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

New Bermuda's few epiphanies are surrounded by waters too rough for most listeners.

Their riotous manifesto remains the same, but their musical dialect has expanded to include blues, soul and even traces of pristine Led Zeppelin-era metal.

The themes are often bleak: "Some girls are blessed with a dark turn of mind," Welch sings at one point, probably with a wink. But there's a light that never goes out on The Harrow & the Harvest.

All of the pieces in the box set complete a puzzle that explains how McCartney found himself again and hit the stride that has propelled him to the present day.

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.

Singer Matt Berninger's gorgeous baritone is still the band's main selling point....Yet the tension comes mainly from composers Aaron and Bryce Dessner.

As an introduction to Buck's weird world of lovable losers, hugely endowed centaurs and insomniacs, Right Here is right on.

Well beyond the already stellar dismissal of heteronormative storylines in pop love stories, Sivan finds a wealth of ways to bring about fresh reflections on age-old themes with undeniable charisma.

Beyoncé may have gotten "bored" with the popstar routine, as she confesses in "Ghost." But only massive hubris could have made a feat like this album possible. And Beyoncé's hubris makes the world a better, more Beyoncé-like place.

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

Swift touches on so much more – nuanced acts of forgiveness, complex personal histories, the ability to visualize and know how a person can look in different shades of light. No doubt Swift is still the master of writing a spiteful kiss-off, but the songs of Evermore are a welcomed step in a more mature direction.

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.

Some of his punditry is pure Che T-shirt prattle, but even when he's arguing that there's no difference between Reagan and Obama, his Ice Cube-style bark tumbles down over harried, aggro beats from indie-eminence El-P and hits like a gut punch of revealed wisdom.

As glorious as the sound of this thing is, glinting with letter-perfect ‘70s-’80s rock sonics and touches of 21st-century psychedelic irony, the songs are the show, written by a woman of a particular age from a perspective well past jaded--she’s been there done that--swung back around to a wide-eyed, faintly zen reportage. Poetic images pop.

While drummer Liv Bruce wrings shout-along comedy out of modern-dating insecurity on "Answer My Text." The corker is "Big Beautiful Day," an anthem for oppressed queer kids that bursts with rage and empathy.

with fits of glam flamboyance and a raw rockabilly bluntness, Moz's third solo LP made clear what Smiths fans already knew: Here was a new kind of superstar. For more proof, check this remastered reissue's must-see bonus DVD.

They make tremendously consoling music, in an autumnal sort of way.

Now they just rock out, stripping New Wave and metal and rockabilly down to primal thrust and blare. There are half a dozen songs under three minutes on Fever to Tell, and they sound absolutely complete.

A brilliant leap forward.

When Jacklin isn’t waxing philosophical on mind-body duality, she’s simply showing the special way she processes the world around her. The result is a profound statement that stands as an early candidate for this year’s strongest singer-songwriter breakthrough.

Bejar's ninth disc detours into all manner of early-Eighties smoothness - glassy New Wave bass lines, blue-Monday synths, turquoise- sport-coat saxophones, backup singers straight off a Steely Dan record, all filtered through the obtuse, literary bent that turns Destroyer albums into such fun puzzles.

The gem here is the new song, “No Bullets Spent,” which is about praying for the end of some existential anguish (“What we need now’s an accident/No one to blame and no bullets spent”). It could be about politics, it could be about a bad day frontman Britt Daniel had waiting for his number to be called at the DMV. Regardless, it’s another catchy, taut, perfectly restrained rocker that belongs in a collection like this.

Dance Fever may be Welch’s most ecstatically extra work yet. [May 2022, p.75]

Geogaddi is marvelously vague, as unconcerned with the real world as gangsta rap is obsessed with it. It's also a lovely, strangely comforting collection of electronic introspection, mood and shadow.

Leo's racial politics are serious and confused in that familiar white-guy-in-D.C. way, but word-heavy, wound-up gems such as "Hearts of Oak," "The Anointed One" and "The Ballad of the Sin Eater" prove he knows how to turn political conviction into punk energy.

Clark is good at bending country boilerplate.

Bad Bunny conquered the singles game with ease. On X100PRE, he cements his place among the elite in Latin pop--and in pop music writ large.

Although they indulge more textures this time, they don’t stray so far from Dogrel’s art-punk blueprint to the point of losing themselves. It’s just that the palette is wider and more pronounced. If anything, their chiming, noisy guitars and messy arrangements only fit their highfalutin aspirations even better.

What results is a fully realized artistic statement without a skippable track, even if a few songs trail off a bit toward the end — almost as if Baker knows the rush of cathartic energy has left everyone involved a little exhausted, including herself. And that’s just fine, because this is enough reality for a lifetime, let alone one record.

Like Death in Vegas, Holmes is a techno boffin whose work builds upon that of the Velvet Underground rather than Kraftwerk; too bad his grooves, like the bass-line chug of "Living Room," often go nowhere fast.

Most of the time, as on a soulful version of Patsy Cline's "She's Got You," Giddens imbues these classics with a freshness and vitality that feel right at home in 2015.

His superb major label debut Brandon Banks is sprawling autobiography overflowing with dense, unflinching, granular detail sourced from his 15-odd years of toting guns, staging robberies, and selling drugs in Southwest Houston.

Where Cobb's fine 2016 breakout Shine On Rainy Day cast him as singer-songwriting tale-teller, these songs are more from the gut.

If his longstanding difficulties and insecurities were always present just barely beneath the surface on Wilco’s classic records, they are starkly prominent and central to what is often a deeply moving new LP.

More, please.

Parquet Courts are especially versed in the clipped, repetitive buzz of Wire's '77 classic Pink Flag, but, like Pavement, they soften post-punk's cranky edge with the glazed, lonely wonderment of fresh, wide-eyed New York transplants.

Helm struts his slippery shell-game groove on 'Jed' and works it deftly throughout. But he digs deepest here with his voice, which veers between soulful stoicism and boozy yowl.

Tantabara has a scruffy, econo, indie-rock vibe reminiscent of beautiful Brooklyn afrojazz punks Sunwatchers or Tel Aviv-born Brooklyn guitarist Yonatan Gat, who shreds aggressively on Tal's "Entente."

It's fine music to nest in.

Minimizing their usual production trickery in favor of live-in-the-studio ensemble thrust, these merry pranksters swim in classic-psychedelia grooves while offering oodles of art-rock allusion.

The ebb and flow of eighteen concise, contrasting cuts writes a story about Moby's beautifully conflicted interior world while giving the outside planet beats and tunes on which to groove.

Both the most extreme record Bjork has ever released and the most immediately accesible. [16 Sep 2004, p.79]

It’s a scorching art-pop statement.

Ghostface Killah is so charismatic, he can brag about being an old coot and make it sound badass.

[Cancer4Cure] is a paranoid reality show – and that's its appeal.

Lovers is a departure for Wilco guitar swami Nels Cline, whose side projects generally involve free-jazz freakouts. That's not to say this wordless double-disc set, featuring an all-star orchestra full of sharp improvisers, isn't wildly inventive in its water-colored way.

Knowing he was crafting his farewell, Vega leaves as he arrived, raging over Suicide-style industrial grinds.

Multi-layered and deeply personal, Something is Sivan’s most adventurous album in more ways than one. Musically, the singer stretches out to explore new instrumentation — and ornamentation. .... Lyrically, Sivan manages to be earnest and self-aware, without descending into bitterness or self-loathing.

Murphy mixes the organic and the synthetic, rock and electro, loud guitars and louder beats. Like any good dance producer, he excels at the art of tension and release.

It's some of the year's most thought-provoking hip-hop.

Swift sings on the sweet, lonesome “Dirty Jim,” which has lyrics that sum up the album’s deep tones of loneliness and regret. Offsetting some of that weight are Swift’s generous soul and rock arrangements, which he tracked almost entirely on his own, with a deft studio touch.

Kiley Lotz has a voice like a bell, one that holds on to its strength and resonance even when she's singing of knotty emotions like those that dominate her second full-length as Petal.

Their debut suggests the White Stripes' White Blood Cells by way of M.I.A.'s Arular, noise that's friendly and cute, primitivism that masks pop smarts and respect for tradition, from New Wave to Sixties rock.

Blue Hearts gushes more piss and vinegar than Stanley Kubrick could fill a hallway with, but what makes it jaw-dropping is the precision with which Mould has focused his ire on conservatives, evangelicals, homophobes, while leaving room for some self-criticism as well. ... Blue Hearts often feels like a lost Hüsker Dü album with Mould howling invective over his buzzsawing guitar.

[Out Hud] uses guitars like proper rhythm instruments, meshed best with penetrating drums, space synths and a dash of sticky dub. [23 Jan 2003, p.67]

They're not out to break ground as much as to perfect a sound they consider timeless -- and on portions of Indestructible, they nail it.

Though nowhere near as incisive, infectious or rewarding as their best work, Kids See Ghosts is still an important step forward into an era of big moods and short attention spans.

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 National are letting light and air into their shadows.

Full Circle is a homey set, with few new songs and no May-December duets or hotshot young rockers, Elvis Costello notwithstanding.

Pure instrumental pleasure. [10 Feb 2005, p.82]

Though her deep voice is mixed down a little, most of Meshell Ndegeocello's seventh album--five of its tracks reprised from last year's "Article 3 EP" recalls 2002's "Cookie."

Recorded in about a month and surprise-released to fans, it's full of casual stunners.

Tyla’s debut, sure to be on repeat at better houseparties this year, shows she’s up to the challenge; amapiano probably couldn’t ask for a more effective ambassador.

It's heartbreaking and hilarious, in equal measure.

The release is thrillingly palpable.

Young charges forward here, playing half of the imminent Neil Young in pristine, tremulous-vocal form and reclaiming six of his Buffalo Springfield songs.

Vicious is a combination of punk's snottiness, Detroit rock's raw power and the stylized blues freak-outs of bands like Pussy Galore.

You wish the band would let some tunefulness creep in, but the dozens of riffs, guitar spills and slogans pack a messy, intelligent punch. [13 May 2004, p.72]

At their best, Animal Collective combine shapely pop hooks with mind-broadening sonic freakery. At their worst, the sonic freakery is mind-numbing. Like most of their work, this five-song EP contains all of the above.

This release buys Clark some time to refine his studio vision of modern blues. It also shows that wherever he chooses to go from here, he has what it takes to get there.

Uchis’ 360-degree view of love and versatile voice make Red Moon in Venus a wholly satisfying examination of emotionalism in its many forms — romantic, carnal, self-preserving.

The overall effect can be vaguely schizo -- many of these tracks seem more like cool fragments than true songs.

This barebones performance absolutely sparkles — a “Tombstone Blues” that’s much quieter than the original, but so spry that it’s irresistible. It stands totally on its own, and so does the album it’s on.

It Is What It Is, is just as daring in its musical reach, and its pairing of goofy and gutting [as 2017's Drunk].

Taken together, it's a comprehensive document of a great band with endless secrets to reveal, even now.

At every turn -- high-mountain balladry, brassy R&B, near-metallic blues rock -- Rosanne sings of coming through loss with a poise and confessional will that are utterly country and absolutely in the family tradition.

A lushly orchestrated set of throwback, country-tinged folk pop that, despite some resemblance to previous works like Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad, sounds like little else in his catalog. Frankly, its sheen is off-putting at first. But once you settle in, the set reveals some of Springsteen’s most beguiling work ever.

Yeezus is the darkest, most extreme music Kanye has ever cooked up, an extravagantly abrasive album full of grinding electro, pummeling minimalist hip-hop, drone-y wooz and industrial gear-grind. Every mad genius has to make a record like this at least once in his career--at its nastiest, his makes Kid A or In Utero or Trans all look like Bruno Mars.

In refusing to pander, either to easy nostalgia or to current trends, she touches on something timeless.

Immersion is a good way to characterize the grip and whirl of construction recounted on the two CDs of demos in this seven-disc box, which includes a previously released recording of the 1980-81 stage show.

Wildheart is an even bolder move: an intoxicating master class in electro-porn R&B--the coin of the modern genre--that's also a soul-searching critique of same.

On Last Man Standing, Willie Nelson continues to turn his ninth decade into a classic country song full of remembrance, regret and resilience.

Body doesn’t have the telekinetic bond of the Necks’ famed live show, or the gorgeous ambience of recent albums like Vertigo and Untold, but it brings these veterans into a different space.

All that said, this is an exercise for die-hards and audiophiles: To PJ's credit, the original didn't leave much room for improvement.

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga might be Spoon's commercial breakthrough, doing for them what "Good News" did for Modest Mouse, but for certain it's one of the Austin, Texas, trio's finest records.

Every amp tone on this album is just sweet enough, every jangling rhythm hits exactly where it should. Rolling Blackouts are playing an old game, but they're damned good at it.

The record’s nine songs clock in at just 28 minutes total, which feels just right, the samey-ness among songs playing as a strength, conjuring a mood and maintaining it, yet never feeling predictable, in part because it’s hard to get a bead on precisely what each song is about.

Moody and inviting. [Jun 2020, p.71]

Much like “Nothing Matters,” songs like “Caesar on a TV Screen” and “Burn Alive” start like hung-over reveries before vaulting into trampoline pop, wrapping up with crashing crescendos. Over the course of an album, that approach veers towards formula. But there’s no denying the way their blowsy, unrestrained songs knock you upside and down and leave you with a dizzying high.

Takk . . . suggests a far more abstract Coldplay stripped of their stadium bombast.

Blood Money is especially grim, a bitter suite about greed and moral bankruptcy.

Given one last chance to make an impact, Jay-Z has come up with one of the better albums of his career, though perhaps a shade lesser than his very best, Reasonable Doubt and The Blueprint.

A perfect match of sound and soul, the set introduces a new guitar hero, and confirms Auerbach's arrival as a roots-music producer to be reckoned with.

Her perfectly turned sixth LP deals with identity and autonomy; it's got feminist musculature and the dirt of a working musician under its fingernails.

Bush of Ghosts seems half-baked, putatively cerebral yet underthought, interesting only because somebody famous did it.