Is Dark Matter that different from immediate predecessors Backspacer, Lightning Bolt, and Gigaton? Not really. But is it somehow Pearl Jammier, in an ineffable sense? Yep—in fact, it’s something special.

On this generous double album (with Lloyd on sax and flute, Jason Moran on piano, Larry Grenadier on bass, and Brian Blade on drums), he draws on impressionism, post-bop glory, and gospel-soul. Passages sparkle lyrical here, spark with friction there, always marked by depth and humanity, inventive and engaging and always illuminating.

With her deft band, the New York-raised, New Orleans-based musician (on cello, banjo, and guitar) pairs music from her Haitian-American roots with threads of its Caribbean, Latin-American, and African family tree. .... It’s the most engaging, dynamic and, crucially, personal of her five solo albums.

Mount Kimbie are letting their songs smolder into life’s discontent. That uncomfortable tension is The Sunset Violent’s beauty.

Perceive is ethereal, sure, but it’s also multilayered and compelling, staving off New Age-ness with pensive beauty and trenchant spoken-word (Saul Williams, Elucid, Anum Iyapo).

With Don’t Forget Me, Rogers sounds fully confident abandoning the glossiness of her earliest work—she doesn’t need studio flourishes to bolster her transcendent songwriting.

It’s not only Vegyn’s curation of shifting instrumental sound, from jazzy and transcendental to glitchy and trip-hop symphonic, that showcases his dexterity. At the album’s centerfold, three tracks (“Everything Is the Same,” “The Path Less Traveled,” and “Makeshift Tourniquet”) repeat the album’s title in three different tones: one a scratchy, insidiously inhuman voice, the next a distant human echo that feels like a fading memory, and the last that’s closely spoken like a self-reminding mantra. Its meaning morphs and settles like a redemptive exhale and inhale.

The record plays with sonic extremes throughout, but VW stay comfortably in the preppy yet philosophical space they dominate—with the usual voice of God omnipresent in the chaos that is this record’s alpha and omega.

The relative quietude—there are still grooves aplenty—makes you lean in, sizing up elements of songcraft and musicianship that might’ve previously hid underneath the band’s dancy, psychedelic scrim. This serves Khruangbin well, since they make music to Santo & Johnny’s level of wistfulness, and they can play their asses off. The performances are so good, in fact, you sometimes want to divide them into stems.

Taking his cue from predecessors like Clinton, Wonder, and Prince—consummate artists who defied genre and charted their own musical course—Clark relishes in his boundless freedom. His virtuosity throughout is commendable and often quite impressive.

These songs never reach catharsis or resolution to their grand queries, but nonetheless find moments of joy in the process of seeking answers.

In shifting the lyrical focus away from one songwriter’s experience—exemplified by the previous hyper-emotional adrenaline rushes of “Drunk II” and “In Love Again”—some of the lovelorn charisma that made Mannequin Pussy so special has been lost. Nonetheless, the record’s disparate strands mostly hold together, a formidable document of their fire and fury—and one that’s needed more than ever.

WWW stretches Whack’s stylistic range, reintroducing an artist who seems more deeply in tune with her emotions.

While his desire to evoke the druggy euphoria of early U.K. club music has sometimes jostled against his ear for atmosphere (as on his contributions to the Shock Power of Love split with Blackdown), those two extremes are more fully integrated than ever on these two 13-minute tracks.

This is Lage’s statement, and as both player and composer he seamlessly connects Django Reinhardt to Joe Pass, Charlie Christian to Bill Frisell, all the way forging his own paths, his immense talents given voice by his joyously open spirit.

Webster’s commitment to alt-R&B-style repose, along with some keen sonic quirks, are just a couple of the ways the 26-year-old Atlantan contrasts the ’70s-era singer-songwriters she’s so often compared to. Still, the sheer musicality of what she does deserves boomers’ approval.

When Sheer Mag is on, they’re turned up to 11. Playing Favorites proves that joy can show up defiantly, wearing a sleeveless denim vest, and sometimes, a rollicking good time is the glue holding our hearts together.

Across nine tracks, singer/guitarist Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger bounce effortlessly from fragile ballads to punk rippers to chamber-pop crescendos, somehow both fully in control and barely holding it together.

The surprise here is less that an album about emerging, stronger, from sorrow’s all-encompassing shroud somehow goes down like a goblet of spiked sunshine. The surprise lies more in how much more emotional power the guitarwork—fluid, generous, measured—brings to bear, how much weight it carries this time.

Stapleton is looser, bolder and surer of himself, a recipe making this his best project yet.

The album isn’t perfect. The pensive closer “Childhood” is too precious in its “where did the time go” wonderings. Lead single “Edging” is a mediocre punk number even Green Day might have left behind, and “When We Were Young” is undercooked and appears to battle its own time signature. But it’s still the band’s best work in 20 years, and rocket fuel for this new chapter and whatever follows.

A collection that is arguably a candidate for jazz album of the year: Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)). Branch likely would argue that this is both punk and jazz — or neither.

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.

Slowdive has outdone itself on its fifth full-length, Everything Is Alive, which elevates its pre-breakup work in ways that feel nearly unimaginable. Indeed, Slowdive in 2023 is capable of writing both the hands-down most affecting song of its career (“Andalucia Plays”) as well as its most in-your-face (“The Slab”), while also incorporating modular synths as foundational elements in its creative process for the first time (they’re the first notes you hear on opener “Shanty”).

With so many legacy-artist posthumous sets, it’s hard to avoid a certain level of brain mush. The final stretches often feel like pointlessly processed outtakes of alternate takes of fake takes of imaginary takes. It’s like extracurricular archaeology, and it’s often not very fun. But even when you’re working up a sweat with your shovel, Funky Nothingness rewards the strain.

Fans who pass this latest test of commitment will find another studied and resolute replica of one of Swift’s most compelling and formative albums.

It reads like a book, its impassioned lyricism underscored by reverb, pedal steel guitar, and pattering, stick-clacking drums. The sound builds on the musical spaciousness of Ultimate Success, reflecting the environs of the Tornillo, Tx., ranch at which it was recorded. Indeed, the new album’s title offers a straightforward glimpse into its subject matter.

Rancid doesn’t venture too far outside of its sonic comfort zone on Tomorrow Never Comes and 30 seconds into each song, it’s not difficult to guess their structure and how they’ll likely resolve. Rather than being a weakness, this is one of the album’s strengths.

Grohl (back on drums for the first time on a Foos record since 2005’s In Your Honor), bassist Nate Mendel, guitarists Chris Shiflett and Pat Smear, and keyboardist Rami Jaffee have imbued But Here We Are with new levels of depth, maturity, songcraft, and storytelling, ensuring it is far more than just an album about grief.

Injecting a familiar formula with a justified newfound seriousness, With a Hammer further cements Yaeji’s place as one of the most valuable producers active in electronic pop today.

A collaborative winner delightfully devoid of ego or pretense. Here, each voice works to create something greater than the sum of its parts, which is rare for supergroups.

Yes, there are a lot of elements put together here. The thing is, this is not about juxtaposition. It’s about synthesis and transformation.

Her most adventurous album yet. ... On Mañana Será Bonito, the future looks bright for Colombia’s next pop queen.

The project is very human and certainly the band’s most dynamic effort to date. Never has Paramore left so much space in its productions or allowed Williams to sound so sparse in moments, like her tiny frame might finally shatter. Nor has the band ever played so deftly with sounds of comfort and alarm, like a clock radio slicing through the most blissful dream.

This is no mere studio project. The Smile are an actual, organic live band.

As the conviction of his verses grows throughout the album, so does the scope of its production. Building on the more upbeat instrumentals of last year’s Disco!, MIKE continues to expand his musical palette on production, adding dancehall, bossa nova and more to his signature slowed vocal loops. The result is some of his most uplifting songs yet.

Sail on Sailor – 1972 is a fascinating look behind the curtain at the end of the Beach Boys’ most fruitful creative period.

It’s an album of expertly crafted dark-pop confessions with flecks of glitter and aspiration — a purposefully fitful project mimicking her racing thoughts. The high-gloss pop production marks Midnights as a sullen sister to Lover, her honey-dipped 2019 effort, rather than a successor to 2020’s heartstrung Folklore and Evermore.

On Being Funny in a Foreign Language, the lyrics remain flippant. The instrumentals are gone. On the following 10 tracks, you can feel Antonoff taking over to guide the band’s more straightforward pop songs. ... It’s the 2022 Antonoff playlist it was crafted to be. It’ll make a lot of people happy. It sounds like it made the band happy too.

Across 14 tracks, there is no obvious hit to match the enduring success of 2014’s “Archie, Marry Me” or 2017’s “Dreams Tonite,” each touting a cool 70 million listens on Spotify — massive numbers for a band that began in the outlands of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. But each song has its place and raison d’etre amid this fully realized batch of tunes detailing heartache, lonesome fury and wistful wonderment.

An emphatic and generally more unbuttoned sophomore project. The “surrender” here appears to be two-pronged: First, a submission to the songwriting process itself, as this record is markedly more explorative than the last, particularly in its crunching British rock sensibilities. ... Many of the album’s most affecting moments accompany her urgency to hit the road.

The Other Side of Make-Believe maintains the charm and intrigue that made Interpol indie darlings 20 years ago, but it also finds the band aging gracefully — these brooding New York boys are now men who embrace their emotions.

The most roundly captivating pop album released so far this year, indie or not. It’s a record to wear out through Labor Day, if not longer.

Harry’s House reinforces Styles’ signature sensitivity in an authentic way and shows he’s more than earned his place as one of music’s most innovative artists. More importantly, he reminds us that he’s a pop star playing by his own rules—and he’s here for the long haul.

It’s rare when two creative forces like Yorke and Greenwood step away from their still-active primary band and create something this worthwhile on its own merits, and who knows how, if at all, the experience will influence Radiohead’s canon moving forward. No matter what happens, A Light for Attracting Attention is a most welcome vibe flip.

Dance Fever is a worthy addition to the band’s catalog, with enough moments to be plucked for what will surely be an invigorating series of live shows beginning in September. It’s a sly and polished effort, sustained by Welch’s fearlessness both in vocal technique and lyrical vulnerability. No modern artist commands such power in both moments of ethereal humanity and mountainous throttle.

Playing out like a one-man Verzuz, Pusha moves deftly between Pharrell’s outer-space soundscapes and Ye’s on-the-nose vocal loops. Despite their audibly different production styles, the two artists occasionally mirror each other as they cater to Push’s sinister style.

[WE] is more thoughtful and concise about the proverbial end of the world. And as with all Arcade Fire albums, it’s an urgent, earnest piece of work — no less vital than their worshiped LPs Funeral (2004) or The Suburbs (2010).

The entire point of Melody’s Echo Chamber is for listeners to find their bliss while Prochet quests for hers. While Emotional Eternal sustains this winsome, pastel streak, it’s mellower, more assured, more grounded, far less a product of happy studio accidents than what came before.

Alpha Games is a reconfiguration of sorts. It’s not imitating the earlier works in Bloc Party’s catalog so much as it is building from them. Produced by Adam Greenspan and Nick Launay (IDLES, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Nick Cave), their latest creation is an exceptional addition to their arsenal.

The album is curated like a museum, preserving the best of their sound while polishing the crucial details. Spaceman continues to fine-tune his astral pop sound with shocking consistency throughout the familiar but delightfully hypnotic space rock album.

[Wet Leg] is witty, self-referential and danceable, loaded with anthems for the extroverted introvert.

Even though we’ve spent 10 songs becoming accustomed to Chloë’s milieu, Tillman upends that comfort on the 11th song. Ultimately, Chloë and the Next 20th Century signifies something larger. Father John Misty will always be interesting.

Collins and Bejar, who sent ideas for Labyrinthitis back and forth Postal-Service-style from their respective homes in Galiano Island and Vancouver, craft compelling songs that deserve respect in their own right. They go beyond pure pastiche by tying everything together with arrangements and lyrics that are charming in equal measure.

Those who wanted another full flamenco affair like El Mal Querer might be disappointed, but MOTOMAMI is an exciting detour where Rosalía flexes her seemingly limitless artistry across 16 tracks.

Guest producers give Frank its greatest highlights. ... Though much of the album is well within Anakin’s comfort zone, it also sees him trying more melodic approaches.

Much of the rest is hollow pop-punk; nothing New Found Glory or Simple Plan hasn’t already repurposed many times over. Without its F-bombs, the sugary title track could be a JoJo Siwa song. But as we collectively emerge (again) from the pandemic, with hope to reclaim some semblance of easy fun, Love Sux is a fine soundtrack. The production is slick, Lavigne’s vocal is unwavering and loaded with just enough attitude.

It is uniformly confident and generally looser than past releases, but it is no singular thing.

Vedder has never been shy about naming his influences, and here they form a buoyant cloud lifting the enterprise up among the stars.

While not as conceptually taut as its forebear, the new record plays like a jolt back to reality — and a sprint toward the dance floor. It is, by many leagues, the most objectively fun Mitski album to date, anchored by the pairing of ‘80s-tastic “The Only Heartbreaker” and “Love Me More.”

Dawn FM is well-polished — co-executive producer Max Martin makes sure of it — while maintaining its dexterity, punch and sex appeal, in step with most of The Weeknd’s catalog. It’s mercifully cohesive, too, a rare A-list pop album that actually rewards the listener for engaging with it in sequence.

While more sonically ambitious in moments with bits of synth and vocal effects, 30 mostly stays the course of past Adele works: undeniable melody over gimmicks, piano and guitar built to transcend.

She’s got a superb knack for melodies, even if it means swiping them from Radiohead (“I Miss You” is a blatant “Creep” rip, probably another country first) and maybe Jimmy Eat World (“Silver Lining”). “Dandelion” is so gorgeous that anything other than teenage notebook poetry would wreck its mood.

Red (Taylor’s Version) is a highly rewarding listen for fans both casual and manic, bolstered by its excellent source material and Swift’s steady hand in rewriting her own looping history, with a few thrilling footnotes tacked on. ... Red 2.0 is another towering victory, which should be coveted by fans as Swift is surely already onto the next re-recording, furthering the worthwhile fight.

As a whole, Elephant in the Room lands somewhere between concept piece and exhibition, balancing an array of new and familiar styles. ... Seven years after his breakthrough, he remains one of the best writers in the game—but rather than a big fish in a small pond, he’s only showing room for growth.

I Don’t Live Here Anymore is The War on Drugs’ poppiest, most bombastic work yet.

Banisters is far from the flashiest or most radio-friendly album Del Ray has produced, but rarely have fans gotten such crystalline, autobiographical work from the guarded star, who appeared to revel in the cool distance of her early albums. Now, she feels more present, and much closer to her music.

The disc is fleshed out with studio chatter and intriguing early versions of songs that would appear on Abbey Road, the last album they recorded. Across the 57 tracks, we hear the band exploring music that would become timeless. Although “Get Back” is the only song that met the original criterion of being created from scratch to finish, there is much to enjoy.

The album’s production also settles into more coherent beats, a more richly-textured take on the sparse, sample-based sounds favored by underground artists like Navy Blue, MIKE, and featured artist Pink Siifu, who flows hectically over the creeping funk of “Obsidian.” ... Though one of her most conventional projects to date, Black Encyclopedia of the Air adheres to the radical tenets which defined Ayewa’s prior genre-defying work.

The anticipated follow-up to her Grammy-winning masterstroke, 2018’s By The Way, I Forgive You, is once again magnificent — a triumphant patchwork of Americana, folk-rock, pop and soul anchored by yet another show-stopping centerpiece in “Right on Time,” the album’s towering lead single.

The Melodic Blue has little else in common with The Massacre, but the former’s fascination with the latter may help to map out the sprawl of his debut studio album. ... Throughout the project, Keem’s production is often as bold as his lyrics.

Feel Flows is an absolutely essential document that takes the first steps toward rewriting the story of a band that managed to persevere against overwhelming odds.

Though periodically unfocused, it mostly succeeds in not only championing the spirit of collaboration but also accentuating its guests’ artistic strengths. Throughout this record, Vernon and Dessner find joy in community.

On Halsey’s 13-track oeuvre, they present a masterclass in songwriting and production overflowing with a seductive industrial canvas as well as noise-rock, punk choruses, and fuzzed-out guitars.

Though rife with standout tracks, GUMBO! is greater than the sum of its parts. Siifu’s ambitious range and impressive pool of features create an otherworldly listening experience, only bolstered by accessories like the poetry of Dungeon Family’s Big Rube.

Pressure Machine is, in totality, a commendable and genuinely surprising big swing, which mostly connects. It’s a project that proves The Killers won’t yet settle for festival-headlining rock legacy status.

As is often the case, we hear why certain iterations remained on the cutting room floor, but there are plenty of hidden gems in this vault-clearing effort. ... The fifth disc is composed of session outtakes and jams, and arguably is the most eclectic batch of obscurios (even if George gets a bit shouty on a couple of tracks). The jamming is more coherent than much of what was originally assembled on the third vinyl disc of “Apple Jam.”

Perhaps the most ambitious moment on the album is its warped title track which goes from a whisper to a scream when Eilish’s crystalline vocals burst from power ballad to an explosive Metallica-esque electric guitar anthem. Still, it’s the unwavering vulnerability of Eilish’s songwriting that makes Happier Than Ever most impressive.

The album represents an impressive development upon what is already one of the most compelling sounds in rap.

Though less dynamic in delivery, and less diverse in production, than prior releases, Vince Staples contains all the ingredients that make him such a unique talent.

She continues that trend on Sling, where she explores musical terrain that’s completely new to her. Though Antonoff’s production sometimes feels like it’s holding Clairo back a bit too much, that doesn’t impede Clairo from writing excellent songs. Sling is further proof of that.

Though not as brash as Goblin, nor as polished as IGOR, Call Me delivers consistent performances—and the artistic leaps Tyler’s made over the past four years are palpable in the album’s most boastful and somber moments.

A massive reissue box set has shed a glowing and loving light on this classic collection. ... Starting with the first disc, the remastered version improves the separation of the instruments and restores the warmth of the priceless harmonies that flowed from the original vinyl release. ... The box set is dominated by the acoustic wooden music on which the group built their reputation, but not surprisingly it is Stills who plugs in and cranks it up on several tracks. The tracks come in a bit jarring, but soon grab your ear.

The pop ingenue’s impassioned, sassy and highly satisfying debut album.

They demonstrate their impressive penchant for writing a variety of songs that stand on their own, but also work symbiotically. COVID-19 may have briefly put their ascendancy on hold, but with this EP, Mannequin Pussy show that they haven’t lost any of their luster.

Daddy’s Home manages to reveal the most accessible music of [her] career.

While Fearless (Taylor’s Version) isn’t quite the essential listen that a brand-new record typically would be, it’s certainly a compelling revisitation, executed with the same rigor and attention given to all of Swift’s projects.

The album manages to balance the extremes and convey the chaos of it all. The sound, which Lee wanted to be bigger and bolder, is both of those things. The anthemic choruses are plentiful and unforgettable, and the instruments explode in a way that hopefully can be played live in the near future, vaccines willing.

Chemtrails feels somewhat unmoored. It’s the quietest, most delicate music of Del Rey’s career so far, comprising several gorgeous arrangements, but very little of it feels particularly magnetic, especially when stacked against the rest of her songbook. The lyricism is, at moments, uninspired.

Like all Baker’s work so far, Little Oblivions is an album that rewards close listening and multiple run-throughs — afternoons lost to foot-tapping despair and, hopefully, some catharsis as the wildly talented songwriter welcomes us back to her saddest show on Earth.

What the album lacks in political incisiveness, it gains in the nuance of its twin perspectives. Having told the story of his country, slowthai is ready to tackle his own.

While eloquently arranged, Flowers’ uniform anguish makes for an uncomfortable listen, even more so than its sonically daring predecessor, 2020’s Petals For Armor. ... Hopefully, the creation of this album — easily her purest songwriter project so far – also provided some peace.

Medicine is a barrel of tailgating, beer-guzzling monkey bros; the band’s loosest and most dance-able record in a decade or more.

She ascends further into the pantheon of songwriters who consistently deliver despite unimaginable expectations. For all its mayhem, 2020 has unlocked the best work of her career.

The new tracks feel particularly crisp and cohesive, easily her most captivating and keenly focused record yet.

Like any (sorta) self-titled mid-career album, this one functions best as a thrilling overview of what OPN is capable of, from the sample-driven soundscapes of his earlier releases (“Answering Machine”) to the ominous, cinematic thrall of the Uncut Gems soundtrack (“Shifting”). Oneohtrix Point Never’s music has never sounded like it’s angling to get played on radio stations. With Magic Oneohtrix Point Never, he creates his own instead.

These are 50-year-old songs written by a man in his early 20s performed by a handful of 70 year-olds come to life and, thanks to the incredible strength and musical bond of the E Street Band, they dovetail very well with the new material. ... The results are stellar. There’s really not a bad one in the bunch.

Wildflowers is very much a showcase for Petty as a solo artist. At that point in his life Petty was a songwriting machine and this reissue has the demos to prove it. ... He was still displaying extraordinary ambition and, most importantly, still speaking to and for his very large audience. ... Tom Petty had the miraculous ability to write songs almost anyone could identify with and enjoy. Wildflowers & All the Rest is the most revealing window we have into his process so far.