An indelible quiet-storm jeremiad.

Tago Mago is the messy one, where ten-minute stretches of nightmare sound effects are followed by 20 minutes of caveman groove with Damo Suzuki's caveman babble to match.

"Sister Ray" comes across like a medley has so many shifts in speed, volume, and energy that it seems more like a medley than a concentrated take on the White Light/White Heat epic. It's the brightest gem among many in the collection, which consolidates all of the group's many faces into one cohesive opus.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters is definitely the product of cabin fever and occasionally feels claustrophobic but it’s an undeniably fascinating and complex collection of songs. It manages to refine many of Apple’s already good ideas and displays a distinct sonic evolution.

It's practically the entire history of the band crammed into a mock boombox. Designed by bassist Paul Simonon, the set incorporates retrospective essays, reprinted fanzines, a poster, dog tags, stickers, badges, and so forth; die-hard fans have probably sold off their existing Clash collections just to afford it.

The toughest record ever made by a former mainstream country artist.... If all the songs don't rival her finest work, the arrangements pull them up. [May 2004, p.105]

Lstenability is the difference between the majesty of this 79-minute behemoth on paper, and the songs it needs to succeed. So let's give it up to the astounding thicket of music here, the best-produced rap since the dawn of Drake.

This gorgeous 1970 folk-blues masterpiece teams a gnomic songwriter from Leeds with David Bowie's future guitarist (Mick Ronson), and Elton John's future producer (Gus Dudgeon) and string arranger (Paul Buckmaster).

The five-disc set breaks down the album to its building blocks, while the two-CD version provides outtakes and an edit of what the original final product might have been: part tribute, part cartoon, part dream.

Kendrick is at his best when he’s rapping through the abyss, and better when his flow pulls in rappers from times past.

A massive reissue box set has shed a glowing and loving light on this classic collection. ... Starting with the first disc, the remastered version improves the separation of the instruments and restores the warmth of the priceless harmonies that flowed from the original vinyl release. ... The box set is dominated by the acoustic wooden music on which the group built their reputation, but not surprisingly it is Stills who plugs in and cranks it up on several tracks. The tracks come in a bit jarring, but soon grab your ear.

Rough and Rowdy Days is a typically astounding, kaleidoscopic journey through the last half-century of American history. ... Dylan lapped us a long time ago. He’s still sprinting far ahead. And now he definitely can’t be caught.

Black Messiah has dozens of false starts, short stops, jagged breaks, and backmasked bits. Everything is a little warped. But somehow, the music never falls out of the pocket. And in that commitment to upholding the groove, we find warmth and evidence that we're still moving forward despite the assault on our senses.

A collection that is arguably a candidate for jazz album of the year: Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)). Branch likely would argue that this is both punk and jazz — or neither.

Wildflowers is very much a showcase for Petty as a solo artist. At that point in his life Petty was a songwriting machine and this reissue has the demos to prove it. ... He was still displaying extraordinary ambition and, most importantly, still speaking to and for his very large audience. ... Tom Petty had the miraculous ability to write songs almost anyone could identify with and enjoy. Wildflowers & All the Rest is the most revealing window we have into his process so far.

On this generous double album (with Lloyd on sax and flute, Jason Moran on piano, Larry Grenadier on bass, and Brian Blade on drums), he draws on impressionism, post-bop glory, and gospel-soul. Passages sparkle lyrical here, spark with friction there, always marked by depth and humanity, inventive and engaging and always illuminating.

Fantasy's production is loud and proud, but also poignant and gripping, always hinting at some looming danger.

It's indie rock as hearty and art-free as oatmeal, before the line separating it from the mainstream dissolved, before it became so...eclectic.

Those who wanted another full flamenco affair like El Mal Querer might be disappointed, but MOTOMAMI is an exciting detour where Rosalía flexes her seemingly limitless artistry across 16 tracks.

Noname leaves little to no room for filler on Room 25, conveying a wide breadth of compelling ideas within 35 minutes. ... Though it can require attention to detail for her words to sink in, she gives off a feeling of effortless and whimsical grace as she speaks from a place of stark honesty over live instrumentation. A complete one-of-one act who continues to grow in real time outside of the limelight, Noname makes a subtle yet strong statement for women providing alternatives to one-dimensional rap archetypes.

Nirvana's headlining gig at the 1992 Reading Festival looms infamously large because of (a) that amazingly creepy photo of Kurt getting wheeled onto the stage looking like Norman Bates' mother, and (b) the show was a mind-blower--sloppy indie rock as stadium-filling psychedelic punk.

Where [Time Out Of Mind] stared down heartbreak and mortality with somber melancholy, Love and Theft finds Dylan taking on those same themes loaded up with piss and vinegar. [Nov 2001, p.127]

Repackaging it all as a six-disc set (including remixes and alternate versions) is pretentious, extravagant, and romantic--U2, after all.

As a body of songs, Lemonade presents Bey at her most skilled and fully matriculated as a pop studio maven and conductor of the present’s preferred orchestral mode: creative file-sharing. ... Lemonade the album, however, is out to sonorously suck you into its gully gravitational orbit the old fashioned way, placing the burden of conjuration on its steamy witches’ brew of beats, melodies, and heavy-hearted-to-merry-pranksterish vocal seductions.

If you want a "black metal album" that serves dually as make-out music and a loneliness weapon, this is as emo and earnest as it gets.

As is often the case, we hear why certain iterations remained on the cutting room floor, but there are plenty of hidden gems in this vault-clearing effort. ... The fifth disc is composed of session outtakes and jams, and arguably is the most eclectic batch of obscurios (even if George gets a bit shouty on a couple of tracks). The jamming is more coherent than much of what was originally assembled on the third vinyl disc of “Apple Jam.”

Though the set's marathon length may keep casual listeners at a distance, fans of the eccentric characters, styles, and emotional arcs that compose Waits' oeuvre know there's no such thing as a "casual" Tom Waits listener anyway. [Dec 2006, p.103]

The flow is straight-up alien: chilled-out and frantic at the same time, slightly breathless. [Feb 2004, p.95]

Channel ORANGE feels like one long, moonlit, air-conditioned ride.

They're career musicians active since the '90s, but here, they actually sound excited again.

This is not garage rock; this is art rock. And that's a compliment. [May 2003, p.107]

Accept its odd phrasings and vast negative spaces and Lorde’s sophomore effort reveals itself dark and glorious. ... The smoky, slightly hoarse warmth of her maturing voice immediately sets the new material apart from rivals, and from her 2013 debut Pure Heroine.

Red (Taylor’s Version) is a highly rewarding listen for fans both casual and manic, bolstered by its excellent source material and Swift’s steady hand in rewriting her own looping history, with a few thrilling footnotes tacked on. ... Red 2.0 is another towering victory, which should be coveted by fans as Swift is surely already onto the next re-recording, furthering the worthwhile fight.

The quality of the set rises and falls with the quality of the band, from the formative fusion of soul, rock, and pop on their first three albums to the sudden, exhilarating sound of it all snapping into focus with 1969's Stand! and the gradual turn into 1971's claustrophobic, paranoid There's a Riot Goin' On and the nimble funk of 1973's underrated Fresh. From there, however, it all fell off just as quickly as it had risen, as Sly's genius dissipated in a downward spiral of drugs and delusion.

It's a completely exhausting listen, one that might prove easier to admire than enjoy. But at the very least, it's never anything less than fascinating.

The disc is fleshed out with studio chatter and intriguing early versions of songs that would appear on Abbey Road, the last album they recorded. Across the 57 tracks, we hear the band exploring music that would become timeless. Although “Get Back” is the only song that met the original criterion of being created from scratch to finish, there is much to enjoy.

Some songs fade out just as they're transforming into something else; others split into several movements, and poetic lyrics psychedelicize hefty topics like war and slavery. Even at 18 tracks, The ArchAndroid feels condensed.

Yet if Johnson seems uninterested in Nashville's warm-and-cuddly act, he agrees with its insistence on crackerjack songcraft, and that keeps The Guitar Song from hardening into tough-guy drudgery.

It’s a bold step forward for the now 20-year-old Rodrigo—an incisive unraveling of the chaos and disappointment of young adulthood, dating and fame with a side of sizzling with zingers and rage. It’s her Melodrama.

This is Lage’s statement, and as both player and composer he seamlessly connects Django Reinhardt to Joe Pass, Charlie Christian to Bill Frisell, all the way forging his own paths, his immense talents given voice by his joyously open spirit.

We Got It from Here could’ve been a self-referential nostalgia piece, a militant call to arms, or a Tribe and Friends-style fame flex, but it transcends such shallow concerns.

Sounds as informed by middle-American community theater, church choirs, and John Adams' American operas as any canonical "folk rock" it may resemble. [Jul 2005, p.102]

Carrie & Lowell is such a deeply, deeply personal statement from Stevens that its smallness sometimes shows. Though it’s easily his best and most powerful album since 2005’s Illinois, it never quite reaches the same sweeping highs of that epic concept album.

No Cities to Love spends much of its running time reminding us not what Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein, and Janet Weiss can do but what other configurations of players can't.

The money shot is still the original 13-track album, which stridently argues (and proves) the thesis that Uncle Tupelo were the Velvet Underground of '90s alt-country.

If it’s not Giant Steps, the album that type of casual Coltrane fan knows is A Love Supreme. Both Directions at Once isn’t definitely isn’t Supreme, but it enhances our understanding of how that group of musicians came to make it.

Aided by producers Organized Noize and Mr. DJ, Sir Lucious Left Foot is a monster of an album.

Untrue deepens and expands his emotional range. [Feb 2008, p.92]

A collaborative winner delightfully devoid of ego or pretense. Here, each voice works to create something greater than the sum of its parts, which is rare for supergroups.

In spite of all their stony sonic exploration, they never let Z turn into Zzzz. [Oct 2005, p.133]

This one is lithe and liquid, shy of a masterwork but still a fucking great record, top to bottom.

There’s a good balance here: classicist in the Lee Ann Womack neo-countrypolitan sense, yet neither stodgy, frail, nor nostalgic, but rather as thoroughly in tune with modern millennial existence as Taylor Swift.

2's developments in subtlety and humor.

Rounds is a more varied trip, with a darker vibe suggesting the influence of Hebden's labelmate Dan Snaith of Manitoba. [Aug 2003, p.118]

Since I Left You is so madly glad, it's demented. [Oct 2001, p.126]

Honey, sparkling yet subtly realized and constantly in motion, follows Robyn from the precipice of heartbreak into the club and onto the beach, and eventually toward something resembling redemption.

A kind, weird club crunker, Ecstasy references included. [Jul 2001, p.128]

There’s no particular secret to what makes RTJ4 the best Run the Jewels album and one of 2020’s best by anyone. It’s shorter and more acute.

On M3LL155X, she does seem to be growing stronger, testing the boundaries between light and unfathomable darkness, the breathtaking and the nauseating.

There is no note out of place or sample used without careful thought. The album asks the listener to unpack each second, find thrills in its surprises and layers, or simply get lost in the rhythms that will make one’s body jerk and jut out in ways not yet defined. It is the work of an exacting mind, one that should challenge other producers and musicians in the future.

From beginning to end, Caspian use their structural savoir faire to keep things moving, rarely giving in to passing fancies or individual showmanship.

A soundtrack nuanced enough for the rippling wit of Mann's lyrics.... These songs are layered and soft-spoken, to be sure, but also confident and rewarding of multiple listens. They are the sound of Aimee Mann growing as a songwriter. Yet the album also features the sound of Aimee Mann grousing about being a songwriter.

In shifting the lyrical focus away from one songwriter’s experience—exemplified by the previous hyper-emotional adrenaline rushes of “Drunk II” and “In Love Again”—some of the lovelorn charisma that made Mannequin Pussy so special has been lost. Nonetheless, the record’s disparate strands mostly hold together, a formidable document of their fire and fury—and one that’s needed more than ever.

Yes, there are a lot of elements put together here. The thing is, this is not about juxtaposition. It’s about synthesis and transformation.

Its long-awaited threequel (after a beloved detour for his Social Experiment crew’s Surf last year) hits less directly and challenges its listeners to engage with something downright lovelier than usual.

Big Fish Theory doubles the ambition of Summertime ’06’s corroded soundscape but condenses that breadth within a tight 36 minutes.

Where she once had a compelling songwriting portfolio, here she has a compelling mood. That mood’s best described as “content.” ... It’s not a belting voice, but it’s a remarkable instrument, capable of imbuing with winsome empathy songs.

A lot of Chris--and a lot of the coverage around it, to be fair--can seem reductive on first glance. But Letissier is one of the most nuanced songwriters working, and an inventive arranger.

The wealth of talent on A Seat at the Table is well-showcased--it’s among the most exquisite productions of the year, each track silken-smooth and replete with quietly virtuosic instrumental flourishes—and in service of a story of pain and healing.

They do it better [than the Postal Service]--catchier songs, chillier production and more sophisticated beats. [Nov 2004, p.118]

When I Get Home, on the one hand, is a portrait of Solange, following the success of A Seat at the Table, leaning to the point of falling into all the most pretentious aspects of that record. On the other, When I Get Home is a complex and fascinating exercise in reconfiguring a whole history of black music for the post-modern age. ... Yes, When I Get Home is overbearing in the way it wants to announce itself as art, but the album also makes that easy to forgive.

The unexpected triumph lies not in the spectacle of the singer raw-dogging her emotions, but in her total command of the anarchy that results.

In years past, Animal Collective have been cast as perpetual Peter Pans, forever stuck in childhood fantasias. But beneath the body-moving throbs and coruscating noises of Merriweather Post Pavilion, themes of domestic duty and devotion abound.

On Hell Hath No Fury, Clipse transform cliches into poetry. [Nov 2006, p.105]

She’s got a superb knack for melodies, even if it means swiping them from Radiohead (“I Miss You” is a blatant “Creep” rip, probably another country first) and maybe Jimmy Eat World (“Silver Lining”). “Dandelion” is so gorgeous that anything other than teenage notebook poetry would wreck its mood.

While the album tends to lull around its middle, folklore is far less concerned with its individual tracks than the greater, twisting conversation — the sort of hours-long, sanity-affirming chats that have become vital over these last four months.

Mercer staggers from self-doubt to self-righteousness with each song, concealing razor blades inside his caramel-apple anthems. [Dec 2003, p.133]

[An] all-consuming a ritual as rock music is capable of giving us, and also as viscerally, joyously life-affirming.

While the songs may lack the original’s wild-eyed narrative, they still contain some of his most rewind-worthy bars in years.

Divers sets itself apart by expanding into new genres and replacing the whimsy of her earlier material with maturity and solemnity.

While more sonically ambitious in moments with bits of synth and vocal effects, 30 mostly stays the course of past Adele works: undeniable melody over gimmicks, piano and guitar built to transcend.

A richly rewarding passage through the last five decades of American music history. [Aug 2005, p.99]

Like Gigi herself, it is a work of perpetual self-invention, an extended state of becoming. Have pity on the inquisitory birds, because it's impossible to look away.

It's rare to call anyone's 17th album urgent, but it feels like rocking fast and getting to the point never even 
occurred to Tom Waits before now.

Somehow, Pool transmutes fatigue and anxiety into a hallucinatory magick that’s far more cathartic than a jacuzzi soak or a glass of wine. It’s Radiohead doing Radiohead on a molecular level, via controlled burns. Their weary indifference to us becomes our transcendence.

Clark has carved out a space as a guitar hero in an era where that sort of thing is supposed to be over. That is impressive, even if the theatrics occasionally wear me out, and begin to feel like preludes for a visually dynamic live show. I’m much more attracted to MASSEDUCTION’s humbler moments, when you can better imagine the songs without the heavy arrangements.

Throughout Dear Science, TV on the Radio--which includes the rhythm section of bassist Gerard Smith and drummer Jaleel Bunton--flesh out Adebimpe's and Malone's ruminations with relentlessly inventive arrangements that make even familiar sentiments seem fresh.

The record plays with sonic extremes throughout, but VW stay comfortably in the preppy yet philosophical space they dominate—with the usual voice of God omnipresent in the chaos that is this record’s alpha and omega.

Sitek's layered sonics have grown more immense... and almost none of these songs charts a predictable course. [Jun 2006, p.81]

Though not as brash as Goblin, nor as polished as IGOR, Call Me delivers consistent performances—and the artistic leaps Tyler’s made over the past four years are palpable in the album’s most boastful and somber moments.

It doesn't excite with sonic innovation and lyrical reinvention, it excites by just sounding really, really, really good, and coming from a voice that, in more ways than one, we've never quite heard before. And that in itself should make it one of the most thrilling albums you hear this year.

Their sound is still thrilling, but it’s an album made by men who have watched lives crumble despite willful rebellion and are picking up the pieces to continue fighting, even as the cycle is doomed to repeat itself.

Harvey is the strange case for whom a return to straight guitar-bass-drums is risky--it might be mistaken for mere rock. But she has no mere in her. [12/2000, p.215]

Hooky, spare, and lush all at once. [Mar 2006, p.95]

These are 50-year-old songs written by a man in his early 20s performed by a handful of 70 year-olds come to life and, thanks to the incredible strength and musical bond of the E Street Band, they dovetail very well with the new material. ... The results are stellar. There’s really not a bad one in the bunch.

The Roots work hard and play hard on undun, but there's not enough pleasure to balance out Thought's business-like, consummately bland reading of the character who's supposed to bring the entire album to life.

Smith's intentions cry out from the album's every discordant corner--he clearly wanted to test himself, to unhinge parts of his sound. [Nov 2004, p.105]

From the rock of “Nganshé” to the roll of “Coco Blues,” two forward-looking cosmopolitans (plus friends) craft new directions in urban sound.