Japandroids fans will be happy to know that Near to the Wild Heart of Life is a Japandroids album, pushed to 11 even in the quiet moments: towering riffs played on maxed-out amps, drums hit with due diligence, big whoa-oh harmonies, passionate, evocative rock n’ roll songwriting about girls and alcohol.

Virtually every song slaps like crazy.

Throughout Grinderman 2, the guitars and violins pant and howl with a visceral, veteran's swagger. Late middle age has never sounded so thrilling.

Utopia is full-on music-theater unlike anything Björk has yet attempted, and the rare tenth album by such an established artist to genuinely surprise with unforced and meaningful reinvention.

Although False Priest, Of Montreal's tenth album, is easily Barnes' most accessible, you can still hear his estrangement in the unpredictable chord progressions, the anxiously whimsical rhythms, and the distancing effects in the melodies that counter easy consumption.

Wasting Light is much more than a salad-days nostalgia trip -- it's Grohl's most memorable set of songs since 1997's The Colour and the Shape.

Though they may take several listens to reveal their beauty, the payoff for your patience and attention is substantial.

Rounding off the edges of its tried and true punk-rock grind with the melodic and rhythmic tropes of '60s psychedelia, Unwound has perfectly re-imagined a sound that most art-students wouldn't even spit on the first time around.

At the piano bench for the poignant ballad 'Fix' and the stunning, assured finale 'Arc,' Blackshaw makes you forget all about his guitar and your earthly cares.

Braxton's clever, found-sound loops are missed, but the remaining members' rampant ideas and inexorable groove keep Battles engrossing.

Kiss delivers plenty of unexpected layers, employed judiciously in service of Beam's usual ruminative ideas about good and evil, love and death.

A supremely dainty-assed achievement that jerks real tears. [Oct 2002, p.111]

While his 2010 solo debut Mshini Wam (translated as Bring Me My Machine Gun) was promising in a guided-by-M.I.A. kind of way, Father Creeper is downright epic.

Open Your Heart improves the band's focus even as it widens its range, ditching the harrowing, hacking-death-cough stuff and reaching for something more.

Where she once had a compelling songwriting portfolio, here she has a compelling mood. That mood’s best described as “content.” ... It’s not a belting voice, but it’s a remarkable instrument, capable of imbuing with winsome empathy songs.

The album, as intended to be heard, deftly captures the whiplash mood swings of a volatile relationship, showing how giddy exuberance and bitter despair can intertwine.

Boldly, My Krazy Life is in the vein of Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d city, with a developed, knotty and, ultimately, deeply moral narrative.

It’s as good a model of modern folk music as has come along in some time.

Though Drake’s globetrotting is seeping into American pop (hi, Katy) More Life still stands apart. Its closest recent antecedent is probably Drake’s own Take Care, itself a kaleidoscopic masterpiece that pulled horizontally and vertically from across music.

Like Joni Mitchell’s spare 1976 masterpiece Hejira, Not Even Happiness is a lonesome travel album par excellence: a document of transience and half-formed inspiration, reveling in riddles and paradox rather than firm conclusions.

It’s a bold step forward for the now 20-year-old Rodrigo—an incisive unraveling of the chaos and disappointment of young adulthood, dating and fame with a side of sizzling with zingers and rage. It’s her Melodrama.

McMahon’s most transcendent statement yet. ... Freedom rings as both immediate and timeless, intensely personal and easily understood. ... Freedom exalts in subtlety. It offers powerfully economical songwriting.

Over ten songs detailing a young man's despair and self-doubt, he delivers a performance that's both deeply confident and convincingly vulnerable, replete with stark, piano-based meditations and fuzz-pedal-abetted fury.

It’s a seamless, flawless mix that in Moodymann’s hands becomes a timeless capsule spinning across the galaxy to rally any generation that finds it.

New Bermuda both expands their range and sees them coming further into their own.... Bermuda is ace metal.

A swaggering, electric, and passion-fueled statement that lives up to the towering persona being put forth at its outset. ... African Giant is easily Burna Boy’s most cohesive and strongest project, with even the diverse list of guest stars—from Damien Marley to Nigerian rapper Zlatan to Jeremih and Future—being used expertly without overkill. Burna Boy is the true star at the center.

They continue to blur the lines between art, psychedelia, alt metal, and prog rock with undiminished curiosity and skill. ... As with previous work, on Fear Inoculum, the band’s songwriting can at times seem like a riddle, daring listeners to lean in and figure out exactly what is going on.

On her excellent second album, she brings us the whole block.