As an enjoyable fan-service sequel intended to offer music of comfort and solace, Black Radio III is fine. As an artist, Glasper is allowed to get into his beatmaker bag, relaunch the Black Radio brand, and leave the New Jazz Thing bleeding edge to others. But one can’t help but wish the stakes were a bit higher.

Across the board, Lavigne sounds like she’s having good, real fun for the first time in ages. If the album is following a major pop-punk trend in pop music, it also serves as a reminder that Lavigne helped shape so much of that sound in the first place.

Its musical colors are less vivid than Mirrorland. But some of these songs hit hard with palpable emotion, and their impact deepens with each fresh listening.

For his ninth album, Carraba goes back to his hard-strumming roots, making his most old-school Dashboard-y collection in years (it’s even produced by James Paul Weiser, who helmed the first two albums). It’s just Carraba and the guitar and melodies that would scale up brilliantly

Heterosexuality is impulsive and unfiltered, another self-affirmation from someone who’s shared that he’s “anti-career”—and far more interested in self-discovery than a route toward the stardom.

Longtime fans may miss the laser-sharp focus of Blige’s best albums. Yet her attempts to lighten the mood and bring some joy to her life on Good Morning Gorgeous is a worthy trade-off.

It’s his most revealing solo release, since, musically, it feels more like the Vedder we’ve known for 30 years and not a purposeful departure from Pearl Jam.

It's the best thing they've ever done, more than exceeding their usual quotient of fire guitars, killer choruses, and crafty rock-history updates. [Feb 2022, p.72]

Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You can feel redundant at points, and might be a little much to wade through unless you already roll waist-deep with the Big Thief experience. Yet the cumulative sense of the open-ended, accidental, communal, and casual is worth any slowish spots along the way. This is a band that deserves the time you lend it.

Cobb makes gospel music fun, funky and oh-so-cool on this collection of traditional hymns. [Feb 2022, p.72]

A prickly selection of psychedelic R&B and proto-funk. [Feb 2022, p.72]

When Jonathan Davis sings "I know this all sounds so cliché," on "Lost In The Grandeur," he's pretty much right. [Feb 2022, p.72]

Le Bon is one of indie music's more beguilingly brilliant artists, as her sixth LP attests. [Feb 2022, p.72]

Time Skiffs splits the difference between the pop and the avant, spaced-out family-pad music with solid drumming, deep-distance percussion, wobbly melodies, and harmonies somehow more blissed out than anything else.

This record isn’t the return to form that it aims to be, but Chainz is back in his element here.

Laurel Hell can feel, at first, like an impenetrable record, full of guarded gloss and pop production that feels more like cold caution than anthemic summoning. That’s exactly Mitski’s point. ... More often than not, the songs about personal turmoil double as self-conscious career commentary.

Whether the performances are stark and embittered (Simone’s) or somber and haunted (the Staples’), the tracks communicate years of struggle and pain — a far cry from the sense of hope that ran through earlier calls to arms, like Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.”

An urgent-feeling, musically rich record, one of his most memorable in a while. Whether life has much left to give him is his call to make, but he still has plenty to offer us.

She often sounds invigorated as the record breezes through multiple styles of R&B as well as afropop, house, and funk. ... Unfortunately, her shapeshifting gets short-circuited by hamfisted writing, especially as the album’s space theme gets less playful and more literal.

Gunna has a flashy and intoxicating vocal style, and that alone DS4 a worthy escapade. But he can’t transcend the clichés that define his era.

Extends the murky, revelatory folk of [Bonnie Light Horseman] with wistful reflections on the passing of time and free-falling in love. [Jan 2022, p.71]

"What Do You Want from Yourself," a title that sums up this album's self-searching power. [Jan 2022, p.71]

Won't surprise anyone, but its upbeat feel and finely wrought prettiness will satisfy Luministas for sure. [Jan 2022, p.71]

On his most legible album, he’s actively engaged in dismantling what it means for rappers to go in, and to evolve as artists. Without punchlines, hooks, eccentric beats, and flashy flows, he finds ways to astound and delight, avoiding gimmicks as well as grandstanding.

Caprisongs is her most buoyant, she doesn’t sacrifice her creative nonconformity or intimacy. She strikes a careful balance, akin to perfecting an arabesque on a razor blade, as she revels in production that’s carefree, cathartic, and completely life-giving.

On his fifth album, Dawn FM, the Weeknd focuses those interstellar ambitions to anoint us with the most enchanting music to the portal through purgatory.

There are moments that'll sate Policeheads, along with jazz touches, folk storytelling, and an Otis Redding reading. [Jan 2022, p.71]

Has a similar beauty and mystery [as 2007's Raising Sand] with covers of Calexico. [Jan 2022, p.71]

An astonishing - at times overwhelming - four-album, 47-track, two-and-a-half-hour release. [Jan 2022, p.71]

An astonishing - at times overwhelming - four-album, 47-track, two-and-a-half-hour release. [Jan 2022, p.71]

An astonishing - at times overwhelming - four-album, 47-track, two-and-a-half-hour release. [Jan 2022, p.71]

An astonishing - at times overwhelming - four-album, 47-track, two-and-a-half-hour release. [Jan 2022, p.71]

He’s in full-on floss mode, which makes this sophomore outing a fun, if slightly surface-level listen. But “Rollercoastin’” is a best-of-both-worlds boon.

Fighting Demons, his second posthumous album is a tortured but overall grateful memento mori from a talented artist who left us all too soon.

On their second English-language album, The Dreaming, K-pop group Monsta X pays homage to boy-band culture, with Nineties-style harmonies, slick choruses, and head-bopping beats that come together for an infectious and joyous 27 minutes.

On They Got Amnesia, French makes sure we never forget that his bona fides are bulletproof.

On Richer Than I’ve Ever Been, Ross proves that his highfalutin aspirations are a major part of his authenticity.

While Keys’ sound is mildly refurbished, the overall sensibility isn’t all that new for her. Keys has been showing off her gift for bridging styles and eras since back when she was a breakout star combining classical piano chops with New York hip-hop and R&B. Unsurprisingly, Originals is the more self-assured of the two sets.

On Barn, cut in just a few days at a log-cabin structure in Colorado, the thunderous and ornery side of Young and the Horse revs up again, and sonically, at least, it’s akin to running into an old friend you haven’t seen face to face since the pre-pandemic days.

It’s all modestly pleasant to listen to. But if he wants to resurrect Def Jam as a true cultural force and not just a legacy imprint in the UMG galaxy, he’ll have to bring stronger smoke than The Algorithm.

Adele has never sounded more ferocious than she does on 30—more alive to her own feelings, more virtuosic at shaping them into songs in the key of her own damn life. It’s her toughest, most powerful album yet.

The result is the most enjoyable record Mars has been a part of — a glorious excuse to turn out the lights, break out the bubbly and let the sublime power of their almost troublingly uncanny retro verisimilitude work its mimetic magic on your soul and mind.

The new Red is even bigger, glossier, deeper, casually crueler. It’s the ultimate version of her most gloriously ambitious mega-pop manifesto.

Her brilliant third album, Things Take Time, Take Time, is her most reserved and thoughtful yet, full of everyday observation and wry wisdom — it grows slowly, but pay attention and you’ll grow with it.

Jordan’s second record proves that the singer is capable of oh-so much more.

Listeners who gravitate to Walker for her intense honesty won’t be disappointed by Still Over It.

The Night Sweats often suggest a more wide-open, somewhat jam-band-y Rocky Mountain version of the Dap-Kings' funk-soul attack, and you can imagine The Future appealing equally to fans of Dave Matthews and Amy Winehouse.

The songs feel familiar, as if they’ve even assembled from parts of previous hits. ... All that said, there’s still an inordinate deal of pleasure to be taken in music that wants to sweep you up and revel in sonic bliss, whether you’ve emerged from a still-lingering pandemic or not.

It’s a surprise to have these Swedes back in the game. But it’s a bigger, sweeter surprise that they returned so full of musical vitality.

Kid A Mnesia isn’t just a monument of Radiohead’s bravest, boldest music—it’s a tribute to keeping the creative fires burning even in the coldest of times.

As a songwriter, Granduciel can’t quite fill shoes [like Bob Dylan's] that big. But when he steps aside and War on Drugs stretch out — piling on acoustic filigree and crisp leads on “Harmonia’s Dream,” for instance, or zoning out heroically during the anxiety-shedding folk rock of “Occasional Rain” — they create a rare world of bliss that’s a great place to kill some time.

He’s equally rooted in old-school melody and beat-derived new-century songwriting. In its best moments, = brings together those two worlds. ... Yet as genuinely in love as he appears, his devotional songs tend to bog down in generalized sentiments and gooier melodies.

An album that rewards both short attention spans and deep listening. It’s a real treat to hear them zip between sonic epiphanies.

Hushed and Grim never stops giving, and the album’s energy, depth, and power make it a completely unique addition to the band’s mammoth catalog.

While there isn’t a ton here that forwards their narrative, the sense of being in a studio blasting away right as shows and festivals begin to open again is palpable.

She has often made intimacy seem transactional. But here, it feels pure.

With his latest album, you get the feeling that these are songs Thug needed to get off of his chest. While not a dazzling record, it opens a door to exciting opportunities.

Even if this project probably won’t give us any fresh entrants into the large canon of classic Elton songs, The Lockdown Sessions is still a glowing testament to his enduring pop gravitas.

This latest one, which lasts more than double the length of the studio Love Supreme, shows additionally how for Coltrane, his weightiest statement to date wasn’t a fixed masterpiece but a perpetual work in progress, a launchpad to the next phase of his quest.

he rich, albeit brief, collection of songs on to hell with it feels like the kind of genuine and heartfelt openness that the internet once promised.

The results are good to great, with two R.E.M. songs bookending the project.

The result is a raw quality with a sound akin to Bob Dylan and the Band’s Basement Tapes — an album that undoubtedly influenced these sessions (George Harrison, having recently hung out with the Band in Woodstock, describes his early take of “All Things Must Pass” as ‘Band-y’.) The mix also includes “Don’t Let Me Down,” tragically left off the original album but now in its rightful place, nuzzled between a loose, rowdy medley and the gem “Dig a Pony.”

“Infinity Sign,” with its pastel-colored disco bounce, New Age keyboards, and distant sample of a chanting crowd that sounds like a Close Encounters visitation over a sold-out soccer stadium. That unique level of thematic specificity notwithstanding, the record itself doesn’t get weighed down by any sort of Rush-size storyline, nor is there some pain-in-the-ass heavy-handed sci-fi message to deal with (beyond the predictably intimated vibes of harmony, wonder, etc.).

While his pretensions can at times make things a little awkward (see the impressionistic piano piece “Peaches Etude”), there’s an admirable idealism in his desire to write earnest songs in a cynical age, and those songs can end up leaving a clear, large mark on your emotions.

The album does have its share of standout moments. ... But Don Toliver remains, perhaps intentionally, impenetrably enigmatic. In a culture replete with mysterious superstars, it makes Life of a Don ultimately a bit frustrating.

The album doesn’t contain much that he hasn’t done better before, and he rarely sounds as good breaking bread with Billboard Hot 100 heroes like Young Thug and Lil Uzi Vert as he does by himself. But when he’s in a zone, railing valiantly against frenemies and past lovers real and perceived, there’s no one better.

It could just as easily be a message to any hard-working performer with a family at home as it could be Carlile’s urgent reminder to herself to leave the rockstar bullshit out on the road. Either way, it’s the kind of vulnerable, complicated statement that has made her such a relatable artist.

A superhero team-up that has produced another album of rock-solid takes on the American songbook.

A big throughline of this album is Cara wondering whether she can trust her own mind. But the melodicism and warmth of most of these songs, like “Fishbowl,” “Voice In My Head,” and “Somebody Else,” don’t betray any actual disillusionment. That’s not a bad thing considering the radio is teeming with sad songs right now. The world could use a little more light.

Guyton is far too thoughtful an artist to rely on mere self-referential commentary: The power of Remember Her Name lies in her knack for transforming her own profound testimony into aspirational universality.

I’ll Be Your Mirror reaffirms the weight of the Velvets’ importance, which countless artists reflect every day, whether they acknowledge it or not.

He has the most fun when the record is at it’s most playful and absurd.

The overwhelming amount of material — 54 unreleased songs total — proves that even at Dylan’s lowest point, he was still capable of writing great music, even if the best songs often didn’t wind up on his albums.

There’s a trace of his Pulitzer-winning kin in his agile stop-and-go flow. And while those are pretty big shoes to fill, The Melodic Blue, Baby Keem’s scrappy debut makes it clear that this is, unquestionably, his narrative.

There’s enough evidence on A Beautiful Revolution, Pt. 2 to suggest that he still cares about music, but it may take more than mellow bromides and Obama shout-outs to truly convince us.

While he doesn’t break new ground on the record, Jose showcases an artist balancing who he is with what we expect, and holding happily in place.

Like most tribute albums, it’s a study in the art of rearrangement, in how an artist can rethink (or overthink) a song from the ground up without sacrificing something essential about the original recording. The Metallica Blacklist is also a tribute to a musical moment when that which was once considered alternative was apparently everywhere all along, a moment for pop music that felt revolutionary that fans and bands would be thinking about 30 years on.

Hey What is a well-rounded experience from the first track, the gorgeously devastating “White Horses,” to the last, “The Price You Pay (It Must Be Wearing Off)” and all its tentative hope, with moments in between that ebb and flow with the capriciousness of human emotion.

The album suffers from this unfocused overabundance of voices. ... It’s ultimately a shame since Certified Lover Boy could have very well been Drake’s best record. Sonically, it’s his most impressive offering to date.

If listeners have the stamina — and the patience — Senjutsu is one of the most rewarding and vital albums in Maiden’s catalog.

The dramatic title-track introduction and heart-split-in-half album cover are clever misdirections on a record that’s most moving when it’s not forcing any heart-on-the-page catharsis and instead leaning on what Musgraves has always done best: documenting the terrifying, numbing messiness of mixed emotions.

Screen Violence represents an enhanced version of Chvrches and although it might not be the most radical evolution, the album marks an intriguing step forward nonetheless.

Donda occasionally gestures toward the truly shapeless writing on that LP [Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red] but stops short of sounding as if West is truly articulating his id.

These are the sounds of adult emotional struggle, thirtysomethings trying to make sense of the end of young adulthood, and to the realization that your troubles won’t go away just because you’re not hitting a bar every night. But it’s Dessner who becomes the most intriguing vocal presence.

Feel Flows lets everyone else hear what their fellow musicians have known for decades: When nobody was looking, the Beach Boys made extraordinary music, complex sounds all their own that made for California albums up there with Love’s Forever Changes, the Doors’ L.A. Woman and X’s Los Angeles. This stuff was made for these times, whatever those times might be.

Back to back, the songs are somewhat of a heavy-handed introduction to an album that’s at its most interesting not when it’s signaling its depth or using foreboding production as a surrogate for intensity. Instead, the music works best when Halsey follows their natural pop tendencies down new experimental paths.

As much as you have to admire Simpson for making such an oddball and ambitious record, the album rarely transcends its tale.

“Mood Ring,” which is sonically a highlight and lyrically a miss, is one of the more obvious satires, tackling wellness culture through the lens of Sixties commune life. While a valiant attempt, what it misses is that one of the best parts of Lorde’s songwriting is her incredible earnestness. When that is let loose, like on the absolutely stellar “Oceanic Feeling” and Big Star-esque “Big Star,” she is an unstoppable pop force.

Pressure Machine might be just too much of a bummer for folks who long for dishy escape. But the band is remarkably good at knowing just when to make a song go widescreen.

The original All Things has aged brilliantly (the fresh remix doesn’t hurt). ... The two CDs of early demos (day one made with Voormann and Starr, day two acoustic versions) could easily stand on their own; these are spare, campfire-ish takes on which Spector would soon add Wall of Sound bricks.

Delightfully glitzed-out collection of arena space rock. [Jul/Aug 2021, p.133]

Stretches further into his trademark laid-back R&B. [Jul/Aug 2021, p.133]

We relate because we root for her, because we listen with affection and identification. We’d all rather see her in a crown, running this nothing town. But the most striking thing about Happier Than Ever is that she’s refusing to coddle her audience, refusing to protect us from her darkest moments. It’s a high-risk move.

Judging from the lyrics to “Welcome 2 America,” Prince wasn’t interested in the pop life anymore anyway. What he did care about will remain a mystery, but puzzle pieces like Welcome 2 America will always be welcome.

Bleachers’ most cohesive effort. But it doesn’t quite match the grandiose expectations Antonoff’s laid out for himself as an artist who wants to make albums, not just songs.

A dazzling showcase of luxurious Seventies-inspired soul and mellow Laurel Canyon-style folk rock. [Jul/Aug 2021, p.133]

A fine set of yacht-y, good-natured, mind-finding tunes. [Jul/Aug 2021, p.133]

Can evoke an Americana-tinged Warren Zevon, gruff but tender, with the best songs featuring Shelby Lynne's empathetic vocals. [Jul/Aug 2021, p.133]