Summer has created a phenomenal album that is top-tier confessional R&B. Every painful angle of relationships is explored right to the bone and her blunt honesty is wrapped in boppy production and satisfying melodies. She may still be over it, but listeners will not be over this project for a long time to come.

Not everything on evermore truly works or lands satisfyingly, but it’s all part of a creative process that is producing some of her best and most surprising work to date. And considering portions of the world are still dealing with lockdown and are isolating ahead of returning home for Christmas, it still certainly feels like the best “worst time” to be making music like this.

It is Depeche Mode’s most self-aware album in a long time – and their most memorable. At 50 minutes and 12 songs, the album is lean and humble, paying respect to the band’s past while also returning to the tension that made their best material so enjoyable.

The resulting album is one that is deceptively simple, a send-up to the aggressive cultural awareness of old-school rap on the surface, filtered through a hundred different post-apocalyptic scenarios, musical and lyrical.

Ocean Roar [is] a truly proper follow-up.

The album is suffused with atmosphere, and is full of intriguing narrative ideas, compelling lyrics, and some of her most well-observed stories. Ultimately, though, it ends up coming off a bit too staid and stuck in its own yawning landscape to truly take off.

If, as the artist himself has recently hinted, Kaputt really does mark the end of Destroyer, then it succeeds as a triumphant swan-song.

It’s taking what is inherently a complex form of music – and is still highly technical in the hands of these players – and makes it into something for all to enjoy. It’s the kind of album that ‘purists’ will possibly scoff at for its accessibility and poptimism, but you get the feeling that Thackray wouldn’t want them as fans anyway. All she wants from her listeners are open ears, open hearts and open minds.

Dogrel showed Fontaines D.C. could make a great post-punk album; A Hero’s Death shows they have more than sub-genre affiliation on their minds.

Little Oblivions doesn’t so much feel like a step to a higher point as so much as a stumble that Baker has made to look as graceful as she can.

With Nymph, Shygirl brings another original voice in the mix; good luck hearing a record that portrays sex in similarly tactile, authentic and effortlessly cool fashion.

Were it not for the aforementioned instrumental pieces, then it would be hard to recommend Voices unless you were in a particular mindset. While the tapestry of it all is undeniably magical (strings, voices, electronics, and the aforementioned details all woven together seamlessly), the high points are when Richter demonstrates how a sweep of his hand can evoke floods of emotions in the mind.

Moffat’s storytelling is utterly masterful throughout, tragic case studies abounding.

There is much one could say about how this EP compares to Rossen's past projects since that's all he's delivered to us, but he deserves more than that after accomplishing a great EP by himself.

The album's relative indie rock minimalism stands out in stark contrast to many other bands who feel that this kind of straightforward approach is either too uninteresting or too tied to certain years in music.

Clocking in under 30 minutes with only nine tracks, Cool Dry Place is a lovely breeze of a listen, and truthfully, a nearly flawless record. Except for a couple of moments of autotune and lo-fi weirdness, Kirby generally plays it safe, musically, which leaves one wanting a tiny bit more from a talent like herself.

For such a prolific, genre-blurring artist, we are lucky as listeners that all the pieces Ryley Walker’s set up over the past decade could coalesce in such a fine, tight 40 minutes.

What we’re given is 10 songs in just under 34 minutes, one of Veirs’ most efficient and direct albums.

At its best, the album strums out a stark moment, like a voice calling for help. ... Where a little bit of focus is lost is when Karijord becomes almost incantatory with Dessner’s words, repeating phrases with ambiguous meanings but not coming out the other end with any greater sense of purpose (“April”, “October” and “November” in particular).

Yes, The Ballad of Darren is Dad Rock. Fairly enjoyable Dad Rock, true, and still a record hundreds of bands can only dream of making, but one that would likely fall by the wayside if anyone else had made it. Is this bad? Not really, and if anything, it proves that Blur can transition gracefully into old age.

While much of Lindeman’s recent work spotlights her knack for lush arrangements and declarative statements, How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars accentuates her nuanced artistry, including her gift for vocal and sonic restraint and lyrical precision.

If anything, Apollo Kids is the biggest reason to get excited about Ghost in years; putting out a seemingly rushed disc, he's outdone much of his recent work.

This is a high point in his already illustrious career; a labyrinthine and ultramodern take on hip-hop that will likely age like a Cabernet.

By the time Once Twice Melody reaches its closing moments, it sounds like the band are taking a well-earned victory lap in a career full of wins.

One often loses a sense of location and chronological time, transported into a sublime realm, Blunt reveling in understated craft, melancholic freedom, and undiluted authenticity.

The trio delight in taking risks in a way that few rock bands on a major label do, and A Celebration of Endings is a wide-ranging record – even when they’re operating within an accessible framework.

The band’s deepest, and strongest, album to-date.

Together with longtime bandmates Jason Narducy (bass) and Jon Wurster (drums), Mould has created his strongest album since 2012’s Silver Age. Their chemistry soars on the wild tracks “When You Left” and “Racing to the End” as much as on the somber closer “The Ocean”.