goofier version of Foo Fighters, you'll enjoy Medicine at Midnight for what it is – a fun, pop-rock album -- and it'll find its way to about the middle of your list of favorite Foo Fighters albums.

Her art doesn't offer easy resolutions to internal or external crises, but as Charles works through her ideas (and her sounds), she leads us to somewhere better, a little way out of the maze and into a place where we can at least imagine some good weather.

For the First Time maintains a well-tempered intensity refined in its delivery but honest in its angst. Black Country, New Road show us what a "rock band" or "rock outfit" can achieve on their debut. For those bands labeled as experimental, we now have an expectation and a new benchmark.

These 11 songs successfully combine memorable musical tropes from rock's past with personal reflections and observations about the changing world to explore our existential condition.

Like Jimmy Smith and the other great organ jazz/soul proponents, the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio make music that can be difficult to pigeonhole. However you chose to classify it, you can't miss the good vibes emanating from I Told You So.

If you're partial to the band's most commercially palatable work—Green Album, Make Believe, Pacific Daydream, etc—OK Human won't necessarily tick that box for you either. On the contrary, the new material presents Weezer in a new light for the first time in over a decade—no small feat for a band that looked to be in a creative rut, with no surprises left up its sleeve. If nothing else, OK Human proves that you can never count Weezer out.

There's a confessional quality to these songs that feels real, regardless of whether Parks is telling these stories exactly as they happened or embellishing them for narrative impact. She also keeps the music engaging throughout, using a lot of guitar and piano for melodies and riffs and a rock-solid rhythm section to create strong grooves. It's early in 2021, but this is already a candidate for one of the year's better debuts.

The 14 tracks on Vertigo Steps function as nuggets of noise. There are rhythms and drops, meaningful pauses and blather, atmospherics that drift into nothingness, and abrasive sonics. Listening can be a trip maybe one doesn't want to take except as an escape from reality.

The kinds of experimentation that have made this band so delightfully unpredictable reveal themselves here too.

This is instrumental music. Don't look for answers here. The questions speak loudly enough in the chain saw amalgam that forms the nub of the grinding gears.

Free of insecure ego, he winnows out space within Boris' music or sculpts himself around them, rather than pouring himself all over the record like treacle.

Elori Saxl's concept behind The Blue of Distance is undoubtedly striking and ambitious. Still, she's managed to take it a step further – creating a unique musical project that is both distinctive and highly enjoyable. Like nature she observes all around her, Elori Saxl's music is a highly immersive experience.

For many admirers—myself included—it'll be his weakest solo record, but that's only because the rest are so terrific. Honestly, The Future Bites objectively deserves applause for perpetuating Wilson's integrity and creativity, even if it's a markedly—and perhaps intentionally—divisive collection, too.

Drunk Tank Pink is a record that emphasizes something that's become even rarer than a rock star: a legitimately exciting band.

McCartney III may not be the jewel in the crown of his recorded work, but it's a decent record, which proves once and for all that you cannot overlook, second guess, or write off Paul McCartney.

Home is an ambitious effort and contains some of the most exciting music released by Rhye. There are disappointments on the album, but they are equaled, if not exceeded, by the number of exciting successes on the album.

In Blue has tangential connections to other gauzy, drugged-out space techno such as JK Flesh or Wandl. There may even be a distant relationship to Wolfgang Voigt's work as Gas. But for all its murkiness, this is genuinely sensual listening. For all its static-swamped helplessness, it's never cold.

Spare Ribs is perhaps the band's high watermark, a searing masterpiece of social commentary, childhood memories and recovered trauma, scathing wit, punk energy, funk, and hip-hop influences, and much more. This is a record with no fat and no filler.

The album's theme of discovery and belonging is clear and poignant throughout and adds an extra dimension to critical listening of many of the tracks. The album does tire a little towards the end, and similar ideas and developments are revisited a little too quickly. Still, overall, Bicep have crafted a very exciting record worthy of high praise.

On their first album, Birthday (2019), Pom Poko delighted in confounding expectations and taking their brazen sounds to giddy extremes. With Cheater, the band are essentially repeating the process with even more confidence.

BE is the album in which BTS's sound crosses over to cement the type of legacy they're building – one that started in youth and is very proudly Korean, but that makes sense for any age or place.

Here he is a complex man of dark humor and flashes of anger as he keeps fighting the good fight armed with a razor wit, an observer who has seen a world suffused with foible-filled humans, including himself.

The results are a curious mix of nostalgia and timelessness.

The music on Magic Touch itself is loose and a little gritty, with the group as a whole sounding a little raw and rough on the edges.

Whole Lotta Red is a demonstration of Carti's commitment to dynamic growth and experimentation. However, it's painfully apparent that Carti needs more features (his divine harmony with Pi'erre Bourne shines on their single collaboration "ILoveUIHateU").

5 Dreams is what we've come to expect from Mercer's tasty little brand of madness – and we've come to expect quite a lot.

Yes picks up where Heat left off and borrows some of the same presets, like a distant, faintly echoing house piano and an insistent little tick that functions in lieu of a hi-hat. But it's shorter and more evasive.

While not quite as replete with certified cottagecore stunners as folklore, evermore certainly has its fair share of strong tracks, all with varying levels of immersive realism.

Drift Multiply requires zero thinking or analysis to enjoy. Listen attentively, though, and it becomes apparent that this album is a game-changer on multiple fronts. Consider it essential listening, regardless of your tastes or listening background.

Karma & Desire is still everything we'd expect from an Actress LP—foggy, impenetrable, and deeply cerebral. The runtime may be a bit long, and some experiments may fall flat, but the best moments here showcase Cunningham at his finest.

Jones and the Dap-Kings always brought joy and energy to their music and while they were memorable songwriters, hearing them cut loose on these covers lets us appreciate the verve with which they approached their art in any setting.

Stapleton, the artist, isn't beginning, and he does not need to. With Starting Over, he furrows broad terrain with confidence, leading to plenty.

It's a purpose for waking up and a purpose for getting good rest. Better Person is feeling better. The music is pretty good too.

As placeholders go, Sleepness Night is a pretty good one. If you're the sort of person who had your iPod on shuffle all the time, this is a gift. If you're not, be persistent. Patience is a virtue.

UNTITLED (Black Is) is captivating from start to finish. ... This is a stellar, uplifting record informed by timeless struggle, solidarity, and pride.

They do a good job of revitalizing the sounds that make up their palette. The whole album whirs into life like the opening of some vast electronic orchestral score or the range-testing fanfares of a cinema sound system advert.

Most of the songs are traditional, the most recent being Amidon's cover of Taj Mahal's "Light Rain Blues". Amidon sings the lyrics straight in a calm and unaffected voice as sounds buzz and whirr by. There is a sense of movement, or more precisely, a sense of impeding movement as if one is waiting for the rain to stop so one can head on one's way.

The very fact that this record is called 10 Songs sums the band up. It's the new Travis album. It's got ten songs on it. Fortunately, most of them are great.

Entertaining but not over the top and bold but not self-serving, Confetti is their best work to date.

Ultimately, even without the presence of deeper lyrics, Disco feels distinctly personal for Minogue, having built a career based on the influences of artists like Donna Summer.

The songs seem part of a single entity, each piece tied to the others through their shared, peaceful quality. Castle and her co-producer Jeff McMurrich keep recording for several seconds after a song is over, capturing the serenity of silence in addition to ambient sounds like the lapping of waves in the nearby lake.

With little conflict and few psychological insights, Positions zeroes in on the enviable confidence that only pop stars on top of the world and with nothing to lose can afford. It's easy to write it off as empty calories, but pop has always been described in such terms: cake, candy, chocolate, confection. Positions isn't a "sweetener" but pure sugar.

One waits for songs to fall apart, but they keep going on and on like a magic trick to pre-ordained conclusions.

Under Yip's guidance, The Great Dismal trades subtlety for distilled power. When it's quiet, a guitar blast is usually only seconds away. There are a few abrupt edits that are the work of Pro-Tools or some such software. But maybe these are small prices to pay for an album that plays to Palermo's strengths in such a satisfying fashion.

Ane Brun's eighth album of original music is a slow-burning delight, full of melodies that linger long after the record has stopped spinning.

The result is the Mountain Goats' best album in years, one that's more accessible than 2017's downtrodden Goths and more varied and energetic than 2019's In League with Dragons.

What makes Wildflowers & All the Rest worth perusing is the home recordings. As the record takes shape in Petty's home studio, we understand how Petty managed to make Wildflowers so uniquely devastating.

Visions of Bodies Being Burned is a smart, noisy joyride through your worst nightmares, but it's easy to imagine Clipping laughing maniacally while its listeners insist on sleeping with the lights on.

She's never sounded unsure in her music, but she's a new robust sense of identity to bolster what she does and, wherever she goes from here, that should give her strength on the way.

Sundowner probably won't convert anyone who's not already a fan of Morby. It's his best album since 2016's Singing Saw, which found Morby transmuting his folk songs into a more adventurous place, but it stops short of attempting to push further into uncharted territory.

Not locating the songs anywhere in particular functions to put them everywhere. Not grounding them gives them a diaphanous, floating appeal. However, this lack of gravitas is also the album's greatest flaw. These are wisps of songs.

There's no showing off or extended solos here, except for Ivey's lengthy vocal lines.