Crack-Up joins the ranks of albums like Homogenic, OK Computer and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot—works by eclectic, established artists who decided to push boundaries even further and subsequently produced masterpieces. Fleet Foxes’ latest album will likely be added to best-of lists for years to come and championed as their knotty, complex magnum opus.

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.

An incredible album from a band that continues to redefine its boundaries.

Hecker is bolder with Konoyo, but the themes he explores in that negative space are darker and more oppressive, presenting the missing link between Virgins and Love Streams. And that is what Konoyo showcases: the ability of Hecker to once more reinterpret himself.

Years is a compact, straight to the heart (and feet) record. Every song connects and no notes are wasted. It's a new country classic, plain and simple.

In their catalog, though, no album stands out more than Satan Is Real, their 1959 masterpiece that outlines and encapsulates the fragile fine lines of good versus evil, and spirituality versus the mundane.

Prewitt doesn't waste a second of Three's near-hour length, filling it with an affinity of bouncy rhythms and pop goodness, in turn eclipsing the output of many of his underground rock contemporaries.

With A Different Ship, Here We Go Magic have clearly and undeniably arrived at the port of entry to indie rock's pantheon of top shelf acts – an utterly shattering release that anyone who likes forward-thinking music must have.

By shifting the focus from the percussion to the melodic elements, the complexity has simply been made more palatable.

This reissue of A New Way to Pay Old Debts tacks on the two-song "High Wasted" 7-inch and four previously unreleased tracks from the original recording sessions, making this scuzz-fuzz journey through the dirt and clay beneath the Mississippi Delta even more essential than it was upon its initial run through the experimental woodlands.

Far from being a one-note repetition of life in the Big City, Malin's production has turned The Heat into a multifaceted rock and roll onslaught.

While Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot of Love are considered by many to be forgettable aberrations in an otherwise sterling discography, there are even more who realize that this was a crucial period in the career of one of music's most exciting and revolutionary artists. Trouble No More provides plenty of evidence of this.

Their finest and most expansive collection to date, and one of the finest pop offerings of 2009, this album takes all their strengths--haunting and sublime.

Kids See Ghosts will be remembered as the climax and most enduring record of Ye Season, one that keeps giving with each and every replay.

The best album the Beasties have put out since Paul's Boutique.

Gardens & Villa have granted themselves a new lease on their artistic life, and have produced one of the year’s best rock albums.

Unlike the overstuffed Silver or Seacaucus, The Meadowlands manages to reveal the expanse of the Wrens' vision without trading on their intimate charms.

<A HREF="http://popmatters.com/music/reviews/s/spoon-gimmefiction.shtml" TARGET="_blank">Review #1:</A> The sound of Gimme Fiction is as ideal a conceptualization of the band as could be imagined. [score=100]; <A HREF="http://popmatters.com/music/reviews/s/spoon-gimmefiction2.shtml" TARGET="_blank">Review #2:</A> "Gimme Fiction" has a sense of mischief and curiosity that renders it more consistently varied and just plain more listenable than "Moonlight". [score=80]

While See You Around is their official full-length record the trio sounds seasoned, their interactions effortless and natural. Each member shines at what they do best without sounding overbearing or sacrificing the ensemble's clarity.

Banga serves as a glorious refresher on Smith's talent as musician while also upholding her reputation as a writer.

There is a profound sense of joy on the album. A loud, often frenetic, intense joy but joy all the same. The album extols the virtues of inclusion, of community, of love.

A deeply personal album yet one open to interpretation, by bearing the weight of such gravitas Porterfield and Field Report have crafted a near-masterpiece of pain and triumph within the deckle-edged leaves of Marigolden.

Woods, herself, a poet, singer, activist, and teacher, casts Legacy! Legacy! as a beacon for a type of self-empowerment informed by the predecessors who built and shaped culture.

Woman King is, in essence, the sound of a songwriter with an intuitive grasp on his craft, swiftly acknowledging the studio's crucial supporting role in his songs' structure and rearing.

The Craft stands as an example that it is possible to successfully branch out while keeping the roots of your culture alive.

Lamar concentrates the ideas of hip-hop narrative and nonfiction into such a form that's shocking for how simultaneously accessible yet full of depth it is.

Bluenote Café is essential Neil Young, and further evidence that Young’s ‘80s work has more value than many fans and critics would expect or admit.

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.