Songs You Make at Night serves to place Tunng as spiritual kin to peak Moody Blues or Rotary Connection. Musically, though, Tunng remains in a class of its own.

The anguish a parent feels for losing their child is harrowing and Ghosteen masterfully captures Cave's grief and spiraling rumination on mortality.

While the majority of the songs on the album are lush ballads, a playfulness shines through here like never before.

This is a brilliant album created by a music virtuoso that will cement Tyler’s solo reputation earned from his 2010 debut, Behold the Spirit.

Not only has the band wrapped up the themes of the record with impeachable, spotless playing and production, but the man at the center of it all hasn’t lost his penchant for writing quality tunes either, as nearly anything you blind-spot off This Is Happening will prove.

It’s hard to see anyone besting Settle for the title in 2013, and it’s just as hard to argue we need much more from a record than the unadulterated joy pulsing through every beat here.

Any Other Way is an essential document of a revolutionary talent who should have been much bigger than she ultimately ended up being and now, with any luck and a little help from the fine folks at Numero Group, she’ll finally get her due.

The results are less like a rarities collection and more like an unlikely greatest hits album.

The veritable smorgasbord that forms this album is made up of a great many influences, but when all of them are put together, the result is a musical statement that’s innovative on every imaginable level.

The most musically rich, catchy, smartly written "new new wave" record since Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights.

[Disc Two is] a winning set that sounds surprisingly clear and crisp for a live recording. ... Disc Three is meant for Automatic diehards, but fans of all stripes will find plenty to enjoy. ... This is an album of elegant simplicity, full of grand, sweeping gestures.

The Reminder is an exceptional album that should be experienced solely on the merits its stunning musicality.

Easily one of the year's top 10, if not top five.

Sometimes elegance and grace are enough to spark a transformative introspective journey. It is a rare occurrence, but that's what FKA twigs has delivered with Magdalene.

Really, the most impressive thing about Robyn is just how timeless it is proving to be.

For listeners of any act from Miwon to M83 to Dominik Eulberg, Boratto’s work is exemplary of seasoned musicianship and refreshing unpredictability in sound, and these sleek, ceiling-scraping missives are almost too grand--ingest small, careful servings and repeat as needed.

After two great albums, Choral sees the duo consolidating all the gains made into its first real classic, an album that ought to delight hardened-ambient fanatics and neophytes alike.

The whole record is very carefully balanced.

Chaney is a major talent, whose record doesn’t just suggest that there’s greatness ahead. The record is great.

His thoughtful truisms and sonorous songwriting arm them with the required soundtrack. To quote the man who started it all, “The great challenge of adulthood is holding onto your idealism after you lose your innocence.” No one has risen to this challenge with such success, humility, and brilliance as has Sam Fender.

Carlile has been making high-quality music for years, and In These Silent Days adds to that legacy. The songwriting is so good throughout, and Cobb and Jennings’ production is spot-on. ... Regardless of genre, though, this record deserves recognition as being one of the year’s best.

White Hot Peach proves that they cannot be dismissed as mere one-hit wonders. Primitive Radio Gods have created one of those rare recordings that is not only great, but is nearly essential.

In the end, though, it may be the power of the sound that undid this two-minded performer. Two decades on and that power, tragic as it is, has yet to diminish.

This box set illuminates the complicated, tangled bits of history and ideology and personality that connect that man to that myth. Those threads are frayed, tough to follow at times, but strong.

No Cities to Love exceeds all expectations of what a reunion album should sound like by not sounding like a reunion album.

The closest Converge has ever come to pure doom metal, Ballou’s sustained chords, bent strings, and screeching lead fills are anchored by Newton’s and Koller’s disciplined approach, the chemistry more than apparent during the Big Black-esque break, during which all four members, well, converge in a way that has the rest of us marveling at not only how these guys manage to still sound so fresh on record, but actually get better with each one they put out.

haps the greatest testament to the power of this album is that it's still a triumph minus the backstory. Subtract the legend of Roky Erickson, and you have an immaculate collection of dusty country gems and orchestral pop.

The tracks here each carry a specific style and personality that speak to its theme of exploring love in all its forms. It's the usual theme for a country record, especially a modern one, but Yearwood's class as a performer shifts even the most standard dedication to love lost, contained, empty, potential, new, or dead, into an area all its own.

It is astonishing that after a 10-year long affair Arab Strap can make a record as compelling as this.

This is St. Vincent in the '20s and she is glorious. The production value is spectacular; her songwriting/production partnership with Jack Antonoff is more than paying off.

Ordinary Corrupt Human Love takes the strengths of its predecessors and refines them even further, which results in a dynamic emotional and musical experience that previous Deafheaven records came close to achieving, but never quite like this.

Hayter's already dynamic aesthetic. Her thoughtful amalgam of opera, neoclassical darkwave, and death industrial continues to produce theatrical yet still intimate pieces. But above all, Hayter's uncompromised voice tells a necessary story that contests the dominant narratives of women's trauma. Her vivid, brutal portrayal of the enduring effects of misogyny and domestic abuse strictly reveals the gruesome realities of it.

Earnest and straightforward, as rock and roll should be.... The Last DJ is clearly an expression of what Tom Petty feels right now, and his honesty -- coupled with his talent -- is revitalizing.

Goths is full of surprises, places where the music shifts direction in a way that changes a song’s emotional trajectory in a stunning way.

Time will tell, but Black Foliage has all the marks of a major pop masterpiece -- brilliant tunes, innovative arrangements, clever lyrics, a thoroughly adventurous spirit, and a musical depth that always reveals something new on repeated listenings.

There is no other hard rock band around who can match the audacity, intensity, progressive nature, and accessibility of System of a Down, and with Mezmerize, they've simply topped themselves.

This is an album that reminds us of the healing power of turning off the white noise, but you will not want to stop listening to these songs themselves.

As with their debut, the exquisitely painstaking craftsmanship, the overriding sense joy and wonder, the ears wide open to an infinite universe of sonic possibility are all there. It sounds like the Avalanches, and nothing else does.

It’s a testimony to Shamir’s breathtaking talent that he can put together an album as emotionally and sonically complex and ambitious and still deliver a concise, smart, and cohesive album.

If you’ve got a sense of adventure and you’re holding out hope that even in these days of disposable product, rock music can approach art, you will love Folly.

A new pop classic...

Pearl Jam is another straight-up collection of raw, blistered rock and moody mid-tempo balladry. The difference here, and the reason for excitement, is that the self-titled record more consistently achieves the grandeur, rage, and beauty they’ve always pursued, throughout its entirety.

The world of Two Way Monologue may find more by way of endings and duties, but even these can't dampen Lerche's contagious musical sensibilities, exhilarating vigor and downright stupefying songcraft.

Compiled from various stages of his career, with varying fidelity but weirdly without varying quality, Orphans is the singularly odd cutting-room comp that serves as an equally decent introduction to a career.

There are a lot of clever, cutting lines in this album, lots of references to taking many drugs and then taking even more, and in the hands of a less assured band these things would come off sounding callow and glib.

The indefatigable tracks are softened by more ruminative numbers, affording respite and retrospection amid the jungle-thick maze of emotion and mood. Ultra Truth is both a danceable and listening collection that packs a corporeal punch and a spiritual cleanse.

It’s an impressive record to listen to--the compositions are even more beautiful than Ekstasis, even though they’re often more fragmented--but it’s also a frightening depiction of what it feels like to have a whole population making you up in its head.

By taking the piss out of himself and the cynicism out of his outlook, Bird’s songs are not only smart and sensible but joyous and full of hope.

Overall, Belle and Sebastian Write About Love plays like a greatest hits, though not necessarily of former songs.

Baizley shines like never before, Thomson and Jost continue to excel as a rhythmic duo, and newcomer Gleason infuses the set with rewarding and required vocal and instrumental supplemental shades. Together, their faultless unified elegance harvests cherished templates and innovative techniques in equal measure. As a result, just about every listener—no matter their history or prior opinions—will deem Gold & Grey Baroness' masterpiece.

The Private Press is a more diverse collection of styles and sounds, and still surpasses anything else out there.

Like the best art, Strange Mercy lets you know that it means something, though what the point is is as much open to interpretation as it is a matter of its author's intentions, which is how it should be.

I Love You Jennifer B is provocative and ambitious, testing attention while operating on a fine line between listenability and overkill. The way Jockstrap play with expectations keeps listeners on their toes. Trying to anticipate the next 180-degree turn or sudden zero to a hundred acceleration makes them an exciting listen.

The album fully delivers on the crackling promise of "Mad World" with an accomplished set of hard-won folk-rock.

With American Ride, Willie Nile joins their ranks and proves he can do it just as well as the best of them, sometimes better--Springsteen included.

This is an album greater than the sum of its genre-related parts, a masterpiece of musical control and an outstanding next step for Adia Victoria as storyteller and singer alike.

So LP4 may seem like a glorified mess but it has all the coherence and sensorial vigor of one of those Ed Hardy ink designs: unabashedly gaudy with a hard-assed physique; its Byzantium details revealing a mid-to-late century decadence that may still only appeal to a select audience.

As strong as anything Sermon's done.

The album proves itself to be what we all thought Radiohead couldn’t make again: a masterpiece.

Deftly indisputable on Heart's Ease, Collins' music acts as a cultural time capsule to preserve legacies.

Tyrannosaurus Hives lacks its predecessor's cohesive vision, but it finds the band in excellent form, exploring universes beyond their own. One of the year's best.

Every Step's a Yes is more than just a worthy chapter in the Bees' astonishing collected works. It's also a single achievement I'd put up against just about anything else released by anyone this year.

Harps and Angels belongs up there with "12 Songs" and "Sail Away" as one of Newman’s greatest works, regardless if he took 20 years to get it out into the public.

Not only does the album feature all the characteristics that build Holter's identity as a musician, but she has expanded her vision by adding new ideas regarding progression, instrumentation, and scope. It is the summation of all these parts that make Aviary such an excellent album, and one that will be very hard to follow.

What Antony and the Johnsons' music attains is that rare moment after the pain and hurt and abuse and ridicule and resentment and exclusion begins to fade and you yearn for someone to love you without exception and unconditionally.

Dock of the Bay Sessions may not reveal anything new in the Redding catalog, and it's hardly a comprehensive career overview, but it's a warm reminder of his ample talents and a collection of songs that deserves to be in everyone's collection.

It’s sheer exuberance and brilliance in equal force.

One of the best releases of 2013, so far.

The eleven tracks on Long Slow Dance pummel with grace, remain powerful though small in stature and ultimately treat listeners with an immense amount of care.

Thanks for Listening may be a best-of collection from Live from Here's songs of the week, and this makes it a modern masterpiece. Thile's introspective songwriting and ear for musical structure imbue the album with a different type of depth we don't often hear in his other projects.

Crack-Up joins the ranks of albums like Homogenic, OK Computer and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot—works by eclectic, established artists who decided to push boundaries even further and subsequently produced masterpieces. Fleet Foxes’ latest album will likely be added to best-of lists for years to come and championed as their knotty, complex magnum opus.

VOICES employs music as a forum for activism, spreading sentiments of unity, tolerance, and compassion throughout a pensive, sweeping, and goosebump-inducing song cycle of drones, arpeggios, and keyboard figures. In the wake of a surge in anti-liberalism, oppression, bigotry, and bloody violence and unleashed in the middle of a global pandemic, it's a becalming rebuke and a heartening conduit for hope, reflection, and radiance.

An incredible album from a band that continues to redefine its boundaries.

Hecker is bolder with Konoyo, but the themes he explores in that negative space are darker and more oppressive, presenting the missing link between Virgins and Love Streams. And that is what Konoyo showcases: the ability of Hecker to once more reinterpret himself.

Years is a compact, straight to the heart (and feet) record. Every song connects and no notes are wasted. It's a new country classic, plain and simple.

In their catalog, though, no album stands out more than Satan Is Real, their 1959 masterpiece that outlines and encapsulates the fragile fine lines of good versus evil, and spirituality versus the mundane.

Prewitt doesn't waste a second of Three's near-hour length, filling it with an affinity of bouncy rhythms and pop goodness, in turn eclipsing the output of many of his underground rock contemporaries.

With A Different Ship, Here We Go Magic have clearly and undeniably arrived at the port of entry to indie rock's pantheon of top shelf acts – an utterly shattering release that anyone who likes forward-thinking music must have.

By shifting the focus from the percussion to the melodic elements, the complexity has simply been made more palatable.

This reissue of A New Way to Pay Old Debts tacks on the two-song "High Wasted" 7-inch and four previously unreleased tracks from the original recording sessions, making this scuzz-fuzz journey through the dirt and clay beneath the Mississippi Delta even more essential than it was upon its initial run through the experimental woodlands.

Far from being a one-note repetition of life in the Big City, Malin's production has turned The Heat into a multifaceted rock and roll onslaught.

While Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot of Love are considered by many to be forgettable aberrations in an otherwise sterling discography, there are even more who realize that this was a crucial period in the career of one of music's most exciting and revolutionary artists. Trouble No More provides plenty of evidence of this.

Their finest and most expansive collection to date, and one of the finest pop offerings of 2009, this album takes all their strengths--haunting and sublime.

Kids See Ghosts will be remembered as the climax and most enduring record of Ye Season, one that keeps giving with each and every replay.

The best album the Beasties have put out since Paul's Boutique.

Gardens & Villa have granted themselves a new lease on their artistic life, and have produced one of the year’s best rock albums.

Unlike the overstuffed Silver or Seacaucus, The Meadowlands manages to reveal the expanse of the Wrens' vision without trading on their intimate charms.

<A HREF="http://popmatters.com/music/reviews/s/spoon-gimmefiction.shtml" TARGET="_blank">Review #1:</A> The sound of Gimme Fiction is as ideal a conceptualization of the band as could be imagined. [score=100]; <A HREF="http://popmatters.com/music/reviews/s/spoon-gimmefiction2.shtml" TARGET="_blank">Review #2:</A> "Gimme Fiction" has a sense of mischief and curiosity that renders it more consistently varied and just plain more listenable than "Moonlight". [score=80]

While See You Around is their official full-length record the trio sounds seasoned, their interactions effortless and natural. Each member shines at what they do best without sounding overbearing or sacrificing the ensemble's clarity.

Banga serves as a glorious refresher on Smith's talent as musician while also upholding her reputation as a writer.

There is a profound sense of joy on the album. A loud, often frenetic, intense joy but joy all the same. The album extols the virtues of inclusion, of community, of love.

A deeply personal album yet one open to interpretation, by bearing the weight of such gravitas Porterfield and Field Report have crafted a near-masterpiece of pain and triumph within the deckle-edged leaves of Marigolden.

Woods, herself, a poet, singer, activist, and teacher, casts Legacy! Legacy! as a beacon for a type of self-empowerment informed by the predecessors who built and shaped culture.

Woman King is, in essence, the sound of a songwriter with an intuitive grasp on his craft, swiftly acknowledging the studio's crucial supporting role in his songs' structure and rearing.

The Craft stands as an example that it is possible to successfully branch out while keeping the roots of your culture alive.

Lamar concentrates the ideas of hip-hop narrative and nonfiction into such a form that's shocking for how simultaneously accessible yet full of depth it is.

Bluenote Café is essential Neil Young, and further evidence that Young’s ‘80s work has more value than many fans and critics would expect or admit.

Gaslighter is bold and incendiary, finding the Chicks reclaiming their relevance. Thankfully, the Chicks rejected silencing as Gaslighter reestablishes their penchant for vocalizing raw truths.