On an album that, through its title, implies intimacy and solitude, Styles shows there are no four walls that can contain him.

The album might not become a rap classic, but it is easily one of the best rap albums of 2006, and maybe one of the top records of any kind to appear this year.

One of 2014’s most deftly sequenced, produced, written and performed albums.

It isn't all that much of a stretch to say that New Bodies is unlike any other record you'll hear this year, or even any other record the band themselves will create again, yet Tangents make catching the equivalent of an entire jar full of fireflies sound like second nature.

The rhythms never let up, no matter how intimate the material, suggesting the pulsating cadences of city life.

Music this rich and evocative should be heard by everyone, and one can only hope that more and more people will hear as Escovedo continues to write his own story.

Lyrically and conceptually they are scattered, but instrumentally and vocally, there is an open-mindedness that rends you. Ironically, in an album that talks about dying, there is a never say die attitude that latches on and never lets go.

You can feel Danny Brown flexing his rap muscles more than anything here, challenging himself to find new ways to describe the same things over and over. And, even if the returns are modest, he does succeed.

If El Mirador is Calexico’s way of building an inclusive bridge, they have ensured it has a strong foundation. Along the way, they offer a hearty nod to the city that made them and even introduce a few new musical tricks to the fold.

This album is undeniable proof that creating something with resounding beauty is the ultimate defiance of death.

It sounds as relevant, fresh, vital and modern as if it were recorded this year. It’s a classic in the making.

Hospice is a fully-realized and fully-functional concept album.

[Helm] doesn’t sing much on this release, but his drumming is full and strong. On this night, Helm and Mavis play with a group that consists of members of her traveling band and his house outfit, and together they keep the groove deep and wide. ... Staples’ rich and powerful voice is front and center on Carry Me Home’s dozen tracks. She sings with conviction whether she’s offering a tribute to the Lord, bemoaning the state of American life for the poor and disenfranchised, or laying down the law to a lover.

The Roots’ darkest, grimiest, most unrelenting and possibly most focused effort to date.

We Rose From Your Bed may be a live album, but it's much more investigative and surprising than most live offerings.

3.15.20 captures the tumultuous contemporary moment. As society contends with sickness, anger, and fear, Glover remedies the malignancy while fueling the anguish. 3.15.20 signals an important shift for Childish Gambino and secures the album's spot as one of the best of the year.

A strong album and potential watermark moment in both Skepta career and grime’s history.

Faith in Strangers is pretty outstanding, an eclectic, innovative, and cohesive addition to the ambient canon. Yet for all their bold gestures, most of its tracks remain beholden to the genre’s tradition of layered open-endedness.

From sparse DIY fragments to string-enhanced ballads and well-wrought pop, the material on Isolation Drills is as diverse as it is consistently compelling.

On the whole, I Don’t Want To Let You Down is quieter and more melancholy than Aimee Mann’s finest hour. But both records are beautiful, ever-relevant reminders that we can’t make meaningful connections until we admit to how much we really want them.

It’s an album that you’ll get immersed in, one with surprises more subtle than some of Stetson’s other work, but not necessarily less rewarding.

They are as thoughtful and provocative as they are productive, as angry as they are respectful, and music and community-building is their chosen mode of focusing tension.

If it indulges in itself too much in moments [with long-running songs], Tempest is still a great album, though not the late-career defining collection that early buzz claims.

So many reissues pile on a bunch of mediocre demos or alternative takes, but this version of this album is astoundingly playable from start to finish, over and over.

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.

What really distinguishes Apologies to the Queen Mary from just another ambitious rock album though, is the dynamic and accessible songwriting -- and the voices that propel those songs from the streets to the stratosphere.

A big part of these songs’ appeal is the youth-bruised character in the lyrics.

The more you listen to Until the Quiet Comes, the more you get the sense that you're only scratching the surface of how much is really going on with it. It's a tribute to what FlyLo has accomplished here that no matter how and how much you enjoy it now, Until the Quiet Comes only promises to keep on revealing more and more of itself.

Synthetic or acoustic percussion, Perspective is another release demonstrating that Jlin is a genre unto herself.

Foil Deer doesn’t quite sustain that edginess all the way through, like when the meandering guitars and wandering wordplay fade on the slower moments of “Zig” and the out-of-steam closer “Dvrk Wvrld”. But there’s enough on Foil Deer to show that Sadie Dupuis and Speedy Ortiz can be the captain and the boss of this generation of indies.

It's great, catchy as hell, and bristling with retro rage and vitriol.

The resulting product is not only the best album of the band's career, but an album that very well may shape the future of the genre, influencing an entirely new generation of bands just as they did nearly a decade ago.

Cleverly and neatly interwoven to further the sense of disorientation, Skeleton is a concentrated blast of strangely accessible noise that is both bracing and energising.

On The Common Task, Horse Lords packs a great deal of variety and a seemingly endless amount of possibilities into 41 minutes. It's the sound of a group that is infinitely curious. This isn't your uncle's moody, downbeat krautrock – it's a breathless celebration of the power of band dynamics.

Lambert frequently sings in the first person, so we identify her with these restless women. That makes for deliciously gossipy fun reading between the lines about her marriage and divorce. It doesn’t matter if Lambert is truthful or therapeutic in her songs. Her ability to express her feelings as if they convey some profound truth counts more.

The singers not only know what to do, but they know how to build songs into performances. The surrounding musicians are tight and the production brings everything to life.

Here, the percussive sounds imply power and control in response to oppression. I will not be quiet. I will not be scared. I will let you know I am here, they say. But the melodic sounds are unstable, colored by fear and uncertainty.

Gargoyle is as confident and assured as anything Lanegan has released. It stands up alongside his best work and pushes his method in a few new directions, without trying to break from the paradigm.

Wildflower proves the group hasn’t lost what made them special, and with any luck, that next disc will be showing up in a time period that’s no longer than, say, a decade.

It may be the album Idlewild was born to make, but despite some spectacular moments, its momentum wanes a tiny bit as it gets closer to the end.

Good stuff, Beastie Boys. Shall we check back in three to five years, then?

Already the standard-bearer for today’s brood that includes Abney, Caleb Caudle and M. Lockwood Porter, Moreland proves there’s nothing sanctimonious about singing the truth on High on Tulsa Heat.

Ex Eye’s self-titled debut is an intriguing amalgam of black metal, progressive rock, minimalism, and free jazz while not sounding of a piece with any representative artist from those genres.

The Prodigal Son, with its blues, R&B;, and black gospel, is a more varied and engaging venture [than his 2015 tour with Ricky Skaggs].

Without any context, White Men sounds like it could have been made at any time in the last few decades, it simply defies general tags (both in time and genre).

Visions of Us on the Land may not be the most surprising of the trilogy, from a listener’s standpoint, but it is certainly the most assured.

Moor Mother is up to the task, and Black Encyclopedia of the Air – while filled to the rafters with soulful grooves – is a testament to determination in the face of oppression.

This album, with its pristine interiors, captures the intimacy of her trauma perfectly. It’s as immaculate as a hotel in a JG Ballard novel, and just as bloody scary.

Sour, for the most part, is a pop album that dips its toes into the alt-pop and bedroom pop subgenres, specifically spending most of its time in the latter. ... Rodrigo's lo-fi deep cuts that were made in the shadow of "Drivers License" can sound a bit repetitive. Her craft as a songwriter is especially evident on tracks like "Enough For You", "Happier", or "Hope Ur Ok", but the acoustic complexion these songs were going for could have benefitted from a bit more background noise.

Skying is the work of a band that's living up to the hype, just after the fact. And considering the trajectory that Skying shows they're on, maybe the Horrors won't just ultimately match the expectations of them, but maybe top them.

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.

This is such a beautiful and heart rendering album, Randy Newman would be proud of these songs, Martin Rossitor deserves a reappraisal of one of the best songwriters of his generation.

Lisbon might leave plenty of listeners unsure what more the band has to offer us in the coming decade, but on its own there's little to be disappointed with.

It’s defiantly, proudly, and gorgeously organic, in a different universe from today’s processed digital pop.

With Wine Dark Sea Holland has put her own enduring stamp on American music.

Through her vulnerability and strength, she offers her listeners a path to realistically embrace the cycle of ache and joy in relationships, all within the confines of what might be one of the finer albums to come out of Nashville this year.

Millsap’s intense delivery keeps even the more pedestrian songs from getting tiresome. Millsap’s smart musical choices on this album bolster his reputation as one of the fresh young voices in the Americana genre.

Eye Contact solidifies the group's heavyweight majesty. Gang Gang Dance injects pop music with new life, leading the quest for newer sounds from ageless sources and mixing it all together in a critically irresistible way.

Overall Scheherazade is a masterful step forward for Freakwater with an eye on its influences and history. Its songs grapple with duality, with a balance between muddy, dirty roots music and clear, split open beauty, and the album balances itself so well in that regard.

What follows on Beyondless, are the combined senses of accomplishment and satisfaction. They've made a lot of music in a short period of time, a recipe that often inflicts chaos and confusion. This time, Iceage feels as if they've arrived and the stage is all theirs.

Free Again: The 1970 Sessions shows Chilton working in top form in a wide variety of genres; it's as good as anything Chilton recorded-including his Big Star albums.

If Dead proves anything it’s that Young Fathers are one of the most versatile acts in hip-hop today, they’re excellent rappers, producers, and singers. This is just their proper debut. Expect excellent insanity in the future.

The lyrics are complex, but close inspection illuminates the poetry within.

Throughout, interest is held with dynamic and textural changes, more than an inherently riveting musical idea. But the album’s much more than just stoned jams.

For all it's blunt-force heft and energy, Grinderman 2's true success comes in the feeling that, for all its size, the band is still holding something back.

This wry examination of life and love and growing older might be some of his best work yet.

For lovers of all strands of Americana -- not to mention those who revel in the effortless performance of a truly unique singer -- Escondida is a little treasure, and a beguiling addition to any collection.

Sung Tongs is an inch more sublime than anything they've done previously, with more phenomenal use of their manic choir of Motown vocals, less scattered, clique-ish dissonance, and more sideshow bubblegum-pop freaking out on god-knows-what powerful substance.

Review 1: <A HREF="http://popmatters.com/music/reviews/m/modestmouse-goodnews.shtml" TARGET="_blank">Unequivocally great, a logical progression in style and scope.</A> [score=90]; Review 2: <A HREF="http://popmatters.com/music/reviews/m/modestmouse-goodnews2.shtml" TARGET="_blank">A record that manages to balance a swarm of new ideas with their most steadfast and well-loved tricks.</A> [score=80]

On 1988, Blueprint delivers a guide to a sparkplug of a year, capturing its essence whilst feeling bang up to date.

While the LP is smart and funky as hell, it distinguishes itself because it's part of a series.

Uproot oozes self confidence, with effortless mixing of disparate source material. The hour-long record does not seem to run nearly this long, due to the economy of ideas and excellent pacing.

Whatever its flaws, Hidden stands as a bracingly original statement from a band entirely too new to have this many good ideas. Come December, it may not make any "best of" lists, but it's certainly one of the most fascinating albums we're likely to see this year.

Eyes on the Lines functions as the ideal soundtrack to an afternoon spent getting lost.

On Symbolic Use of Light UMFANG has created a thrillingly live and raw techno album with the emphasis placed on capturing the moment. From the sophisticated way in which she layers sounds to the way in which she transitions between them, UMFANG demonstrates a profound understanding of the subtleties that define techno.

Minimalistic on its outlook and yet with a rich instrumentation, traditional on both its inclusion of classical and folk influences, and still forward-thinking and experimental. It is an act that has been standing between these worlds, bridging them together better than ever in their most potent work yet.

It's actually the antithesis of Father John Misty: something that could be explored endlessly for depth and nuance but could also just play happily in the background to please multiple generations on a long family road trip.

Musically, it is an often breathtaking listen as she straddles various genres with consummate ease. It serves as a dazzling celebration of her cultural and musical heritage that will resonate for years to come.

A lavish, deluxe six-disc version of this highly misunderstood and absolutely essential entry in the R.E.M. canon.

hile not every cut is a winner, there are plenty of fine performances to be found. This is sophisticated and smooth Philly Soul from the genre’s most successful period.

The confidence and trust they have as a group is manifested in the songs. Flying Dream 1 also trusts its listeners, asking us to hold a quiet space for the music and let it reveal itself over time. It requires a tiny leap of faith to “step into the air” and fly.

By challenging himself to make the most out of his new recording environment, he has refreshed his sound and ended up with his most engaging and accessible work to date. It is a wholly immersive triumph that draws you in tight as few albums do.

Wounded Rhymes has her belting her heart out over Yttling's maximalist arrangements to thrilling effect.

It'll be hard to find a more awe-inspiring album this year than Fear Fun. This is a record that deserves a spot in just about any contemporary music collection.

Majesty Shredding is a great reminder of the legacy that the band had long since cemented. With his typical aw-shucks swagger, McCaughan himself puts it best: "Yeah, we're back where we belong."

Fortunately, while the result of Redman’s “double-trio” experiment lands well short of revolutionary, the idea and intention go a long way to making the listener hear the rest of Compass more acutely, searching for any other creative tidbits of which we now know Redman is surely capable.

Thirty years removed from its original release and sounding as though it could have been created at nearly any time during the intervening years, L’Amour will no doubt continue to prove a fascinating paradox for years to come.

placeholder is an album that never gets stuck but also never feels less than thoroughly cohesive. That is a hard trick to pull off and Hand Habits does it with consummate aplomb. It felt like Wildly Idle would be difficult, if not impossible, to follow, and placeholder feels similarly devastating and accomplished.

As a platform for further discussion and as a funky, hip shaking, unifying electronic album, Significant Changes is a triumph.

While commercial country radio today may find the latest Loveless record boring, you can blame this on country music’s lying, cheating, cold, dead-beating, two-timing, double dealing, mean mistreating, loving heart. Loveless still kicks butt.

Be is Common getting his "grown man" on.

The cause is this beautiful, intricate album. It's no mere intellectual exercise, because as compelling as these ideas are, they are overshadowed all the way through by the deep feeling and sense of discovery in these songs.