Longstreth may never be able to get out of the shadow of Bitte Orca, but Lamp Lit Prose finds him embracing his quirk, wit, and warmth, ending up with his brightest album yet.

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.

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.

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love has moving, emotional pieces and sharp performances bolstered by a band clearly stretching out of its comfort zone successfully. The album is a refreshing new shade of their sound without abandoning the band’s core mechanics.

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.

High as Hope is a marvel when Welch pushes past the boundaries both within herself and in the familiar structure of songs, but falters when stagnating inside those constraints.

Taylor creates an unapologetic record of late-night slow jams that stem from a more mature, experienced perspective. ... The forwardness [in “3way”] is welcome, but the angle Taylor takes is questionable.

As the album comes to a close, its success lies in the honesty and purity that went into its creation.

While it isn’t without a few bumps along the way, Liberation really is a welcome return to form for one of this era’s greatest vocalists.

After claiming his place in the spotlight by overwhelming force with The Epic, Kamasi Washington capitalizes on both his newfound fame and his journeyman work ethic to produce a follow-up that’s more intimate and just as daring at the same time.

Despite its heavy-handedness, the end of the album offers an equitable, full-circle resolution to this human drama: how to love, how to forgive, how to move on. ... However, on this album, compromising for her marriage also means compromising the art she creates.

The controlled chaos of the record is proof that somewhere beneath all of the public outbursts and musical misfires, Kanye West--not the old Kanye--but the actual man and his heart are still somewhere in the mix planning to raise the bar and occasionally executing to near flawless result.

The most dependable dance band of the 21st century continues its consistency streak on Head Over Heels, which contains enough radio-ready rump-shakers to earn a spot in your warm-weather playlist for this summer and a few more to come.

It’s a welcome addition to a genre that has become so occupied with spacey, bare-bones operations and overly simplistic results.

As a whole, Lost & Found finds Jorja Smith making a name for herself with presence and poise. Throughout these 12 songs, she commands a mastery of various styles, with enough experiments to flesh out a varied, captivating album.

Lush is one of the most engaging and relatable indie rock debuts in quite some time.

With No Shame, Allen has eschewed making an Irish exit from her days as a party girl and instead delivered a eulogy that gracefully buries the past while continuing to seek the sunshine of the future.

Although the trap-influenced style wears thin at times, so sad so sexy is a superb reinvention of Lykke Li.

Despite its sometimes grating protagonist, ye is a pleasant enough way to pass half an hour. Seven tracks is long enough to develop an idea without wearing it out. The production is typically lush. Kanye has returned to the kinds of soul samples that made him famous to begin with.

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.

While DAYTONA could easily have been Pusha-T’s victory lap, it only builds on the heft of his weighty legacy.

Faced with the unexpected, Prass evolved, trading inward-facing confessionalism for outward-facing perseverance and releasing one of 2018’s minor masterpieces in the process. Plus, you can most certainly dance to it.

The end result sees Misty at his most desperate, heartbroken state, making a solid comedown record from I Love You, Honeybear and Pure Comedy that doesn’t quite hit the profound highs of its predecessors, but gets carried quite a long way on the backs of its honest songwriting.

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.

Sparkle Hard is at once his most sonically adventurous and structurally tight set of music in over a decade and easily stands among his most rewarding work with the Jicks.

Easily the weirdest record in the band’s catalog, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino is a fun, flawed aberration (at least, for now). Even in failure, there’s enough to explore within Turner’s thicket of lyrics and the haze of this inviting, yet not quite fully realized sonic setting to warrant a few active listens.

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.

Tracks like “An Urn” and “Blessed Alone” are some of the best material The Body have released to date due to strong vocal performances and powerful lyrics. A few tracks feel predictable, though, and as a whole the project feels like the band dipping their toes into new territory rather than jumping all the way in.

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.

Monáe is, as always, a true master of melding genres, influences, and styles. Her central themes of identity and internal conflict are as tangible on Dirty Computer as they ever have been.

He doesn’t finesse his points; he douses them in gasoline and blows them up. And that’s great! We could all do with more fiery explosions in our music. Sometimes Cole gets wacky, but thankfully he’s never dull.

Essential for fans and sporadically thrilling for newcomers, Eat the Elephant is the kind of reunion record that most bands would kill for. While it doesn’t court the same kind of controversy as the band’s previous political statements, it rewards multiple listens enough to overcome the vast majority of its shortcomings.

It’s a grief we hope to avoid and yet a grief we can’t help tasting. Saba makes it near impossible to turn away.

On Isolation, she never sounds trapped in another era; she sounds free and inventive. And with nary a dud to be found among its 15 tracks, Isolation deserves a spot in the dance pop and neo-soul pantheons.

It’s not perfect, but the album is remarkably cohesive, the right length, and filled to the brim with songs that already feel like inevitable summer smashes.

Virtue delivers a bracing set of experiments and amounts to the most interesting record of Casablancas’ career.

PRhyme’s progressive approach to the evolution of “real hip-hop” suggests that somewhere beneath the growing pile of impassioned, but largely semantic internal arguments plaguing rap might lie the reconciliation and unity necessary to elevate the art form in a manner that allows all parties to avoid a messy, public divorce where the kids are forced to pick sides.

Musgraves hits one high note after another on Golden Hour; her talent as a songwriter and melody-maker is second to none, and each song is thoughtful, well-formed, and a delightful experience on its own. Together, the tracks on Golden Hour add up to an honest, cohesive musical experience that will linger in your mind and heart long after the final notes have faded.

White’s reverence for classic music of the past is still a big part of who is he here; he’s just shifting focus with a more manic and multi-faceted approach. That’s not weird. That’s smart.

Sunflower Bean have all the ingredients at hand to achieve something truly spectacular. And they’re right on the precipice.

Though it contains a number of experiments that don’t quite work, I’ll Be Your Girl offers tracks that point to a very exciting way forward for the band.

It’s a worthy effort from a living legend, full of songs that are at least interesting and at times breathtaking.

This LP is loud, clanging, and communal, but also, in its own way, dreamlike. There’s something warped at the core of these songs, as if they’ve been yanked through some kind of wormhole and have reemerged into our world as aliens. And, for the most part, that makes for some fascinating listening.

All Nerve finds The Breeders sounding more ecstatic and less restrained than anytime since Last Splash originally soaked the alt-rock scene.

He’s turning them [conflicting emotions] into a rapturous piece of art like this instead of venting his spleen in the echo chamber of social media is worthy of praise and attention. Just do yourself the favor of taking this album in moderation. A little goes a long way.

While Phantom Thread may offer the most straight-forward narrative of Anderson’s career, Greenwood gives listeners a reason to keep digging, thus furthering the life of a film that questions the importance of legacy and what ultimately lasts.

It’s a neat inversion that yields some of the most thrillingly ambitious indie rock compositions of this decade, though one that occasionally exhausts the listener into submission.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.