Blue Weekend is a stunning return and one that should cement Wolf Alice’s reputation still further. As ever it’s an eclectic yet cohesive collection of songs that demonstrates maturity, and an unerring ability to craft beautiful, heartfelt genre-defying music full of warmth, depth, and emotional intelligence.

Illinois is not nearly as Schoolhouse Rock as it sounds, and the songs themselves are sincere, inventive and messily joyful. [#10, p.107]

As always, Stevens' precise details makes his songs ring through with truth. [Apr - May 2015, p.87]

Brilliance notwithstanding, it's really best to experience No Cities to Love on its own terms, rather than by comparison to past classics: as a loud, exciting, barely-half-hour rock record. Its simplicity is matched by its richness and vitality.

From a 1972 Carnegie Hall show to a spring ’74 performance with Tom Scott & The L.A. Express and an appearance the following September at Wembley Stadium, Mitchell reveals herself here during each period as a fascinating artist who was well worth returning to year after year, as she continues to be.

Bridgers is ironically at her best on Punisher when she finds herself the most disoriented.

Mitski has not only created her most cohesive, accessible, musically diverse album yet, but also an arresting work of substantial beauty.

In every sense, it is a union of its creators’ art and voices. It’s an album in conversation with their EP, with their inspirations, and with their solo work, resulting in one of the rare cases where the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

For all of the purposefully oblique subject matter, the album never once feels indirect or opaque. ... His voice is multiply expressive, both in the way that a singer/songwriter’s voice in its lyrical accent would be, and in the way that someone like Daniel Lopatin’s production would expectedly turn a voice into beautiful putty.

The variety of Frahm's career is captured with selective care, but Spaces' true achievement is transcending the summary nature of live records.

It's music that wholly deserves to be spoken of in the same reverent tones reserved for canonized '80s guitar-pop legends, from R.E.M. and The Smiths to top-tier Kiwis, The Clean.

For the NEU! Tribute, the duo’s material finds itself in good hands. The National provides the atmospheric “Im Glück” with a loose, easy rhythm for reconsidering the song’s possibilities. Yann Tiersen and IDLES intriguingly reframe “Lieber Honig” and “Negativland,” respectively, while Mogwai’s remix builds a new level of tension into “Super.”

Z is the point of light where My Morning Jacket loses any stereotype or easy niche, and instead becomes a huge, absolutely necessary rock band. [#11, p.108]

On a whole, St. Vincent might not be quite as distinctive or as audacious as Strange Mercy. Clark, however, has found a consistency which is rare among artists, stemming from the confidence she has in her voice and vision. It's enough to make song after song worth savoring. [Feb/Mar 2014, p.76]

Whether it's rage or just two guys trying to make each other laugh with dark humor, RTJ2 stands tall in a year of weak hip-hop.

One of the essential electronic platters of the year. [#5, p.106]

Even for fans of his debut, the soft-spoken, acoustic Home Again, Kiwinuka's latest features some of the DNA of that record as well—albeit in light of his new-found electric, sharper side.

The record is as refreshingly undated as the moment it first exited the pressing plant. [Dec 2014, p.69]

One of 2006’s great works. [#15]

What’s Your Pleasure? is a glass of red wine and a cigarette; That! Feels Good! is a shot of tequila and a line of…something stronger. ... It takes a steady hand to be as over-the-top as That! Feels Good! and still retain an air of class, something Ware manages to do almost impossibly. She saves the full poignancy of her vocals for just the right moment.

The shrugged shoulder irony of real life places such as the Adam & Eve sex shop or a Southern-themed amusement park give Rat Saw God its substance. The slurred lines of dual guitars and pedal steel that run rampant over most of its course provide the PICC line to serve it up to you.

Woods paints striking portraits of each legend, bearing in mind the times, tradition, and discipline they rose from, distilling them to their essence.

RTJ4 is the most potent, well-delivered incarnation of their work, released amidst the most essential moment for it. The album is truly Run the Jewels’ best album to date, without a weak performance or lackluster track to be found.

Not only does the original record sound incredible, the bonus tracks are revelatory.

The album is a complicated picture of Swayama’s past, present, and future. It is rare to see a debut album with such a fully realized voice and vision behind it. What’s more, she exorcises her personal demons amid some of the year’s best dancefloor-filling pop.

An immensely gentle album that needs to be taken as a whole, tracks with titles like “Duet for Guitar and Rain” or “Bells Pt.’s 1, 2, and 3” deliver on their descriptions as tender transitions between Sprague’s clear headed observations.

One of Just Mustard’s strengths is that no single strength attempts to outshine the others. David Noonan’s and Mete Kalyoncuoglu’s guitars don’t shred or solo, they swarm and swirl. Robert Hodgers Clarke’s undertowing bass lines rattle the foundations that Shane Maguire’s insistent drumming create.

Rapturous. ... The album is an extended meditation on the vagaries of fortune through regeneration, but for the listener, the experience is pure bliss.