Like nothing you'll ever hear on country radio.

It’s a bummer that Slayer’s November 13 Air Canada Centre show, and their entire tour, has been postponed due to lead singer/bassist Tom Araya’s back problems, but we can console ourselves with their excellent new album, which finds the dark-minded, serial-killer-obsessed California thrashers keeping all things in balance.

Murphy is still a brat, but this is a more emotionally mature and personal album than most of us thought him capable of.

A chameleon with an endless stream of alter egos and the vocal chops to pull them all off.

At 18 tracks, Honest doesn’t feel bloated. Future takes his time on slow, sensitive jams.... But for every tender ballad, there’s a classic Future banger in which he yelps the hook over and over, lest you forget it, on top of harsh beats.

Beyond the amber waves of grain, Purple Mountains offer fans a feast of food for thought.

Remy is at her most confident as a writer and singer on Poem, and, by working with others, she’s created the fullest realization of U.S. Girls yet.

he 10 unconventionally structured songs are less shaky-tent-in-a-snowstorm and more ambitious-skyscraper-blasting-into-the sky.

Countless rappers claim to have transcended the game. Kendrick Lamar actually does. There’s the sense his ambitions on DAMN. are even larger, reaching toward something more universal, fateful even spiritual in its reach to find the link tying all contradictions together.

He celebrates his contradictions with such musical flair, it's a thrilling listen from beginning to end.

I remember being disappointed after subsequently discovering Bleach, the band’s debut. It didn’t have Nevermind’s hooks, precise quiet/loud dynamics or Butch Vig’s glossy production. Years later, it’s those attributes that make Bleach so endearing.

It all makes Glass Swords a vivid, liberating experience (and, as a by-product, makes the canned wobble of dubstep seem oppressive).

The choruses are stronger, the harmonies, guitar and banjo lines as tasteful as ever, and the brittle edge that crept into 2003's Soul Journey is nowhere to be found.

It's a mind-bogglingly superb testament to an artist at peak power.

Think of it as avant-garde composer John Cage trying his hand at disco and getting it right.

Even when West’s going in uncomfortable directions, his music feels alive.

It's eminently clear these producers know exactly when to assert themselves and when to stay out of the soul legend's way to achieve the most captivating results possible.

It's true that we've come to expect a certain level of genius from this band, but when they actually exceed expectations, as they do here, it's a clear sign that Radiohead will continue to reinvent themselves and drop more jaws along the way.

Once again, he brilliantly distills years spent studying the arrangements and analog recording techniques of that music into a personal style that carves out its own space between rhythm and melody.

Farm actually bests "Beyond’s" triumphs.

His arrangement choices are flawless. While guitar stays front and centre, piano, strings, group vocals and slide guitar make fleeting, effective appearances.

With a band made up of old friends, Love has made a seemingly effortless record that reveals more with every listen.

It's a near-constant barrage of fist-pumpers built to fight back the sunrise, from the opening pummel of Throwaways to the Replacements-indebted pop power of closer Dirty Lights.

The main attraction is still Baird's and Weeks's haunting voices, which turn a risky experiment into a genre-defining classic.

Her sad-girl persona, thrust upon her unwittingly by music media, transforms into its most dramatic form. It’s a brazen sadness echoed through crashing symbols and spacious synths. The songs are devastating, but also nourishing: it’s a whole new version of Olsen.

Although the presentation has changed, the raw emotional power at the heart of Bon Iver is intact.

It's lush, sophisticated pastiche, best epitomized by debut single Running.

Comeback of the year.