The 10 tracks on Lucifer on the Sofa show off a leaner and meaner Spoon with a more mature sound that is broader in scope than past efforts but just as ferocious and cracking.

Informed by darkness, Everything Was Forever nonetheless strives to find light where it can. The six-piece enters its third decade as a band with a truncated name, but what hasn’t changed, as Sea Power sails into a new chapter, is its indomitable creative spirit.

Heterosexuality feels like the most completely realized of Bailey's post-ratchet records. [Dec 2021 - Feb 2022, p.154]

Forfolks is a galaxy in eight tracks—these songs orbit each other wordlessly, leaving near-tangible tracks of light in their wake.

The band's covers of covers all take on lives of their own, at times appearing as nebulous bluegrass cacophonies and then, in almost the same breath, crystalizing into stunningly harmonious folk arrangements worthy of the record's storybook-like façade. [Dec 2021 - Feb 2022, p.53]

If Dragon ends up being a fan favorite just for the fact that it has the most songs, the most sounds, and the ability to make you notice a new favorite each time through, that's a perfectly fine way to view it. [Dec 2021 - Feb 2022, p.150]

As with all five of its predecessors, See Through You is a dish best served whole, as long as one is prepared for some unexpected moments. [Dec 2021 - Feb 2022, p.150]

This is an instrumental, blown-out, prog-rock tour de force that shows why CAN were and still are considered to be one of the best and perhaps one of the most influential groups that came out of Germany's incredibly vibrant psychedelic music scene in the late 1960s. [Dec 2021-Feb 2022, p.152]

Things Are Great is Band Of Horses' most intimate outing in over a decade, its plainspoken sincerity and artistic intensity keeping it consistently affecting. [Dec 2021 - Feb 2022, p.150]

If MAGDALENE was an encapsulation of FKA twigs’ internal storm, CAPRISONGS is the sunrise after the fact, brilliant and vibrant as ever.

Those unfamiliar with Billy Talent’s solid brand of high-octane alternative rock can easily start with Crisis of Faith, while longtime fans of the band will be delighted at the experimentation that pushes the band beyond their comfort zone while still remaining fresh and polished.

It's hard to be anything but impressed with what a cohesive, intentioned work they’ve created as a result. Taken on their terms, this is easily one of the most richly rewarding projects of 2022 so far.

Part retro-inspired horror score, part dance record, and part avant-pop promise of more to come, The Runner (Original Soundtrack) is a fun, chilling, and nostalgic achievement for Boy Harsher.

Compared with Reward, these songs fill up greater volumes, but they still in many ways feel like companion pieces, united by a reverential dedication to the oblique as the direct, the spasm as control, the heart as the mind.

Ghosts on Tape is a concept album of sorts, interspersed with Archive 81 style white noise and static, full of soaring tunes imbued with an unsettling pervasive atmosphere of being on the edge of…something sinister. It also proves that after nearly two decades in the game Blood Red Shoes remain a dark irresistible force.

The songs are shinier, the arrangements more elegant, Mitski’s voice more aching than ever.

For those that grew to love EELS from their early beginnings in the late ’90s through the early 2000s, you’ll understand the shortcomings here. Fortunately, a sub-par EELS is still better than most but even a couple of the better tunes on Extreme Witchcraft such as “Good Night On Earth” and “Stumbling Bee” sound like re-hashed songs from a previous EELS record.

Overall, as a document of what was an incredibly fertile period for independent music, C91 more than stands the test of time.

For those looking for a more focused and less restrained approach by the band and Stephens Hall himself, 11:11 makes for a timely delivery.

Silverbacks cram a lot of music into their songs, making each one a densely packed mix of angular guitar riffs and jittery alt-rock, often played with chops, alternating boy/girl vocals, and a need for shouted, repeating phrases. It is an acquired taste that often perks up the ears and brings pleasure but just as often fails to carry a melody and disappoints.

A reflection of its creator’s state of mind, Fragments is the perfect soundtrack to re-entry into normalcy after an extended stressful period.

At its heart, The Overload is a hugely impressive debut bubbling with sardonic wit, wisdom, anger, and compassion.

Though it’s certainly too early to discuss The Gods We Can Touch within 2022’s broader musical canon, it is undoubtedly a complete and flavorful work that contains all the glorious highs and careful lows that Aksnes has always been capable of producing, but has never fully nailed until now.

All in all, this is yet another strong album in a career full of them and while he doesn’t reinvent the wheel or break much new ground here, any chance to hear the master play the style he’s so good at is not to be missed.

While it doesn’t feature her own lyrics, the record still ambles through archetypal Cat Power moods—insouciance, worry, bliss—steering clear of the pulsating synths à la “Manhattan” and sticking with the stripped-back worry-pop of Wanderer.

With The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts, Springsteen and the E Street Band offer perhaps the best evidence that their “legendary” mantle was well earned back in the late ’70s.

Dawn FM is no Thriller by any means (sorry Timbaland) but it’s a solid chapter in the story of an artist who continues to unabashedly defy expectations. And ultimately, we’re lucky to be along for the ride.

Beneath the numerous ideas and purposes on The Light Saw Me, the group’s sense of humor is ever-present, reminding the listener that things are never as they seem and, when they happen to be, not to take them too seriously. This air of humility, along with such solid musicianship, is exactly what makes the premise of an ontological science fiction Texas Country album as believable as it is.