A Chaos of Flowers marks a productive new chapter in their trajectory, sure, but above all, it represents the very best of what Big|Brave have to offer: emotion in desolation, destruction in grace.

What sets the album apart from what they’ve churned out the past 18 years is its ability to channel exactly what has always made them great, while injecting a renewed sense of genuine musical creativity that finally sticks it to the tired notion that all they needed to do was play around with a new gimmick.

The Tortured Poets Department is a complex album to even perceive because there is an oversaturation of surrounding context. If you whittle it straight down to what matters, however – the music and the lyrics – it’s an excellent record despite its tremendous length and monotonous tempo (discounting ‘I Can Do It With a Broken Heart' here, which is an absolute bop). There are beautiful instrumental accents and interesting production flourishes throughout, and Swift continues to illustrate lyrical growth even though it has always been her strong suit.

Overall, Dark Matter ended up as the most interesting and energized record since Backspacer. It seems pushing the band to work fast in the studio yields better results. Of course, most of the material here sounds familiar, but the members feel once more invested in it.

It’s a nostalgic release full of wisdom, like hearing from an old friend, providing the kind of evening fireside soundtrack which hits just right in a particular mood. If nothing else, it’s a marvel how much emotion Knopfler, getting on in years, can still eke out of those guitar strings.

There are those moments, here and there, when patience isn’t quite rewarded. .... The package as a whole however, those moments when the Pit of Language returns intoned into the drone and choir of Tar & Feathers, those moments where all of the haunted brilliance of Neubauten are on full display again, that same soul that made the subterranean abscesses of the bloated, dying West its echo chamber and forced it to confront itself.

It’s a humble but heartfelt effort which manages to tap into a font of cosmic beauty, and a delightful gift brought to you from these aging rockers.

When Only God Was Above Us isn’t shattering glass ceilings, it’s delivering some of the most beautiful but disquieting indie-rock in recent memory.

In its most proficient moments, Older is heartbreaking, raw, confessional, melodically ethereal, and outright fun in flashes. These moments definitely outnumber the record’s more unfocused offerings.

In the end, Interplay feels like something of an incoherent mess if looked at with a microscope, but zoom a bit further out and it maintains enough of a “vibe” to feel at least somewhat cohesive, while also being a fun listen which should be even more enjoyable as the sun comes out and the temperature climbs.

Even if she is done splaying out the furthest boundaries of her sound, one can hardly complain that she's doubling down on the qualities she's always excelled at when she sounds as refreshed and refreshing as she does here.

Many of these tracks do just straight up bang on an instinctual level. But in those times that this does work, when this really gets down to being something that ignites the mind and the heart, it does so very much in spite of its intellectual and artistic veneer, and not because of it.

With Heaven :x: Hell, what Sum 41 has given us is a true grand finale, and it's one worth reveling in.

This is a good album for a band as deep into their career as Elbow, but it’s also worthwhile even without that qualifier. The band aren’t getting any younger, but they are getting wiser and, dare I say, more fun.

Back with a bang so refined it’s positively deafening, BLUE LIPS is an intriguing, befuddling, unique collection of songs that signals the start of a new era for ScHoolboy Q: the man who survived the CrasH.

Compared to its highly-praised predecessor, Bright Future might come up just short, brought down by its occasional unevenness in quality and weaker coherence as a full listen, but this latest album contains a multitude of Lenker’s finest work yet, while suggesting her reign at the top of indie-dom might be only just beginning. This is a triumphant work from an ascendant artist, and, oh yeah, also one of the finer folk albums of recent years.

Another stylistic pivot in the future could prevent Waxahatchee from settling into too predictable of a groove, but even if she stays the course, it's clear with Tigers Blood that she's discovered a sustainable winning formula.

It's a solid album by anyone's standards, and a real testament to Four Tet's unassuming mastery that he folds such a range of stylings together without any individual one going out of its way to announce itself as such (we'll forgive the geetar).

WORLD WIDE WHACK is just another example of how Tierra Whack is so good at carefully removing the barriers between vocal performances, genres, and even emotions that it always ends up looking like no trouble at all.

The group tried something different here and it really works. Overall, ROCKMAKER stands as one of the group’s most cohesive LPs in a long time, automatically making it easier to follow through and digest.

While it certainly has a few weaker tracks, the core of the record is truly breathtaking to behold. It’s a moment of self-discovery and commitment to growth that eschews the lavish tendencies of Star-Crossed for something more personal, honest, and vulnerable.

His mastery of synths and the quality of his songwriting are apparent, but there also lies some regret that the album doesn't feature more vocals - Adigery's charisma and electricity sure helped Topical Dancer in that regard.

If Firepower was Judas Priest proving that they’ve still “got it”, Invincible Shield is them making sure no one else will steal their crown. Plenty of veteran classic metal acts are kicking around to this day, but none of them (not even Iron Maiden) still sound as vital, fresh, or vibrant as Judas Priest.

Norah Jones may be the same artist who sang “Don’t Know Why” on the beach 22 years ago, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t taken steps to advance or update her core sound. Visions is solid proof of this.

It's a shade overlong and overuse of certain choruses dampen the calculated effect of a few songs, but these flaws are barely noticeable when set against how gut-punch raw and earnest the writing is.

While the 80s are a well-trodden playground, Girl with No Face proves there are infinite ways to make old ideas new by contrasting them with the now.

Lots of artists aspire to create an album which matches the zeitgeist (easier said than done), but Mountainhead comes a lot closer than most. With its paranoid and sinister belly coalescing with the joke-y casualness of its exterior, this is yet another successful record from one of the quintessential bands of the internet age.

The Pineapple Thief remain stuck in a rut, delivering more or less the same record as before. Maybe going metal or full prog will yield better results in the future. Unfortunately, It Leads to This turned out only marginally better than the previous LP. They can do better, so a more drastic change of direction might be helpful next time.