Vu makes it easy to get swept up in the melodrama of each ascendant harmony and pounding guitar chord, seizing on the time when each swirl of emotion felt new and potent.

The unshakable feeling that emanates from Look to the East, Look to the West, with its sterling production and tuneful chapters, is catharsis, of sensing the world turn in the midst of despair and finding some relief in the aftermaths of sad circumstances beyond our control (Campbell sings of children chasing Pokémon in a park during a pandemic, and of seeing loved ones in her dreams after they’re gone).

Here in the Pitch is another leap forward that sees her pushing into new realms with stunning effect.

A few songs get bogged down with less of what makes the music so appealing and are missing that intangible ingredient, creating an uneven album that is somewhat erratic and inconsistent. .... Forgiveness Is Yours is original, intriguing, and appealing to adventurous souls looking for a listening experience outside their comfort zone and into the recklessly candid world of a unique and talented band.

If at times you crave for something unhinged across these 19 songs, the sonic equivalent of a psychic break to disrupt the constant temperate mood, you inevitably fall back on Martin and Taylor’s fluid warmth. Their transition into scarred adult terrain still sounds remarkably peaceful.

Iron & Wine’s catalog is peppered with albums that experiment and push the boundaries of the format that Beam chose with The Creek Drank the Cradle over 20 years ago. Light Verse is not one of those albums. Instead, it finds Beam doing what he does best, refining those songwriting touches and instrumental backdrops that are present in his most captivating work.

In Swift’s capable hands, even the deepest moments of despair are transmuted into songs which resonate with emotion and genuine insight.

Baldi has clearly carved out his own corner of plainspoken wisdom; on Final Summer, unfortunately, the songs don’t quite do his insights justice.

While lacking the immediate hooks of previous albums, this is an album best experienced as a whole, to add context to the listening experience rather than one to dip in and out of.

There is a deeply set melancholy in the DNA of Blu Wav, a palpable sense of emotional exhaustion. It’s there in the lush, pillowy arrangements that shroud almost every track, a darkly luxurious soundscape that seems to gently beckon the listener with an outstretched hand.

It’s an absolute stunner. Stylistically, fans will be reminded of many 2001-2005 highlights from the three-album run containing The World Won’t End, Yours, Mine, and Ours, and Discover a Lovelier You (all featuring crucial guitarist Peyton Pinkerton, who returns here).

The record is so well-worked, just so honed and master-crafted that it ends up sounding effortless.

Revelator is a careful but honest album, a lingering, languorous sojourn that offers strange solace even as its world falls apart.

It is at once an ambitious record and one that will sound like home to anyone who still associates Oxford commas with the band. It’s likely to bring in a new generation of fans, as well as perhaps pull some who’ve strayed back into their orbit.

For a record that’s taken so long to happen (and many thought probably wouldn’t), angeltape is a triumphant return and worth every second of the excessively long wait.

What cannot be contested is the way the album oozes with a confidence and sensibility that suggests its creators know this might just be the finest collection of songs they’ve released since their debut, Nowhere, back in 1990.

The organically formed melodies mask some of the lyrical turbulence going on under the surface, but like any music that matters that only furthers the album’s staying power.

There are subtle shifts in approaches that make every track here well worth exploring.

Bright Future slots in comfortably with everything she has done to date and brings a greater sense of being of a moment in time.

Although AUDIO VERTIGO may not be their finest work, the richly layered album-oriented rock is stacked with shrewd melodies and it’s nice to see Elbow stepping outside their comfort zone and reaching back a bit to reconnect with their daring and adventurous ways.

Tigers Blood is ultimately about the melding of its component parts into something unquestionably enticing rather than the analysis of its irretrievably mixed emotions.

Glasgow Eyes cements The Jesus and Mary Chain’s legacy as influential pioneers, but it’s more than just a nostalgic trip. It’s a testament to their ability to surprise, innovate, and craft music that still resonates even at this stage in their career.

he biggest shoes to fill are their own, and for much of Happiness Bastards, Chris and Rich Robinson acquit themselves admirably. The biggest takeaway might be that this is certainly not a band whose best days are behind them. One can only hope for more to come.

What’s largely great about Playing Favorites is just how FUN it is, a rambunctious rock ‘n’ roll record with a big heart and a smart mouth.

There’s nothing mind-blowing, nothing genre-bending or jolting on What Do We Do Now, just a bunch of familiar hooks, sad words, and sepia riffs, a thick blanket of lackadaisical warmth.

Ultimately, Underdressed at the Symphony’s greatest achievement is the balance it strikes between opposing elements: the familiar and the novel, humor and heartache, dreams and reality. While Webster maintains her stylistic singularity, she doesn’t sit in it; instead, she expands beyond it, keeping it in tow as she explores different sounds and sentiments.

Where’s My Utopia? is an album that overflows, both in excess and excellence, with the former sometimes costing the latter its due.

For every part of I Got Heaven that feels new, what remains is just as potent. The record finds the band radiating both love and fury, at their most powerful and at their most vulnerable.

As per the band’s recent promise to deliver “only bangers,” they fully deliver. Led by instant fan-favorite lead single “Cold Reactor,” these tracks include some of their catchiest and most memorable hooks.

It’s lively and vibrant, and puts under a spotlight the best impulses of Shygirl and her collaborators. Most importantly, Club Shy succeeds in its key goal: it makes you want to dance.

Loss of Life is MGMT’s most cinematic record to date, allowing the duo to grapple with mortality through meaningful introspection which reveals that, at the end of all things, there’s always love.

Wall of Eyes is just as good an effort as any Radiohead album, and rivals the work its members have done in other projects. It’s a complete joy to watch these artists work, for their creative expression is a treasure.

On TANGK, IDLES have broadened their horizons while retaining the guts and soul that made them. With prudence, craft, and ambition they’ve created something that borders on the monumental. Divisions be damned.

Though there is nothing neutral to be said about what Ducks Ltd. bring to bear on Harm’s Way, there is no doubt that the music the partnership produces is what our bodies were programmed to receive.

I think this album is perhaps their very best, or if not, at least tied with Lifes Rich Pageant (my favorite of the incredible 1982-1987 I.R.S. era), though at the time it confused me a bit. .... The vinyl is lovingly remastered by Kevin Gray and like the original, it’s a double LP that doesn’t come with a gatefold. The two-CD version also has a bonus disc containing their live set from the set of the TV show Party of Five.

With Weird Faith Madi Diaz once again gives all that she’s got, crafting a stormy and searching chronicle of falling headfirst into new love.

Chubb’s delivery throughout is full of historic trauma, honesty and fiery perseverance.

Perhaps it doesn’t quite capture the magical energy of the band’s live performances, but again, that is a totally different experience that would be hard to replicate. Album of the year? Without a doubt, it will be a strong contender.

The band’s signature sound is obviously intact on Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs, but the songs are rendered with such immediacy and melodic intensity that the new wrinkles are amplified and any sameness rendered meaningless.

It shows that Herring and company know exactly who they are and what they’re capable of, and that makes it a quietly exciting and gratifying chapter of a band who are clearly in this for the long haul.

In spite of its pondering otherwise, Blue Raspberry is as real as it gets and in its most composed moments a confident step forward.

Los Angeles is a rollercoaster of twisting and churning tempos that frequently plunge headlong into a frothy mix of paranoid drums, bass, keyboards, and guitars with intriguing vocals at every turn. But sometimes it’s dreamier, slower, and more melodic, and it’s always done with a tuneful ear and is highly entertaining. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

With the 10 tracks on the album, Sleater-Kinney have successfully captured the complex emotions of both our fraught present times and the delicate process of mourning, with taut songwriting coupled with energetic guitar textures, earnest vocals, and pop nuances. Some might even call it a return to form.

A record that can sit proudly at the top table of The Pretenders’ work to date.

This is a document of one man’s mission to highlight the imperfections, inadequacies, and injustices of right-wing policies, tell the stories of ordinary folk, and give voice to the voiceless; it’s a volume of solidarity, both political and personal—something Billy Bragg will always be the standard bearer for.

Cartwheel is a big, bright, beautiful album. It uses familiarity to bring you in, scratch those indie rock itches, then fires up the pleasure centers with its dedication to sonic satisfaction.

And the Wind (Live and Loose!) is not the on-stage retread of the familiar we’ve come to expect from countless, thoughtless live releases. It’s an expansion of Lenderman’s expression, an organic outgrowing of ideas from imperfect but beautiful seeds, come to beautiful bloom.

From a 1972 Carnegie Hall show to a spring ’74 performance with Tom Scott & The L.A. Express and an appearance the following September at Wembley Stadium, Mitchell reveals herself here during each period as a fascinating artist who was well worth returning to year after year, as she continues to be.

Superchunk remind us so often why they remain one of the greatest guitar bands of a generation with their insanely melodic, rapturously supercharged, endlessly loveable punk rock and this expansive set is testament to their continued majesty and mirth.

Overall, it’s another great record from a peerless band that, year after year, reinvent themselves. And, each time, they deliver the goods.

Live in Brooklyn 2011 is a great swansong with the bandmembers dragging all their pent up feelings of frustration, loathing, and distrust with each other onto the stage and playfully tearing it all to shreds.

For a record titled Action Adventure, it’s surprisingly short on excitement.

Medford’s willingness to reach into her most intimate moments and allow them to bloom within the context of gorgeous, memorable music and melodies make SUCKER a real experience.

The results are compelling, though a few cuts are more sound collage than song.

It’s a ray of sunlight which, even when it doesn’t totally stick the landing, is a plainly lovely listen. It mostly manages to avoid that saccharine positivity that a lot of grandiose indie-pop can succumb to, probably because the band have such a trustworthy history of making peppy, danceable music that it feels genuine, and the fact that plenty of the tracks are just irresistibly sweet.

Aside from the disappointingly ghoulish “Paint it Black” (The Rolling Stones) and “Ghost Town” (The Specials), on the whole, the other covers are strong interpretations.

It’s a Christmas morning of an album, each track a new gift to treasure. It’s a set of songs that bring you deep into them, a mist of musical vapor in which snapshot reminiscences can be made out as the fog wavers.

The bulk of The Great Escape is polite and pleasant, but lacks something indefinable. It would be foolish to expect Stamey to come on like a snarling punk-rock dervish, but this record, while having a certain charm, doesn’t really linger long in the memory.

Mountains is a decent album by an artist who, although having nothing to prove, still needs to create. And that is a very good thing.

Bird Machine is a strong album and never sounds as if it’s been pieced together posthumously. His brother has done an incredible job under what must have been difficult circumstances, to draw a line under a unique body of work.

The Gaslight Anthem’s new album is a tremendous success, its clever, tenderly relatable explorations of life and death especially relevant to the current moment.

Overall, Mike’s unique mix of toughness, vulnerability, and a brutal honesty that can be disarming for those not used to it, is something to marvel at. I hope he keeps making albums like this as long as possible.

A few weak spots notwithstanding, God Games shows The Kills are still on top of their game.

From the opening song and first single from the album, “Foreign Land,” to the slowly uncoiling closer, “I Will Love You,” Nothing Last Forever is a quiet delight.

What the record-buying public arguably doesn’t need is an EP that sounds a little rough around the edges, lasts for precisely 12 minutes, 4 seconds. ... But wait, there are moments of brilliance on the rest.

LAHAI extends Sampha’s virtuosic career with a showcase of his limitless pool of influence, his songwriting ability, and, inevitably, his soul.

If Explosions in the Sky are drawing an era to a close, then End is a great way to do it. It takes elements of their past and hints at what the future could sound like. And that future sounds pretty good.

Paint My Bedroom Black succeeds in further elevating Humberstone to higher artistic echelons, each track indicative of a tremendous musical talent.

Rico Nasty cameos on “Dying,” and her appearance detracts from the momentum after Jonny’s most earnest moments. But the album is still a victory and an ode to the discomforts, pains, and ecstasies of Pierce’s queerness. He earns the self-title on this record. With Jonny, The Drums is finally his.

Although a painstakingly quiet album, empathetically produced by Sam Evian, Goodnight Summerland pulses with a low-key energy that speaks to the necessity of getting Deland’s thoughts down on tape.

This New Noise feels more an intellectual exercise than a bold musical adventure. It conforms, as it should, to the event for which it was created, and pays fitting tribute to one of the most far-reaching and important institutions in the country, but ultimately, while in a live setting this material really would (and did) resonate, it rings somewhat hollow as an album release.

World of Hassle is escapism to its core. And if it didn’t have the humor or the consistent palette to sell it, the album would be either too unserious or too corny. Instead, World of Hassle is leisurely and confident. It’s as easy as a beach day.

Though Playing Robots Into Heaven recalls some of Blake’s more inscrutable, cloistered years as a musician, it also offers the clarity and confidence of someone who could do anything—but has chosen this.

There’s a lot to unpack in Several Songs About Fire, but what shines through is Savage’s songwriting ability. He is surely one of the finest lyricists working in music today.

A somnambulist journey into an ornate dream, Javelin may not be his masterpiece but it is the work of a master.

With indie rock firmly in its latest shoegaze renaissance, Slow Pulp helps lead the pack with seemingly effortless ease. It’s the sort of warm and instantly familiar album that you will surely find yourself returning to at an unexpected moment. After a few listens, you’ll fall in love.

As a whole, Sit Down For Dinner doesn’t quite capture the magic and sonically bright tunefulness from the previously mentioned albums, but it has enough of the genuine Blonde Redhead brilliance, especially those parts with Makino’s lush voice, to make it a worthwhile listening investment.

I Don’t Want You Anymore is destined to be your new guilty pleasure as the superb vocals and ultra-cool textures of these robust and vibrant tunes creep into your consciousness and stay playing in your head long after the album is over.

The album finds Loveless also returning to the top of her craft.

Not unlike the hard bop jazz drummers of old, but here Wallis’ playing is more textural than timer. It takes a few listens to get accustomed to the approach, but ultimately Cooper’s choices solidify beautifully into what seems the only way the tracks could have been carried out.

It’s an album with soul, several truly outstanding songs, and a certain profundity which reassures us that Wilco are riding yet another peak of glorious creativity, standing as one of the few remaining truly great bands of their generation.

Some longtime fans of Banhart might find Flying Wig a tough introduction to what appears like the “new” Devendra. But, as with any practice, the more time you give it, the more it emerges as its own, special self.

Mommy expertly splits the difference between the teen snottiness and insane energy of their 2000s output and a more mature musical and lyrical outlook befitting the passage of time since they last released anything.

Plucking some personal emotional strings and cultivated from the spectrum of human emotions, End of the Day is a mix of poignant and moving instrumental tracks that make a fine film score and can stand-alone as a demonstrative instrumental album.

Dream From the Deep Well is the musician’s most folk album to date as it deals with the current state of a nation or nations

Like The xx, Nation of Language impress these lustrous electronics with heart-on-the-sleeve passion. For a band that owes so much to the ’80s, their ethos couldn’t be more modern.

Mitski has not only created her most cohesive, accessible, musically diverse album yet, but also an arresting work of substantial beauty.

In moments, Meek’s twinkly-eyed infatuation with infatuation registers as overly quaint, like when he offers over-earnest, adolescent love notes on “Paradise” (“Tell me how you got heaven in your eyes”). Yet, just a few seconds later, the same song captures the beautiful fragility of love in harmonies as delicate as sugar glass.

There are moments that remind one of Allen’s ’70s work, but much of it is its own beast, being more of a piece with previous Jazz Is Dead releases by ’70s legends like Jackson, Lonnie Liston Smith, and Roy Ayers.

That these 11 songs evoke such solid mental images of their lyrical content is testament to the power of the Sparks’ songwriting capabilities, and the duo’s lasting aptitude for storytelling. And the timely, primal paean to Mother Earth weaving its wonderful way through Hollow is enough to send you off to the woods with no intention of returning.

HELLMODE is an exciting and intelligent album, perhaps Rosenstock’s most compelling since 2016’s wonderful Worry, and it’s as timely as it anthemic, which is to say, very.

There’s no handwringing; and it’s this direct approach that gives the album its power, as Eastwood reasons that whatever the whys and wherefores of somebody’s behavior, sometimes calling it out is the way to go.

It doesn’t match ULTRAPOP for surging aggression and roar but it also doesn’t try to—it’s a clenched fist in a velvet glove, a subversive punk record dressed as an arena-ready rock album, and whoever is behind the mask of The Armed should be celebrated not only for that subversion, but for this remarkable and singular explosion of idea and sound.

Everything is alive may only contain eight tracks, but Slowdive manage to craft an album of profound beauty full of emotional heft, which encompasses sadness, joy, gratitude, and ultimately optimism.

There are a handful of songs across the album, such as “Let It Go, Watch It Come Back,” that drift by without leaving much of a melodic impression after they’re gone, even if lyrically inspired. .... Fortunately though, beauty abounds in Sammy Weissberg’s (Kristine Leschper, Caroline Rose) horn arrangements throughout the album and the unexpected additions of piano on “Terribly Free” and drums on the closing “Lingering,” which better buoy Krieger’s tales.

From the upgraded sonics to the purity of each song’s message, The Window finds a band a dozen years in and still hitting their peak with each successive release. An utter joy.

The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake is occasionally fascinating and occasionally frustrating. A worthy exercise which showcases some fine performances and the fact that there are no slavish, note for note photocopies of any of Drake’s material is to the credit of all concerned.

The tender “For A Moment” showcases the power and beauty of Cosentino’s voice whilst ‘Real Life’ is another example of her ability to craft beauty from darkness and is as good as anything that Swift and Dessner came up with on evermore and folklore.