Daptone Records' most roguish staples have an enviable career and a sense of style that keeps on giving, and Long in the Tooth, for its ingenuity, is a vibrant continuation of that.

An album that pays tribute to the past while emotionally resonant and sonically thrilling.

Few moments aside, what you get from Lament is, by and large, what has come to be expected from Touché Amoré: guitar playing that moves from booming riffs to crisp, melodic lines, earnest first-person narratives from Bolm, and a bagful of quotable lyrics.

These tracks are catchy, but their intelligence transcends the superficiality of beat and rhythm. Renegade Breakdown may not appeal to superficial listeners seeking a quick fix of genre or easy background music. However, it will surprise and delight the true music aficionado who gives it their full attention and who will emerge from the experience with a sense of deep satisfaction.

An electro/disco-infused pop album that does what good pop does best: celebrate our weaknesses, acknowledge our scars, and dance some of the pain away.

With What You Gonna Do When the Grid Goes Down?, the band have concocted a balm for so much of what that ails us. There's certainly something to be said for that.

The combination of Jónsi and Cook may be an unlikely one but it works so well. This, the first release, of their collaboration, has produced an excellent album that is an exciting highlight of 2020 so far.

For what's essentially a bootleg recording, the sound quality of the 47-minute set from 27 October 1968 is surprisingly strong. ... It sits comfortably amongst Monk's finest recorded works.

The material as a whole is mellow and gentle on the ears. This is the Pacific Coast, not the boardwalks of New Jersey.

For the most part, these are songs you to can dance to while pondering the point of it all and what it means to be a good person in present-day America. My guess is that most people will listen to this album by themselves while wearing headphones. He's bringing us together by reminding us of our limitations.

In terms of epic grandeur, though, Ohms somehow surpasses even the band's most ambitious middle-period work. If past albums in the Deftones discography defined key points in the story of your life, you can expect to be thoroughly engrossed by the latest chapter in a remarkable musical journey that, against all the odds, just got more compelling.

It's a musical portrait of a band that continue to deepen their sound after decades of making music.

Bright Eyes may not technically be emo, but they are transcendently expressive, beatifically melancholic. Down in the Weeds is just the statement of grounding that we need as a respite from the churning chaos around us.

American Head's individual tracks can be enjoyed separately, but the album is best enjoyed as a whole. Think of it as a meditation on family, friends, getting older, and the irony of feeling lost in the world the more one learns about it. It's a trip, a journey to the past that one doesn't want to return to but never wants to forget.

A Certain Ratio's musical expansiveness is felt most strongly on the album's closing track, "Taxi Guy", a percussion/horns/electronics-fueled instrumental.

No one would call this a pretty album. It's much too stark. But something is riveting about the way Olsen coos to herself that's soft and comforting.

Throes of Joy touches raw nerves in a way that feels necessary given the way 2020 has unfolded. Extremity should never be confused as being synonymous with vitality. Once again, Napalm Death have shown us the difference.

The Third Gleam poses many questions and offers few answers. But that's OK. This isn't a down-home self-improvement resource or some vanilla background noise you can dip in and out of. It's earnest and raw and surprisingly delicate.

If IDLES have been known to play with a cliché or two, with a slogan tossed in here or there, it doesn't mean they've been empty lyrics. Sometimes a bunch of overdriven guitars and a sweaty drummer don't need Zizek to get their point across. IDLES get it, offering both catharsis and direction as they struggle for a movement.

Deftly indisputable on Heart's Ease, Collins' music acts as a cultural time capsule to preserve legacies.

It's subdued, grounded in reality, and produced with precision. I'm sure Sprout is not done with making music by the seat of his pants, but for Empty Horses, he took a more deliberate approach, and the rewards are quite different, but they are still rewards nonetheless. Slow down to a cool crawl, indeed.

A highly enjoyable album that provides both the buzz of nostalgia and the genius of an artist whose creativity still packs a heavy punch.

In case the meditative ruminations were missed elsewhere on The Waterfall II, the closer reaffirms the band's emotional shift in spite of the struggle.

What this album shows is what's allowed when an artist turns doubt into trust. There's humanity skating across this record, a collection of barely-touched ideas that allows listeners to float in place.

Open Up Your Head is a catchy record from the jump and easy to like. But the band's strong songwriting and interesting arrangements grew on me, as did Camamile's nuanced lyrics. Fans of power-pop and indie rock will find this album enormously appealing if they can get past the big, glossy production that clearly wants to push Sea Girls out to radio in their native UK and beyond.

For obvious reasons, mournfulness can provide comfort at a time like this, especially when presented with the kind of sincerity, wisdom, and songwriting skill that Doves haven't lost in their time away.

Cook's album not only serves as evidence of this social change, but it is also a damn fine record whose merits should stand the test of time.

Lindé is a well-polished triumph of musicianship and craft.

Though some of the instrumental tracks on the new LP lack the emotive heft of his guitar-based work (I, for one, miss that expressive voice of his), they make up for the lack of six strings and all their trappings with majestic textures and colors. Comma, in the end, is Prekop's fullest realization yet of his Brian Eno-like quest to toe the line between avant leanings and pop or rock narrative tendencies.

The album opener, "Kisses", seems quite typical at first with whisper-soft vocals and cloudy piano chords riding quarter notes. Yet the chorus is over before you realize it's begun, and then the song slows and seemingly stops for a breath. Then suddenly, it's burst into a beautiful yet understated coda. The album is full of unexpected, wonderful twists like this.

There's so much to like here, as a current document that faces forward while reflecting the past. My main nitpick would be the echo and trailing effects on the vocals, making the words linger with an extended dissolve. It's especially noticeable on headphones and makes for an odd choice on an album that otherwise sounds gorgeous. Still, even this perceived flaw alludes to an ethereal quality.

A masterclass in taking novelty to the brink of good taste and then hanging its toes off the edge, the aptly-named Cumbia Siglo XXI scrambles tradition while simultaneously drawing on it, positioning the Meridian Brothers once again as leading the way to a future of endless -- and endlessly unique -- cumbia possibilities.

Along with co-producer Jarrad K, Kelly gives the album a soft feel. His voice fits in well to the smoothed out Americana, and he does well not to give the record a countrypolitan lushness. With the music sounding just thick enough, it lets him find space for more subtle moments.

She brings her personal touch to the material and makes it her own. That can be to her advantage on such songs as Ruth Brown's "Book of Lies."

Her most spiritually and musically fulfilling work yet. ... Eno Axis is that rare album that feels timeless. One could imagine these songs emanating from the grooves of newly-discovered dusty 78s with McEntire's hypnotic, ghostly vocals cutting through the surface noise.

Yes, we'd rather be with Tuttle in person. This disc offers a pleasurable substitute until the real thing comes around again.

All over the album is modern pop production, but it never rings as plastic coming from this iteration of the Naked and Famous.

Freeze, Melt is a fitting soundtrack for the landscape pictured on the cover. These are spacious tracks to complement clear blue skies, not lipstick-smudged anthems for strobe-lit mega clubs. Listeners who haven't tuned into Cut Copy since Zonoscape may be surprised by their latest direction, but longtime fans who welcome change from record to record will find something to enjoy out here in the country.

The excellence of Twelfth tells us that this is really about the refusal of an ending. Old 97's are still truckin' after 27 years.

Music may not by itself cure all these ills, but the virtue of superb electropop is that it helps make them seem a bit less insurmountable.

The Lemon Twigs are a band whose influences and tastes run deep, and Songs for the General Public shows that they can wrap all these ideas into a beautiful, oddly consistent package.

Carpenter has been so consistent that calling Between the Dirt and the Stars her best album in however many years isn't particularly meaningful. Let's call it her best album since her last one.

The songs are shinier now. The dark clouds packaged with silver linings are more buffed and polished. That seems to be the result of having John Congleton (St. Vincent, Sleater-Kinney, the War on Drugs, Modest Mouse) produce and engineer the record instead of Bognanno doing everything herself.

The ambience is softer, the lights are dim, the rhythms echoing in the distance. While his first release, 1977's Vernal Equinox, just re-issued this year, might make the perfect place to start on a long journey with Hassell's work, this record will do just as well.

Eight Gates is an album of uncommon beauty, cracked and imperfect but ultimately a strong, cogent artistic statement. It's also a stark reminder of Molina's massive artistic skill and will likely cause most listeners to wonder what else he could have accomplished had he lived long past his brief 39 years.

Purple Noon isn't the mindless bliss of programmed Spotify algorithm music but the comfort of hanging out with an old friend.

Elverum has been recording the same song since he was a teenager in the mid-1990s, making tapes late into the night after his shift at the record store. Microphones in 2020 might be his apex.

While Candid's tracklist might be diverse on paper, it makes sense when considering the foundation of Whitney's sound: there's slow-burn R&B, rootsy Americana, and slightly-askew pop, all of it connected by the songs' reliance on melodic hooks. It's not hard to picture the band studying what makes these songs work during these sessions.

Unfollow the Rules is what critics might call "classic Wainwright". Possibly feeling that his return to the 21st century had to be a good one, he enlisted the venerable Mitchell Froom to produce the record, which has resulted in a lush and detailed sounding album, which both protagonists should be proud of.

Gift of Sacrifice is an engaging, even emotional, collection of songs.

All of the songs are creatively constructed and feature Anne's elastic vocals to suggest her different mental states.

The songs are lyrically delightful and melodically charming. It's unclear how autobiographical the lyrics sung in the first person are, and it really doesn't matter. These are songs about friends and lovers, good times and bad relationships, the freshness of youth and getting older, to which almost everybody can relate. Edwards' delightfully delivers her insights, even the unpleasant ones.

One of Prisyn's finest qualities is that it sticks to a precise ten tracks, no filler, no needless privileging of quantity over requirement.

All across this album, there are truly startling musical moments, unique ideas, and unexpected choices. Rival Consoles has taken the road less traveled by wiping the slate clean, and the result is a refreshing, disarming, brilliant collection of music.

VOICES employs music as a forum for activism, spreading sentiments of unity, tolerance, and compassion throughout a pensive, sweeping, and goosebump-inducing song cycle of drones, arpeggios, and keyboard figures. In the wake of a surge in anti-liberalism, oppression, bigotry, and bloody violence and unleashed in the middle of a global pandemic, it's a becalming rebuke and a heartening conduit for hope, reflection, and radiance.

Acoustic is a dream, a blissful installment in a career that continues to flourish.

Throughout the album, Morissette crafts a raw, often uncomfortable, narrative. In the portrayal of imperfection, Such Pretty Forks in the Road creates space to encounter profound disquietude.

One of its other endearing qualities is its ambience. The music sometimes seems to melt into the vocals so that you less have to listen to it than bathe in it. Maybe if you were to take issue with this record then you, might say that it's a little dull, in that all the songs sound very similar.

Good and evil, spirituality and hedonism, the ocean, and the desert. Whatever contrast fuel Datura4's creativity, the result is admirable and well-grounded.

Every Bad is fragile and robust, confidently flawed, and above all evidence that Porridge Radio is in their ascendancy. They are a real force to be reckoned with and a band with a strong chance of winning this year's Mercury Prize.

The EP is full of weird and catchy soundbites, such as "Understanding / As a weapon", "When we are hungry / We eat our ideas", and "Words can suggest my likeness like a painting" that draw one in to listen closer. But it is the entire package, the mix of sounds and language that captivates.

He's the voice-over narrator that one frequently hears in old Western movies or the theme song that spells out the action before we even witness it. Crockett understands that the differences between the white-hatted hero and the black Stetson-wearing outlaw all depends on one's perspective.

There's plenty of industrial techno that simply throws a beat on top of a bland melody, repeats the cycle over the course of an hour, and calls it a day. Bougaïeff applies meticulous care and a deft, trained ear to each track, and the results are marvelous.

The problem with A Hero's Death isn't that the band's changed, exactly; it's that the way they've changed makes them sound less like themselves and more like the many other young, angry guitar bands they're often lumped together with. The fact that they're unafraid to defy expectations so early in their career is a good thing. Hopefully, they'll realize it doesn't have to come at the expense of what makes them unique.

It will sound familiar to old fans even as Ramirez moves his creativity into new places. He's been a folk singer, an Americana artist, a synth-popper, and now a pop/R&B vocalist, but he hasn't sacrificed strength in any area. He's just added variety to a potent catalog.

The 16 tunes comprising her latest song cycle oscillate gracefully around piano keyboards and introduce a series of portraits of fictional and real-life characters (from a terrified child with a traumatized best friend to a ghost scrutinizing her enemies at her funeral) to complement her reflections on the social distancing of quarantine time.

The Balladeer will only help cement her reputation as one of America's finest musical artists.

On A Small Death, we listen to an artist come through years of struggle, but she doesn't just survive. Crain finds a new direction by looking in and doing hard work internally, and then she offers us her path.

Though All the Time indulges and dissects neuroses, it's not the sound of someone falling off the wagon. Rather, this lush and spacious collection of songwriting shows a hard-fought mental clarity, a deliberate effort to resist the instincts on display on "VV Violence" in pursuit of digging deeper into oneself. Intrusive thoughts flare-up, but they're allowed to wash over, eventually fading away. The payoff is immeasurable.

The new jazz of this century is taking more risks, and these players remind us that forward movement in any art is leavened with history. RoundAgain displays both, and, despite the literal suggestion of the title, it is more than a retread.

Violence in a Quiet Mind is undeniably sad yet also affirming when considered in its entirety.

Apocalyptic music for apocalyptic times.

Gaslighter is bold and incendiary, finding the Chicks reclaiming their relevance. Thankfully, the Chicks rejected silencing as Gaslighter reestablishes their penchant for vocalizing raw truths.

Authenticity -- along with dynamite production chops and musicianship, of course -- is irreplaceable, and makes Regresa a truly soulful synthwave release.

Even more than before, they run through a gamut of styles and sounds, sometimes gracefully, sometimes forcefully, but still, always seductively. Truly, they treat Wicked City as an unfolding of boundaries.

At times Agricultural Tragic may purposely sound old fashioned at times to suggest a more glorious past, but it is a distinctly contemporary album.

Mordechai, for all its use of vocals, really shows off the chops and interplay of the drums, bass, and guitar at Khruangbin's core. Even the songs that didn't grab me at first are a pleasure to listen to for the way Speer, Lee, and Johnson play together.

With In Fabric, they have concocted a fluid, fuzzy tapestry of sound, a fantastical daydream that's every bit as evocative and unnerving as the film itself.

Despite the blasé beginnings, Country Westerns delivers a musically rousting album that is at once catchy and gritty.

"Bittersweet" sets the theme of the album. The lyrics are matched by the music: sophisticated, stylish, and intimate. Even when La Havas raises her voice, she restrains herself from taking things to extremes. There is something smooth, soft, and refined about the material. It's tasteful without being slick.

Mong Tong presents a strong point of view on Mystery, one that often feels extreme. It's the technical skill the artists have with their instruments that gives flexibility to their powerfully realized vision and makes Mystery ultimately something that each person listening might understand in their own way.

The album is insightful, moving, and points the way to new artists and their experimental music.

Unencumbered by the weight of expectation or reinvention, Ware reclaimed her love for making music. In the process, she created one of the year's best records, the rapturous What's Your Pleasure?

XOXO succeeds at proving the band is more than an assemblage of talented players. As individuals and as a whole, the Jayhawks offer 12-plus compositions to help listeners who may be alone and scared by reminding us that we are all alone together.

Fans of Future Me Hates Me will be more than pleased with Jump Rope Gazers, their latest album. Every one of their back catalog's strengths is not only present but amplified.

Nelson shapes these 11 songs into a warm conversation enhanced by his skill as a singer.

Make no mistake, Price is her own artist. Nicks' recordings may have inspired Price, but the material on this album shows just how much she has developed as a unique and talented artist.

With their eclectic debut, Porridge has firmly placed themselves on the map as they confidently look for the artistic stardom of their post-punk idols.

Consistently exciting, always surprising, and full of soul, it is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable releases of the year to date.

The album feels more like a singer-songwriter album with country accents than many of Anderson's flat-out country records, which often contained songs not written by Anderson. Years is also missing the flat-out funny songs and rock 'n' roll tunes that usually pop up once or twice on Anderson albums. However, these differences do nothing to detract from the depth and poignancy of Years.

On Sunset proves that although Paul Weller is more than 40 years into his musical career, he sounds as fresh and inspired as ever.

Their latest 2020 full-length Tearless hones their typically obscure modes into their most precise concept yet. That is, the 10-track album aesthetically maps the failing Anthropocene. It offers limited, ambiguous answers through words, as expected, but it powerfully speaks about our divisive world through artistic and aural choices.

Our flaws are what make us more experienced, relatable individuals, so by learning to embrace the power in their weakest points, HAIM have created their best work to date.

Our Two Skins is an album full of emotions – sadness, happiness, hope, love, loss – and all of it deeply felt and straight from the heart.

Fantasize Your Ghost is warm, welcoming, and unpredictable, and Ohmme is a group to continue to watch as they tread ever new ground.

As Braids' approach to music-making and lyricism continues to explore new musical avenues, Shadow Offering shows some great promise as well as some lessons to be learned.

Rough and Rowdy Ways has little, if any, rock 'n' roll, but the sneer remains. Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits might vaguely peek in a little. Dylan has long lost interest in conforming to expectations, so it's no surprise that on a new record, he either satisfies all of them or none of them. He sounds like Dylan, whatever that is.

Don Bryant's third full-length LP You Make Me Feel is one that does just that. Feel the opening salvo of horns and salvation on "Your Love Is to Blame", soul-fired straight-right to the frontal lobe, the first of a one-two opening combination. The Octogenarian is laying down some of the hottest soul and blues on the planet.