Ten New Songs manages to sustain loss's fragile beauty like never before and might just be the Cohen's most exquisite ode yet to the midnight hour.
Evoking Fear of Music Talking Heads, Station to Station David Bowie and Sign ‘O’ the Times Prince, the resulting disc might be the most oddly beautiful, psychedelic and ambitious of the year.
Sky Blue Sky is understated, erratic, often beautiful, disarmingly simple music; it really sounds like six guys playing in a room, and no doubt that's how they wanted it.
For Emma, Forever Ago never turns into a pity party, because Vernon has a light touch, with zero interest in narrative or confessional lyrics.
Despite the anger and bitterness, Hail to the Thief is more musically inviting than Radiohead's last two outings. The album's fourteen tracks ... are more tuneful and song-focused than 2000's Kid A or 2001's Amnesiac.
It's looser and messier than Sgt. Pepper and, one suspects, always would have been. But its sui generis Americanism counterbalances its paucity of classic pop songs.
There's a creeping dementia to all of St. Elsewhere, the genre-bending debut from the Goodie Mob rapper-crooner and Gorillaz beat-brewer Danger Mouse.
Coldplay's desire to unite fans around the world with an entertainment they can all relate to is the band's strength, and a worthy goal. But on Viva la Vida, a record that wants to make strong statements, it's also a weakness.
It's a strange, category-evading rock record, a mystery disc of gravity and low humor, of punk aggression and love-bead contentment; when you try to nail down the band's personality, it won't stay still.
Gold lacks the concise ache of Adams' indie solo prize from last year, Heartbreaker, but it is stronger on naked truth.
Kaplan and Hubley sing their most confessional, intimate lyrics ever, over whispery guitars, brushed percussion, vibes and organ drones. It's a spell of blissful, psychedelic make-out music ... these songs are great - heartfelt, rugged, melodically sumptuous enough to keep unfolding after dozens of spins, full of folk-rock flesh and blood.
On Neon Bible, the reverb is so big and black that the beat becomes boom andthe orchestral garnish, arranged by Chassagne and Final Fantasy's Owen Pallett, gets pressed to the margins.
Coldplay make straight-ahead, melodic Brit pop that strives for significance with a capital s, even as it has a hard time shaking its influences — you can also hear the ethereal guitar chime of U2, a bit of Dave Matthews’ breathy folk implosion, even a misting of Roger Waters-era Pink Floyd.
More than any previous Sleater-Kinney record, The Woods reflects the classic-rock undercurrent that runs through the punk heroines' live shows.
Under Construction, uninhibited and unpredictable, is her best yet.
This is grandiose music from grandiose men, sweatlessly confident in the execution of their duties.
Vespertine is a particle beam in comparison, as weightless as light but concentrated with direction.
Even in duets with Rufus Wainwright and Boy George, Antony is the dominant voice of solitude and agonized waiting.
Welch ... documents the King's reckless abandon on "Elvis Presley Blues," proving that even a country balladeer can fantasize about running wild.
Many of his best songs have focused on his ambivalence about materialism, but on 808s & Heartbreak, the theme has hardened into schtick.
Interpol’s sleek, melancholy sound is a thing of glacial beauty.
Transatlanticism should be overwrought — it's an album about young men enduring lost love in an ocean of memory; instead, it feels like a conversation with an old friend.
On their debut, Vampire Weekend mostly earn points the old-fashioned way: by writing likable songs you'll be glad to revisit next month.
Skilled and inspired though it is, Raising Sand's relaxed, smoky harmonies and reverbed midtempo rockabilly don't always achieve the back-porch revelation they're going for. But they do both icons a world of good.
Only by the Night is long on astral, arena-ready largeness, with blippy keyboards, droney guitars and whoa-oh-oh backing vocals.
M.I.A.’s long-awaited full-length debut, Arular, is every bit as stunning as “Galang”: weird, playful, unclassifiable, sexy, brilliantly addictive.