Not a sequel as much as the photographic negative to Texas Sun, the EP is a collaboration that works best when it accents each group, finding something neither touch on their own. It can struggle for takeoff, but at times it channels Chaka Khan & Rufus in a hidden wink, a kiss, and the smoothed edges of a desert night.

There’s real heart and soul on this record – the only problem is that you have to get past the cool facade, and have some patience, to find it.

Even within such historical constraints of tradition, the group manages to find new flavors to express, new combinations to offer. The collective’s preservation of our musical past continues to make time skiff and point the way to the future.

Classic Objects is an album of stories and meditations. Jenny Hval treats them like classic objects, ones that deserve care when handled. Yet these objects are far from fragile—bubbling synth pulses and rolling percussions evolve into climactic crescendos and back again.

If My Wife New I’d Be Dead is a promising debut from an artist who certainly knows how to craft a tune.

Summer at Land’s End, further establishes him and his home recording nom de plume as one of the best “bands” right now in this style. Which is to say shimmering, jangly, and well, kind of “summery” indie-pop if one associates the season with wistfulness and longing and not just cars, beaches, and barbeques.

It’s the sheer power of her songwriting and her intricate arrangements that leave you dazzled and in no doubt that Yanya is a songwriter and musician of immense talent for whom the sky’s the limit.

With The Dream, we see a band dig deep into themselves and mature as artists.

Overall, this is a stunner. Kudos to Superchunk for making another terrific record in the middle of a global pandemic.

Unfolding like a rock opera as it traverses the length and breadth of one man’s entire life from the Polynesian Isles to the Tasman Sea and back, angel in realtime is a bold and epic expression of identity, loss, and our need to believe in something greater than ourselves—in the divine—that angels do walk among us, albeit flawed but worthy of second chances.

Though the album might not have any kind of clear fully-formed artistic mantra, it does offer a thrilling, acute feedback loop of a band rapidly reinventing and evolving. In that light, speculation whether Empath will end up as beloved iconoclasts like Deerhoof or something decidedly bigger seems rather moot.

Squeeze tears you down and gives you a hug at the same time, which is no doubt disorienting, but certainly as Ashworth intended. [Dec 2021 - Feb 2022, p.153]

Trupa Trupa continue to be a truly engaging listen, though admittedly you must be in the mood as they are inhabiting such a twisted and paranoid sound, inspired in no small part by the dangerous shift towards fascism by the racist and homophobic Law and Justice party currently ruling Poland.

The Tipping Point is clean, respectfully confident, and actually has a purpose that justifies its subtle grandiosity. [Dec 2021 - Feb 2022, p.154]

Constantly interesting, even exciting in many places, it reaffirms the long-held consensus that these two musicians have stardust in their fingertips. ... And whilst it may not be instantly identified as their best record, the longer you sit with it, the more deserving of that title it becomes.

This solid effort is entirely worthy of whatever acclaim it receives—and it should garner plenty—offering an honest spoonful of hesitantly optimistic sugar to kill the aftertaste of some particularly bitter medicine.

The 10 tracks on Lucifer on the Sofa show off a leaner and meaner Spoon with a more mature sound that is broader in scope than past efforts but just as ferocious and cracking.

Informed by darkness, Everything Was Forever nonetheless strives to find light where it can. The six-piece enters its third decade as a band with a truncated name, but what hasn’t changed, as Sea Power sails into a new chapter, is its indomitable creative spirit.

Heterosexuality feels like the most completely realized of Bailey's post-ratchet records. [Dec 2021 - Feb 2022, p.154]

Forfolks is a galaxy in eight tracks—these songs orbit each other wordlessly, leaving near-tangible tracks of light in their wake.

The band's covers of covers all take on lives of their own, at times appearing as nebulous bluegrass cacophonies and then, in almost the same breath, crystalizing into stunningly harmonious folk arrangements worthy of the record's storybook-like façade. [Dec 2021 - Feb 2022, p.53]

If Dragon ends up being a fan favorite just for the fact that it has the most songs, the most sounds, and the ability to make you notice a new favorite each time through, that's a perfectly fine way to view it. [Dec 2021 - Feb 2022, p.150]

As with all five of its predecessors, See Through You is a dish best served whole, as long as one is prepared for some unexpected moments. [Dec 2021 - Feb 2022, p.150]

This is an instrumental, blown-out, prog-rock tour de force that shows why CAN were and still are considered to be one of the best and perhaps one of the most influential groups that came out of Germany's incredibly vibrant psychedelic music scene in the late 1960s. [Dec 2021-Feb 2022, p.152]

Things Are Great is Band Of Horses' most intimate outing in over a decade, its plainspoken sincerity and artistic intensity keeping it consistently affecting. [Dec 2021 - Feb 2022, p.150]

If MAGDALENE was an encapsulation of FKA twigs’ internal storm, CAPRISONGS is the sunrise after the fact, brilliant and vibrant as ever.

Those unfamiliar with Billy Talent’s solid brand of high-octane alternative rock can easily start with Crisis of Faith, while longtime fans of the band will be delighted at the experimentation that pushes the band beyond their comfort zone while still remaining fresh and polished.

It's hard to be anything but impressed with what a cohesive, intentioned work they’ve created as a result. Taken on their terms, this is easily one of the most richly rewarding projects of 2022 so far.