Yellow & Green casts off the shackles of expectation while simultaneously taking a measured step in the direction of accessibility.
It’s tense, it’s beautiful, it’s bleak, it takes the listener from point A to point B while leaving it up to us what the point of the ride is to begin with.
Just like releases that precede it, The North offers yet another glimpse into the minds of a band that challenges the barriers of genre and songwriting.
Even with a few skipable tracks, though, Of Monsters and Men bring an Icelandic exoticism and captivating energy to U.S. audiences on My Head is an Animal.
Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables may just be a serious contender for the album with the worst attitude of 2012.
Old Ideas builds on the promise of his recent world tours and return to the limelight with his strongest, most unified album in decades.
Teaming with The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, who brought atmospherics, buzzy guitars and quicksand grooves that pull you in, this is 21st century mojo essentialized.
There’s something about the flaws on this thing—the way Marshall lets it all hang loose, the way she continually tries to express a sentiment she can’t quite put into words—that’s absolutely fascinating in its humanity and compassion.
It’s a brief culmination of practice making perfect, with Earl and his band showing why they make a new album every year—because more and more often they are getting it right.
The Carpenter provides a return to rudimentary Avett songwriting, in that the most striking moments on the record are born from playful banjo-guitar banter and confessions revealed in 4/4 time.
It is, in other words, a deeply weird and deeply lovely record, albeit one that listeners should do their best to listen to with as few preconceptions as possible.
R.A.P. Music is a synthesis of the confusion and rancid despair pervading every vacated storefront and foreclosed home in every corner of today’s economically bleeding America.
Though at time reaching heavenly heights, Shields is, as the name suggests, a heavy, protected album, stuffy with an ennui particular to the young and gifted.
Nothing’s Gonna Change… is ultimately the kind of album you can curl up into, let the warm tones surround you and rest easy
I Know What Love Isn’t, therefore, sounds like the culmination of his career, a record marking his arrival at a sound we knew he would get to eventually.
The album doesn’t match the group’s best output, but it’s a strong and occasionally stunning entry.
Above all, Andrew Bird is a highly skilled musician capable of crafting an album full of delightful little moments that make the album worth a fair listen, and more.
While Lonerism does feel a bit more expansive, utilizing even more of mixer Dave Fridmann’s fancy effects pedals and studio wizardry, it uses those tools to delve even further inward.
At the end of the day, White’s still an enigma, and so is Blunderbuss, its mysteries unfolding in odd ways when you least expect it.
Its significance stems from the band’s growth and evolution, primarily reflected in the lyrics.
Cancer For Cure is a shirked, claustrophobic, paranoid clutter of rhyming conspiracy theories.
It’s an album that’s sure to satisfy long-time fans while undoubtedly garnering the band even more media buzz.
Listening to Swing Lo Magellan feels more like sneaking up on the band in the midst of an intense rehearsal, rather than the group coming forward and saying, “Look what we’ve made.”
Fortunately for the Shakes ... their first true album Boys & Girls only justifies the fervor surrounding them.
Tramp isn’t a party album. It isn’t an album made for quick digestion or joyous celebration. Its revelations are fixed in that intimacy, that private conversation Van Etten has designed to share with you, and you alone.
Few vocalists can erase the distance between performer and listener as shrewdly as Apple can, and that toggle gives The Idler Wheel its strange power.
This collection is the band’s tightest and most cohesive, and they do so without losing any of the grit.
Restraint is key to the execution of Channel Orange, a neo-R&B album that, for all its layered beauty, never overwhelms.