Though informed by the blaxploitation soundtracks of the ‘70s and the label-driven hip-hop soundtracks of the ‘90s, Black Panther: The Album is very much of its time: a well-produced and incredibly cohesive album with the loose swagger of a curated playlist.

There are some sweet moments on Little Dark Age and some stale ones. More often than not, Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser lapse back into a sardonic mode that sounded a whole lot better in 2007 than it does in 2018.

Man of the Woods, a funky, country-laced experiment that’s not nearly as bad as its already damned reputation suggests. Though the lyrics might be.

Tribulation has found a fine balance, setting the primordial muck of their blackened roots up into a much soupier pool of influences and musical ideas.

The trio gave a double album their best, with plenty of head-turning lines, hilarious stray shouts (“dinner rolls!” on “CC” is a fave), and productions that further dilate the luxury trap spectrum, but not wildly so.

By making a space that fits his creative style, Frahm found a way to give complex compositions even more room to weave themselves into the world while you listen.

His current labelmates include hitmakers like Big Sean and Justin Bieber, but also respected wordsmiths Jadakiss and Jeezy. It’s that latter strata where he belongs, and P2 proves he can hang.

Ty Segall has never made a truly bad record, and that remains true with Freedom’s Goblin, which explores and innovates enough to qualify as incremental (but confident) progress for one of rock’s most consistent voices.

While not their best, Ruins certainly stands as First Aid Kit’s most cohesive album, focused on the determination of moving forward from heartbreak.

C.O.C. stuck to their guns at the beginning of the decade, and now they’ve got a more formidable arsenal behind them. If there’s something they could learn from their Animosity days, though, it would be keeping a slim track list.

There is no palpable effort or discomfort on Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho, resulting in a perfectly fine album that no one will remember next year or maybe even next month.

In paying homage to seminal-but-still-underrated acts like Into Another and Mind Over Matter, Palumbo and Beck create a Glassjaw record unlike any other and not always in a good way. In doing so, they also crafted the Glassjaw record most in tune with our current reality.

If the album title means anything, it’s that all of these major talents are still here. In fact, they’re stronger than ever.

On Pop 2, her second mixtape of 2017, she digs even deeper into her music’s rough edges, exploiting its paradoxes, peeling back its layers, and having more fun while she’s at it than she’s ever had before.

Saturation III is the shortest, hookiest, and best, though, for no better reason than they are cooking by now, pithily commenting on police brutality, drug addiction, and receiving head.

There’s no interruption, no welcome silence between discs one and discs two. No, just 20 songs, a brutal slog of stacks and condoms and stacks and condoms and occasionally a disembodied ass without any other parts of a woman sighted.

Rubba Band Business, is, unfortunately, more of the same.

Revival is the most pleasureless record he’s ever made, so stymied by his worst tendencies that like many other inept apologies from 2017 it only points out how much further he has to go rather than how far he’s come.

The resulting album feels like a genuine, cohesive artistic statement, one that often improves upon its source material rather than just paying bland tribute.

The second half of the album--a more compelling collection of singles--clarifies its darker themes while remaining upbeat.

Songs of Experience is an album where the band’s best and worst songs of this century can exist next to each other, where vast rewrites make it apparent that multiple rounds of sessions went into the finished product.

On The Visitor, he falls into one of his most unfortunate ruts doing that sing-songy protest jingle shit that made records like Greendale and Living with War so darn unlistenable. But the good news is there are only two songs like this on here: “Stand Tall” and “Children of Destiny”. Skip both and thank me later. However, the remaining eight tracks on The Visitor rank up there with the best stuff Neil Young has released since the turn of the century.

Together [Björk and Arca], assisted at points by a 12-piece Icelandic flute ensemble and the Hamrahlid Choir (in which Björk herself sang as a teenager), they grow a thriving sound world rich in nuance and detail.

If you’ve loved his music since The Smiths, and their music actually brings you joy, well, then there are things to be found on Low in High School that could possibly, maybe, present a solid argument for attempting to find a way to suck the goodness from this album ... while spitting out the pulp that is Morrissey himself.

Jones’ best work came through exploring the emotional intricacies and broad passions of romantic relationships, and that’s no different on Soul of a Woman. In fact, these affairs of the heart smolder even more heatedly than usual on the record’s ballad-heavy second half.

With tighter editing, Rest could have soared, but perhaps the personal nature of the songs made those ruthless cuts impossible. Even so, there are many individual moments to treasure. Charlotte Gainsbourg has evolved as an artist, and Rest is a flawed but worthy statement.

Stranger is too parochial at this stage in his career, altogether enjoyable yet only seldom worthy of evangelizing. As his fanbase begins to mature, Håstad owes it to himself to grow up with them.

With Reputation, Swift seemingly has the idea that bigger, wider, and louder is necessarily better, but the dopamine rush that modern pop music can so reliably produce never arrives.

Many reunion records fall flat by trying too deliberately to recapture what once was, but Interiors lives in the now, thereby shedding the reunion record talk to instead exist more on its own terms. It’s also the kind of forward-looking record that makes the thought of future Quicksand records sound not just promising, but likely.

The band opened the vaults for this reissue to give us a sparkling remaster, a sturdy live set from the 40 Watt Club (though it hardly begs for canonization like 2009’s revelatory, rarity-packed Live at the Olympia), and a juicy third disc of demos. Some of these are pretty fun.

Where the Super Slimey too often felt like a requisite Xanax-blasted victory lap, one notably soft on hooks despite the successful street chemistry of Beautiful Thugger Girls’ hit single “Relationship”, Without Warning exudes vitality and menace.

The lo-fi approach largely works to his benefit, giving the album a homegrown charm. Even though the album has a couple stumbles and is a bit all over the place at times, the fact that he took a risk to redevelop his entire sound and still released an album as cohesive as Revelations is a feat unto itself.

Much of it feels comfortable; at 25, Smith can still sing the hell out of the kind of love songs he could sing the hell out of when he was 20. But he’s grown, too, and The Thrill of It All is best when he stretches out of his comfort zone.

Though it’s essentially yelled through a megaphone atop a weird, gaudy castle, it’s music that provokes a response because of how immediate it feels.

Turn Out the Lights is a rich, moving work that creates a communion of sorts, an acknowledgement that the little victories are worth embracing even if salvation seems utterly out of reach.

The album works extraordinarily well together, but the tracks wouldn’t work as, say, singular pulls for a personal mix. You can take or leave the album. It’s good enough. But the songs don’t stay with you.

Overall, ken is one of Destroyer’s most accessible albums. It features nary a song over six minutes and several under three, its sounds are compact and crisp, and its arrangements are clever and cohesive.

Lyrically, she’s never been better. Vocally, never more dynamic. Those two alone should make for another breakout record, but unfortunately, the core of the band is left faint, robbing the music of the pulsating energy and raw sensation that initially made Bully such a head-turner. Thankfully, Bognanno’s voice and words are more than enough to carry a record.

Though Glasshouse has its fair share of misfires and middling material, it’s never for a lack of vision. Even when songs veer towards the pristine inoffensiveness of a Sam Smith, Ware’s affable personality is largely present.

From Assault on Precinct 13, to Halloween, to Escape From New York, to even Vampires, this set has literally everything fans would want from the guy, going so far as to include tracks he didn’t even write (see: The Thing, Starman).

With a little more time and money to burn, Price and co. spiced up the nervy and raw sound of Midwest with the addition of a string section on some tunes, some gospel-like backing vocals when needed, and a little ProTools augmentation to create the collage of presidential speeches that floats in and around the title track. Otherwise, she and the band stick comfortably to their chosen lane.

While The Saga Continues engenders enough wistful reminiscences to satisfy the core, it provides shockingly little in the way of memorable moments.

The artists for whom Clark now carries the torch were never satisfied with their past accomplishments and were always pushing forward. MASSEDUCTION cements her in this camp.

The anger and frustration that characterized his most famous work melts away on Ogilala, which stands out as his most centered, vulnerable, and soothing music yet.

Woods’ brilliance, a voice (both literal and figurative) whose strength is compounded by her many facets. On her debut full-length, HEAVN, Woods lets each of those facets shine, without letting any of them get lost in the glow.

Much like Speedy Ortiz, Melkbelly have the good taste and even better talent to make the familiar sound fresh and fearsome.

You can still hear marginal residue of the man who managed to be compared to both Dylan and Prince within the same five-year period. You just won’t find those comparisons so much lately.

The Ooz is not always a fun listen, both because of Marshall’s effectiveness in communicating his pain and his tendency to avoid editing as much as he probably should. Even with three or four excess tracks, the album is still an essential listen.

Lotta Sea Lice, Barnett and Vile’s first collaborative album together, makes for a remarkably sublime pairing that brings out the best in each artist, an unexpected gem that sits near the top of either’s discography.

Wolf Parade isn’t afraid to dive deep. While they don’t always emerge with pearls, the effort is commendable, and one that leaves us hoping that the next time they swim away into the dark, they won’t take so long to find their way back.

Putting aside all of the work Kelela has done to hit her stride in the mix, she is ironically most brilliant when the producers lay out.

This is a record that should please both the Hot Topic kiddie-creep contingent and Manson’s more seasoned and sophisticated fans sonically. Lyrically, it captures a lot of his oddball charm, too.

Though As You Were kicks off with stadium-sized rock songs, some of the record’s most memorable moments arrive on its ballads.

Conceptually big but musically slight, this return of the early ’90s Primus lineup promises a lot but delivers only fragments of what we know this band is capable of.

Just as things seem a little promising, the limp “Thinkin'” struts in like a Carrie Underwood c-side and firmly sets the tone for the record’s toothless closing third.

The whole album feels like it has been flattened out for the sake of streaming services. Without the big, chewy hooks, the songs tend to bleed together indistinguishably in hindsight.

The Detroit rock veterans’ most refined release yet, Relatives in Descent is a sermon on truth, anxiety, and our lack of understanding of the world around us. As ever, Casey is our trusty narrator, leading us through the darkness with his signature brand of wit, wisdom, and bitterness; like a winning combination of Drunk Uncle and Mark E. Smith, he is both commanding and pitiful in his delivery.

While the use of synthesizers, programmed drums, modular instruments, and even Scott’s purposefully stilted guitar riffs give the album its background, it’s a framework designed to confront the nature of the human body itself. Three Futures is overwhelmed with senses.

Visions of a Life is often full, seeming to overflow. But the substance is lacking, resulting in a tiring trip through a band gamely trying not to merely cover itself.

It requires multiple listens. In turn, it helps the listener grow, revealing spaces where their own narrative and experiences can intertwine with his--not in a romantic sense, but an educational sense. As a result, Aromanticism has already become one of the most emotionally therapeutic albums of the year.

Despite the fact that Stranger in the Alps ends with stories of prisoners, murderers, and arsonists, it’s a gentle, wistful, even mournful record that makes for an outstanding coming-out party for Bridgers and a haunting experience for the listener, with melodies and sentiments that linger, softly and poignantly, long after the music ends.

An album full of ugly [moments]. Ugly isn’t bad on a Godspeed record--the “wrong notes” that permeate “Fam/Famine” resonate as our inability to articulate rage--but it does result in an album that’s more bombast than beauty, which, despite the album’s themes of revolution, can make for an especially dissonant listen.

Wonderful Wonderful is likely the most self-conscious Killers album ever.

One of Eagle’s more consistently engaging outings, this elegy for the since-demolished Robert Taylor Homes projects the 36-year-old rapper grew up in isn’t necessarily one of his most ear-catching records. More than his other albums, it’s consumed with his thoughts, possibly even a bit smothered; it cries out for some showing to break up all the telling.

Like the trauma that plagues him, however, the record is deflated slightly by songs one might be inclined to forget. Son Little’s latest is otherwise abundant with magic. Had he left a few of his weaker tracks in the woodshed, he might have realized the balance necessary to sustain it.

The Laughing Apple isn’t a diluted version of the music Yusuf has been releasing over the past decade; embedded in its pop craftsmanship are new songwriting challenges, Eastern sounds, and scriptural themes that don’t mask themselves. It’s just the version that allows him to be as bold as that smiling, little apple found in the title track. And the cat doesn’t fall far from the apple.

Communicating is far from an attempt to water down their music for a larger audience. An intriguing record that pushes boundaries, Communicating proves why Hundred Waters are always worth paying attention to.

The album’s lack of originality extends to its music as well as its sloganeering.

There are few truly wince-inducing moments through this tidy little collection, and when they arrive, they’re blessedly brief.

It’s often messy and sometimes masterful, with the two records reflecting a revitalized band that’s found the footing that eluded them not in youthful disquiet, but in the complexities of getting older.

It’s often messy and sometimes masterful, with the two records reflecting a revitalized band that’s found the footing that eluded them not in youthful disquiet, but in the complexities of getting older.

Grohl’s music has cried out for, well, coloring and shaping for so long that it matters more that he’s finally sculpted an objet d’art, rather than Another Foo Fighters album.

Nearly every song on Luv Is Rage 2 comes with a distinct enough hook to break up the limited set of things it does and subjects it ponders.

After a decade of shaping the musical world in various supporting roles, Batmanglij’s first proper solo record is a quiet revelation that places his talents front and center, the key to unlocking just how instrumental he’s always been, and will hopefully remain, for years to come.

Blue Chips 7000 is wholly listenable, and it’s possible to imagine longtime Bronson fans calling it a comeback even if they have trouble recalling titles. But it’s a holding action whose worst quality is that it leaves you worried about him repeating himself again.

The strength of this album, and the 14 that precede it, is the immense healing and soothing found in the sheer beauty of Amos’ vocal delivery.

A fascinating look at a day in the life of an artist at his absolute pinnacle.

This apparent quest for new sounds produced Death from Above’s belated sophomore slump, a collection of songs that finds the duo pulled in directions that play against their strengths and makes them sound, for the first time, a little dull.

By nature of confronting so much gloom Okovi can weigh heavily on listeners, but the brighter numbers mixed in make it easier to soak up.

Sleep Well Beast certainly takes the air out of the hopeful balloon that swelled on Trouble Will Find Me, but if there’s ever been a time to wallow in lush, masculine melancholy, it’s now. This beast isn’t going anywhere.

Cozy Tapes Vol. 2 has a loose family vibe. One gets the sense that almost anyone who dropped by the studio as they were recording had the chance to make the album. As such, the album’s not a show of force, it’s a party.

Whereas LCD’s previous album, This Is Happening, felt coherent as the project displayed a love of disco, American Dream feels happy sampling from many of the band’s established recording styles.

Brand New manage to reinvent themselves while also recapturing the essence of what’s made them so special and enduring.

For an outfit who’s claimed groove-rock for two decades, it’s a relief to hear what they sound like with a beat you can dance to. Now let’s see them keep it going.

Instead of trying to recreate the heightened catharsis of Lost In The Dream, A Deeper Understanding suggests a viable path forward from that turning point, a journey blown out to widescreen proportions that breathes new life into a familiar sound.

The band’s growth as a cohesive unit results in their most accomplished album yet. Painted Ruins is a wondrously complex adventure that rewards attention and patience yet is never inscrutable.

Rainbow, as a comprehensive work, feels much more organic and of this earth than anything by dollar-sign Ke$ha.

They aren’t content to simply let Cooper’s past speak for itself. Rather they lard the album with references to his best-known songs and try to get his backing band to often ape the instincts of the original Alice Cooper Band. ... The album is, at least, bookended by some strong material.

No matter how deserving Lana is of accreditation, and how close she is to true vindication, less than half of the tunes on Lust for Life are worthy of Born to Die, Paradise, Ultraviolence, or Honeymoon, despite the handful of very promising singles that would make you think otherwise.

Reznor and Ross held something of themselves back on this EP, and while it doesn’t completely upend the great work that’s here, it does open up speculation about how it could have been even better if it had their full attention.

It’s more of the same. It seems to be needing something more. An extra spark of interest.

In a word, Everything Now finds Arcade Fire in a place they’ve never been. It’s unsubstantial.

While her songwriting hasn’t quite made the same leaps that prior records have shown, Out in the Storm offers a unique perspective: that of someone happier and stronger for the pain endured.

Naturally, the beats are excellent across the board, although 21 Savage uses a little more Autotune and makes more of a play for the pop charts with some slinky R&B jams. ... Unfortunately, these reflective moments are outnumbered by repetitive odes to getting high, getting laid, and getting lots of money. What’s worse, some of his lyrics aren’t just bland, but blatantly homophobic.

Soft Sounds… isn’t quite as playfully subversive as Zauner’s big-rig guitar solo on “Everybody Wants to Love You”, but her work as Japanese Breakfast continues to draw its energy from transgressing both the expectations of herself and her audience.

Public Enemy’s message hits hardest when the lyrics remain open for listeners to step inside. A couple presidential putdowns are enough (no need for another “Son of a Bush”), and the small handful of times the album stumbles are when the focus narrows to micro grievances like calling out Kanye and Kim for being “a spectacle instead of spectacular” (“Yesterday Man”) or pointing out the negative effects of social media on millennials (“SOC MED Digital Heroin”).

Sheer Mag is a band that’s unafraid to feel, whether it’s desperation, rage, or overwhelming love. Over the course of an urgent debut, they let their guard down and embrace their emotions, showing the rest of us that we could all afford to as well.

Funk Wav Bounces isn’t the kind of album that’s going to change the conversation in pop music, but it doesn’t want to. All it wants to do is sit by the pool, release, let go, and have a good time.