At its worst, the music on Everyone’s Crushed sounds like etudes – studies in experimentalism, finger exercises for tyros in the avant-garde. But when Water From Your Eyes find transcendence – especially on the record’s final two tracks, “14” and the extra winky “Buy My Product” – it can be quite stunning.

Parks has a skill for inviting listeners not only into her mind, but into her immediate environment, and the effects bring her racing emotions right to the forefront.

What makes this music connect is Simon’s ability to make a spiritual setting feel down-to-earth, what you might expect from one of American pop music’s greatest conversational songwriters.

13 scorched-earth tracks that present an artist pulling herself back up from the brink of madness. The most striking element of Kesha's latest is the sound. ... She has found a psychedelic middle ground between the sleazy synths of her 20212 breakthrough, Warrior, and the rootsy and Southern rock of her past two. [May 2023, p.73]

Aside from that awkward reach across the aisle ["Americana"], The Album’s other attempts to dig into weightier matters have better results.

The fruits of their shared labor aren’t perfect—one can pinpoint obvious echoes of Overgrown era James Blake on the album, and the prominent use of murky effects often feels like a crutch to distract from undercooked songwriting. But Secret Life is ultimately a strong outlier in each artist’s handful of recent releases.

ATUM is clearly meant to be the kind of record that requires your full attention, and Act Three makes for a nicely trippy conclusion to the whole project, as well as an intriguing listening experience in and of itself.

woods fulfills the literary expectations he’s often saddled with. Each work is a different chapter in an impressively consistent collection, and Maps finds him in repose, taking stock of the world of him.

On Subtract, Sheeran’s lyricism returns to the spotlight, bolstered by finely detailed music that complements his crystalline lyrics and close-confidant delivery.

The maturity and depth on display on Jackman may not be enough to silence haters or mollify critics but, like Mac Miller’s Watching Movies with the Sound Off, it’s a step up in lyricism that shows that Harlow has much, much more to offer.

A remarkable reassertion of the band’s potency. ... Nine albums deep, the National find new energy by conjuring not just a great, suffocating fog but also the far light that guides the way out.

It’s certainly not overlong at 10 tracks, but That! Feels Good! does seem frontloaded with its punchiest tunes. Still, there are moments in the back half that really work. ... That! Feels Good! is at its absolute best when it pinpoints that intoxicating connection between body and emotion.

It’s a tight 10-track collection that lyrically and musically probes the concept of freedom—what it means, whether it’s a blessing or a curse.

Fuse picks up right where Temperamental stopped, as if they’re hitting play on a cassette they’ve kept on pause for 24 years. But they keep it fresh, using the latest digital effects to warp, filter, mutate Thorn’s voice into a deeper, more dolorous instrument. That suits the adult tone of the songs.

The group blasts 10 hardcore, groove-metal, and metalcore tracks in under 30 minutes, but Jesus Piece avoid the repetitive and rough aspects of their debut by growing exponentially as musicians, focusing their songwriting, and becoming more capable of translating the energy of their live show into nuanced studio performances.

While FACE does at times dwell on the existential what-ifs that plague twentysomething men who have the world’s gaze turned squarely toward them, for the most part it’s a compelling showcase of the silky-voiced singer-dancer’s pop strengths.

The Eighties and Nineties hip-hop-beat references on the album open up a world of opportunity for the group: They’re clearly having the most fun lyrically as they update the past.

There’s a Flannery O’Connor story collection worth of Southern fucked-up-ness going on here. But Wednesday are just as interested in sucking you in with a walloping guitar banger as they are in freaking you out with their snapshots from the ruralburban coming-of-age abyss. These songs are so catchy you almost don’t notice the body count.

Metallica have always been masters of corpulent, groove-heavy riffs and labyrinthine song structures, but now, with more than 40 years of experience, they play with more purpose than in their speed-demon days.

[Love From The Other Side] kicks off a four-song punch of the band’s finest pop writing in ages. ... Some of the other reaches toward pop don’t work as effectively. ... As always, Fall Out Boy’s riskier feats are some of the strongest.

On their ninth album, the sense of crisis in Newman’s songwriting is reflected in a more subdued musical tone as well, making for an LP that delivers its vivid emotional payoff in subtle gestures.

Like deciphering an ancient cassette tape, distorted right up to the point of destruction, Scaring the Hoes is, in fact, a little scary. And that's what makes it so compelling. The chaos makes way for clarity.

All over The Record, they keep recombining their individual styles into a different kind of chemistry for each song. That’s why they transcend any kind of “supergroup” cliché. After all, supergroups are a dime a dozen compared to actual great bands. And boygenius leave no doubt about where they stand.

Sonically, Ocean Blvd plays out like an elevated take on what she accomplished on Born to Die: the type of anachronistic fusion of Sixties beat poetry, Seventies FM piano pop and more current rap and dance music production that only Del Rey can pull off.

On Love in Exile, they’re confident enough in their abilities to merge and meld into something simpler but no less impressive. No definitions required.

Surprisingly, it finds him mellowed out, focused, with a newfound interest in subtlety and even subtext. ... Ben is handily his best album. It’s a midcareer downshift from an artist who desperately needed it.

Acknowledging mortality defines much of Memento Mori, but it never feels heavy handed or even all that sullen. Some of the tracks even sound upbeat. ... As always with Depeche Mode, everything counts in large amounts, and on Memonto Mori, the stakes feel bigger than ever.

10,000 Gecs ultimately rises and falls on songcraft. “Doritos & Fritos” is a burst of surrealism and dance-punk angularity that lyrically pairs “eating burritos” with “Danny DeVito.” But “Hollywood Baby” feels too literal in its rebel-girl sentiment, even as the duo mock the idea of celebrity. Still, punters will find plenty of fun singalong chants to repeat when 100 Gecs hit the festival circuit.