With five songs, Jack establishes himself as a well-schooled artist in musical history and a fine performer with his traditional adaptations.

The result is a rap album that fundamentally challenges the notion of what a compilation is.

It's sucker punch after sucker punch of syllable-swapping fun.

Face the Truth won me over by showing all the sides of Steve that drew me to him in the first place, along with a few new surprises.

Really, the only downfall of Bitter Tea is that it reeks of a transitional album.

Here, then, are 10 more steps on the path, 10 more keys in the song of life and death.

This release feels freer, though--not easier, necessarily, but delivered with a clarity of purpose not quite as muddled, consumption-wise, by sheer weirdness as was their previous LP, Tears Of The Valedictorian, for instance.

I think Keveikur will, for awhile, make a lovely soundtrack as I walk along the shore.

Shows Skinny Puppy at the top of their game once again.

This is remarkable music that proves the expansive possibilities present in one note. It feels symmetrical, but it’s not; it feels additive, but it’s not. Instead, Barbieri coaxes provocative, varied textures and melodies out of the continuous electric field generated by her synthesizer, and in doing so, she has made a drone record that feels very much alive.

Dear Science is all the more satisfying for providing a sense that the next leap will be just as rewarding.

Dangermouse's actions have breathed creative life back into a 35-year-old record while inventing a completely new work of hip-hop art.

Ultimately, Celestial Electric could only have been made now, and it stands on its own merits. As the future sons and daughters of generations come to pass, the genius of Shawn Lee will be widely recognized. With AM up front, Lee is like The Funk Brothers of Motown.

There are no weak tracks on Breakup Song, and the album unfolds at a natural pace. Just short enough to resist sagging at the middle, it also ends with a quartet of songs that are more radio-friendly than anything the band has ever done.

This is frivolous, immaculate music.

Public Strain feels stripped-down, simpler, and lolloping. It's not so eerie.

It’s a terrifying and hypnotic listen.

That Body ends so softly is itself a brilliant resolution, even though its obvious contrast with its first notes is more clever than I care.

This is a record that only Darnielle could pull off: in the hands of a less skilled writer and vocalist, it would fall flat or grate the nerves as so much hyperemotional posturing.

This split album breaks new ground for Akron/Family while continuing to affirm Michael Gira as a reputable singer/songwriter.

Cherish the Light Years is a breathless, versatile record from front to back, always oscillating between extreme shades of dark and light.

For those with autumn coursing through their veins, they’d do well to assuage their summer by keeping Dirty Beaches’ Drifters/Love is The Devil coursing through their headphones.

Rafts may seem conceptually like a retrospective or statement of purpose, and it holds up nicely as a portrait, but it should also be considered a refinement, wading further away from readymade images of the tropics and into the depth of the traveler’s imagination.

Because they sound so assured in this sound and its deviations, and because they carry ideas to exciting ends, I want to believe.

Halcyon Digest might be an easy listen, but it takes effort to digest. Brief moments of transcendence break through the album's cracked, depressed facade, though even those are fleeting.

Breaks In the Armor ranks among the best Crooked Fingers albums.

By the artist's own admission, Hallelujah! is an album that comes with an "expiration date," but the themes of civil disunity and political gamesmanship are likely to resonate with us long after the election results are settled, and Lucas' mixture of mordant wit and in-your-face rock will make this a record worth revisiting.

In many ways, All Eternals Deck, his greatest work since 2005's The Sunset Tree, is the perfect final album, fixated on death, legacy, survival, and an uncertain future.