Over the course of its 12 tracks, the record manages to redeem the spotty moments of the band’s comeback record, remind listeners of the endurance of the hits that came before, and, in Whang’s increased vocal role, even hint at some potential evolutions to come. Most importantly, it gives us the best picture yet of a live act that’s always been surprisingly difficult to commit to tape.

LUH’s debut is certainly over-the-top, and purposefully so. Hoorn and Roberts strive for catharsis repeatedly and find it. They avoid the placid, disillusioned platitudes that can befall music like this, earning the catharsis they strive for.

Lyrically, Barnett feels more accessible this time around, letting us share her anxiety when it comes to daily threats like toxic masculinity (“Nameless, Faceless”) and even scaling back the syllables (again on “Charity”) to simply reassure us that we’re not alone.

Surrender is the album that Maggie Rogers needs right now. It’s one that shows how much she’s grown as an artist, how much her voice is capable of, and how she can exercise her ability to transcend in only a few notes.

There is a sort of pure, youthful exuberance to what black midi are making, but their experimentation also carries with it a sense of mission.

Pratt astutely portrays the hole that grows during a profound loss, the questions that emerge that can’t be answered. Quiet Signs offers solace in place of definitive resolution as it drifts by, able to capture so much with so little at play.

Ventura is lean and lovely.

It’s easily Yorke’s best solo outing and rates among his finest albums from any project this century.

It’s their best album since their debut, capturing an energy that was lacking on previous efforts. The songs here are simply more memorable and diverse, brimming with riffs and adventurous vocals.

Roughly half the tracks being available prior to this release isn’t much of an issue when they are of such high quality, and the fresh tracks are some of the best the band have ever written. The group seem rejuvenated with a long road ahead of them.

The band sounds like they’re having fun, and humor is such a scarcity in the super serious realm of modern metal. Deeper Than Sky is fun to listen to, like the carefree thrash of old.

While there is nothing groundbreaking about Blind Spot, there doesn’t need to be. It sounds like Lush in 1994, right at the top of their game. Truly the only complaint is that there are only four songs.

Face Stabber stands as arguably Oh Sees’ most mature and nuanced work to date, and as evidenced by this album, the band is riding a steep, upward trajectory that has continued for an astonishing period of time.

Deeply satisfying on multiple levels, Always Tomorrow is great guitar pop and a bracing account of one person’s struggle to construct a new life. Free of sugar-coating or easy answers, it should speak to everyone who wants to take better care of themselves.

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.

It is an album you should breathe, if only for one play.

Down in the Weeds is still a Bright Eyes album, with its share of obsessiveness, narcissism, and angst. Many songs have their sights set on calamity, from climate disaster to Oberst’s failed marriage. And yet, there’s also a refreshing maturity, a perspective that seems a bit wiser, a bit less ready to revel in self-loathing. ... That culmination — from grief to love — is what truly makes these Bright Eyes songs feel new.

Are You Alone?, as its title suggests, is an incredibly personal experience, one that benefits from conversing with Welsh as much as he is with you.

Asperities conveys a similar sense of place [as previous albums] without ever explicitly detailing where it’s set or why, allowing the listener to envision their own wrinkles stretched over Kent’s richly drawn skeleton.

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).

Telefone shows a great sense of promise and complex beauty.

Megan is her own best advocate, and Traumazine is a testament to this principle. Elsewhere, Megan displays her penchant for bringing out the best in her collaborators, molding herself to bring out the most recognizable aspects of their style.

Miss_Anthrop0cene is the perfect Grimes record for 2020, delving into topical themes such as climate change with an eclectic mix of genres. It’s certainly her darkest, most ambitious project yet, and it works on nearly all levels.

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.

Levi expertly evokes the story and emotion even without any visual cues.

The record and its seamless transitions from one heavily enticing, tender, and softly delivered track to the next paints a captivating and enthralling self-portrait.

For those who have paid close attention to the band’s evolution, it seemed inevitable that he would get to this point. Accordingly, A Corpse Wired for Sound feels like a culmination.

From the creative songwriting to the engaging performances, Metal Galaxy is certainly out of this world. With its awesome blend of musical styles, all infused with some form of metal aggression, this record is BABYMETAL at their most adventurous.

The precise beauty of their production work, specifically the refusal to dump gratuitous instruments into the mix, places Magnifique at the top of Ratatat’s catalogue. Stroud and Mast let guitars beat at the album’s heart, and their balance of bubbly and peaceful elements ushers a return too fluid to ignore.

Too feels like a transitional record, but it’s also as trashy and as thrashy as they come.

Despite its intimacy, Piano & A Microphone doesn’t feel like trespassing on Prince because it doesn’t truly expose him. This recording doesn’t reveal the nuts-and-bolts inner workings of one of the greatest artists of all time. How could it? We get to listen as a visionary works with simple tools--and in the end, Prince’s genius remains as mysterious as ever.

7 is a lush record that grabs you from the onset and contains tremendous depth beyond the surface. Not quite a full rebirth, the band feel free to indulge their experimental inclinations and loosen up, filling the record with a bright spark that makes it as exciting to listen to as it must have been to make.

The music on the record seamlessly ebbs and flows while not sounding repetitive, and Alison Goldfrapp remains one of pop’s most charismatic, if underrated, singers. In all, Silver Eye has a little bit of everything for fans of either the band’s uptempo electronic or reflective folk-ambient phases.

Not many artists reach 20 albums, and even fewer do it with such aplomb. Or, to put it another way: here’s to 20 more.

This is the biggest Benny album to date, but he doesn’t lose what made him great and such a beloved underground rapper. His boasts are as strong as ever, and his flows are cold like the air in the Buffalo streets.

These albums are as close as we can get to traveling back in time to see one of our greatest at his best.

The snarling enfant terrible with a go-it-alone attitude is now a mentally and emotionally grounded 29-year-old capable of cherishing his loved one. Without question, Brandon Banks is among the best and biggest-hearted rap albums of the summer.

Existential Reckoning is certainly another worthwhile effort from the acclaimed singer and his ever-revolving musical collaborators.

A Distant Fist Unclenching is Krill’s oddball medium between the poppy joy of Alam No Hris and the table-flipping hopelessness of Lucky Leaves.

At nine songs and just over 36 minutes, Fading Frontier is a filler-free opus of experimental rock splendor that never lags and always intrigues.

Notes seethes with paranoia, charges of revolution, and, above all, honesty, providing a semblance of comfort during a, drum roll please, “unprecedented time” that truly affects everyone.

Positions fits neatly in the pop princess’ catalogue and feels like a worthy continuation of her story. The narratives (much like the vocals) are lush, filled with graceful twists and turns, plenty of side characters to keep our attention, and a star worth rooting for.

The band sounds more energized than they have in years.

Wildflower comes out swinging.

At 20, Clairo is already such a fully-formed artist that it’s nothing short of thrilling to envision where she’ll go from here. Immunity highlights her vulnerabilities while showcasing the full range of her formidable strength as a producer and songwriter.

It’s the work of a seasoned songwriter proving that he’s as good at penning powerful, personal songs in a traditional vein as he is layering records with bells and whistles.

Lorde’s overreaches and missteps are just as charming as the incisive parts, so she must be an icon. The board-manning Jack Antonoff’s over-reliance on synths and clicks limits what she can do with this new maximalism, and her insistence on, well, melodrama will occasionally mar her best writing, which remains in the shadows. She’s not a liability. But she can be a forest fire.

The refusal to stick to one gender only adds to 1989‘s ubiquitous strength, making it less an album applicable to specific male/female relationships and more about relationships in general.

The Wilderness proves that Explosions in the Sky aren’t stuck in any creative rut.

IDLES have been uncompromising with their sonic language. They still seem to make songs the only way they know how: from a place of both liberation and pain. Their album of love songs can only sound like this, because they know that to truly love unconditionally is easier said than done.

Kim Gordon’s voice may have been the spark that lit the blaze, but now she’s using a guitar to conjure up sonic waves to keep pushing us forward.

There’s something satisfying about seeing the band creating in their own lane here in 2023 rather than fall into the all too easy trap of trying to recreate who they may have been in the past.

By pushing far outside of his comfort zone, he has imbued his sound with a fresh life that adds another compelling chapter to the chronicle of his rich career.

Nick and Amy’s marriage may be unraveling to the tune of a dark ambient nightmare, but fear not: The cinesonic union of Fincher, Reznor, and Ross is stronger than ever.

Seek Shelter is a rich representation of Iceage’s bravery as a band.

The album is a tremendous achievement that captures sentiments of loss, isolation, and searching for a belonging in a way that only a writer with a keen eye and empathetic nature as Sheff’s could fully articulate.

Red has aged fairly well overall, even some of the lighter fare. ... The tracks from the vault here are stronger than those chosen for Fearless (Taylor’s Version).

There are incredibly emotional moments throughout the record, really driving the anger and sadness of the music. Some songs lack depth and don’t land as well as others, but, overall, The Nothing remains an emotionally potent experience that longtime fans of Korn will enjoy.

Strangers‘ ambition is its greatest asset, and because of Nadler’s own ambition, there is reason to believe she could get better still.

As an artist, he needed to release the record in just this way in order to process his pain. Skeleton Tree was released for us, but it’s for him.

Its six tracks wrap all too quickly, and while it was specified that Jimin doesn’t consider this a full-length project, it does leave the listener craving more music in this vein somewhere down the road — it’s worth repeating that the energy of “Face-off” is one that he should consider chasing most of all.

Purple is a redemptive statement that’s indelibly human, going far beyond mere notes and music. It speaks to the deeper powers of creation: the artistic struggle to maintain, survive, and somehow have fun in the face of death, a fate Baroness defied and overcame.

With Bad Witch, Reznor and Ross have proven their staying power as one of heavy music’s most formidable outfits, honoring their roots while looking forward into bold, new transcendent territory.

Though the overall sound of Ryan Adams may be a mask, hiding lyrics that are every bit as heartbroken, confused, lost, and struggling as ever.

The resulting music ranks among Avey Tare’s strongest work of the ’10s, whether alone or with Animal Collective, and should be required listening for any old Millennial scared of turning 40 but even more scared of the alternative.

She offers a deeply internal side to her world, buoyed by a production style rich with grains and echoes.

Channeling profound loss, once-buried emotions, and a stronger sense of songwriting, these Staten Islanders have created something cathartic, life-affirming, and important.

Big Time might be the most direct view into Olsen — at least in the context of a full band. It’s a masterful, emotional body of work ready to fit any mood, and it’s yet another successful sea change for one of indie music’s most consistent artists.

Javelin is indeed a wondrous meeting of the human and the synthetic, of stripped-down immediacy and lush, impressionistic extravagance.

The torch songs here resist the urge to wallow, counterbalancing their regrets with mature calls for personal growth. The result is a slice of summer escapism with some weight to it and a worthy companion during isolation in all its forms.

Despite its title, which could suggest some sort of nostalgic exercise, Experiments in Time succeeds because it’s not concerned with channeling any particular time whatsoever.

Song after song, Interplay is the sound four people acting on one shared instinct, and it feels like sunshine beaming on skin.

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.

Titus Andronicus didn’t need to further prove themselves with this album, but they did anyway.

COWBOY CARTER is a worthy entry in an ambitious trilogy, but it isn’t a country album. It’s a Beyoncé album, and what that means keeps getting bigger.

The biggest difference between the two projects is that The Water[s] focused in on the dense raps, and Wave[s] is far more vibe-driven, with songs ready for radio.

The elaborate instrumentation and extended runtimes of their earlier oeuvre have returned, but they’re now justified with greater attention to pacing, mood, and overall cohesiveness.

The album flows as if it were a mixtape of Rice songs to a former lover.

Pinegrove builds and burns a lot on Cardinal, and they’re left with the hard-earned knowledge that everything’s probably going to be alright. It’s not the stuff teenage anthems are made of, maybe, but maturity comes with its own small pleasures.

One of the greatest accomplishments of No Shape is how it provides a lush, seemingly endless musical playground in which Hadreas’ stunning, one-of-a-kind voice can push past any limits and shine in new and unusual ways.

Considering that Project Regeneration Vol. 1 was pieced together from demos, it really is a commendable effort. What could seem like a cash grab is far from it. The album is a fully fleshed collection that properly cements Wayne’s legacy.

Despite the time off, he brushes the dust off his chaps masterfully, making for a haunting score that hints creepily at the film’s violent depths.

For anyone thinking Everybody Can’t Go might soften Benny’s razor blade edges, you can rest at ease. If anything, the album adds more layers to the formula and digs deeper into the man behind the persona.

Eternal Atake has moments of heartfelt candor, including “Chrome Heart Tags” and “Spread the Bag”. LUV Vs. the World 2 doesn’t really. There’s no equivalent to the “Never Bend” remix from 2018, which hinted at a world of hurt behind the “project walls.”

Through his distortion of smooth adult contemporary ballads, Lopatin proves that in the right hands, often-ridiculed elements of culture can be crafted into something transcendent.

LP1 isn’t anything revolutionary; it’s a frankly expressed project focused on the dualism between love and lust, reality and fantasy.

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.

It’s an extraordinary triumph of ambitious trap soundscapes and an excellent complement for a driven artist, a man no longer inhibited by loss. With every passing release, Future grows more confident, and more callous.

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.

A Light for Attracting Attention revels not in fiery protests, but in the layered, mid-tempo meditations Radiohead’s been crafting since OK Computer.

Feist is back, and, for the first time, it feels like she can finally feel the warmth that everyone has felt in her presence this whole time.

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.

Northern Chaos Gods is a source of comfort by showing that Immortal can weather seemingly any storm and come out strong. They might not actually be immortal, but the band, like their legend, show no signs of diminishing.

Every aspect is written and performed impeccably, with track sequencing that highlights both the variety of the material and the wisdom of its concepts. True to its intentions, then, The Million Masks of God is a gorgeously tuneful and thought-provoking gem.

Morbid Stuff is a bold step forward for PUP, an incredibly mature record given how filled with anger and contempt it is, containing true moments of insight. Even the more straightforward bitter break-up songs like “See You at Your Funeral” and “Closure” have a self-awareness to them to offset the vitriol.

By deconstructing traditional geometries of desire, they’ve made their most fully realized album yet.

Personality reigns, because a cursory glance at the album’s tracklist would have you believe this is an absolute clusterfuck--after all, there’s a track by Irish comedy hip-hop duo The Rubberbandits right smack in the middle. Yet such eclecticism happens to be its strong suit, and winds up embellishing the strengths of its younger selections.

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.