Ultimately, the most appealing thing about American Wrestlers is its lack of obvious guile or pretension.
Kouyaté offers an even more explicit nod towards Nigeria’s Fela Kuti this time around ... But more idyllic sections resonate, too.
Part of the fun of California Nights — and don’t get it wrong, the album is on a proud par with their first two — comes from the link Cosentino and Bruno draw between introspection and universality.
Vulnicura doesn't have the reach-out-and-grab-your-attention quality of Björk's more technicolor works, but it possesses a dramatic weight in its own right.
This kind of raw, atmospheric black metal harkens back to when the genre was still wet with afterbirth.
There’s never been a Blur record that’s flowed as well as Magic Whip; you might have to go all the way back to Modern Life Is Rubbish to find one that even comes close.
Ronin is a very good album and a fun anachronism in 2015 between surprise Drake and Kanye releases.
Time to Go Home breaks new personal and political ground for contemporary goth-influenced music as Chastity Belt trades cliche nihilism for proactively feminist post-punk.
The strong-heeled Jackie is far from conservative, and possibly more daring, with three of the year’s best songs at the very top, middle, and bottom, which couldn’t be more different from each other.
Dan Deacon decided to scale back for Gliss Riffer, resulting in his most intimate — but still deliriously fun — album yet.
On the second album of her “Heart” trilogy she improves on the Linndrum sonics of her debut.
No longer angling for a hit, this veteran of the airplay succession wars continues to record some of the best music of his life.
His paranoia is as thick as Drake's on the similarly inward If You're Reading This It's Too Late, from earlier this year. However, I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside is a much leaner, less showy effort (Drake is an actor, Earl decidedly is not), and Earl turns his pen on himself, too, not just everybody else.
The Future Will Be Repeated is blurred and indecisive in all of the best ways, a half-dozen awesome out instrumentals that dodder in place delightfully.
I Love You, Honeybear, is littered with carefully wired bombs meant to blow up in the face of those seeking straightforward love songs.
Reflection often sounds like a Frankenstein’s monster of borrowed samples, phrases, themes, and sounds, but the stitches never show.
Their squall is as destructive as ever, but now it’s been streamlined to nuclear levels with the integration of groove, making the band’s abrasive fury undeniable and giving them a sound entirely their own.
In many ways, Eat Pray Thug is a prequel to Das Racist, filling in the biographical gaps of a seemingly inscrutable wiseass from when he had to cry before he could laugh.
It’s the fifth entry in his Drink More Water mixtape series that proves he’s got more melodic facility of anyone else in the bunch.
The album feels epic in scope, imbuing the banality of everyday life with stunning tension and emotional weight in a way few producers can hope to touch.
It’s common for bands bent on destruction to dial things back as they move ahead, but METZ has no such designs. II, like the record that preceded it, is still a seasick and unyielding document of brutalist experimentation.
It’s not just the production, though — the record’s summery vibe has just as much to do with Stone, who skates over the beats with impressive nimbleness and rapid-fire wit.
Grim Reaper is an unedited adventure of blossoming soundscapes, vision-blurring, dissonant melodies, and cheerful robot dance numbers.
Viet Cong's self-titled introductory LP feeds off itself and builds out ideas to create the first truly non-derivative piece in the drone-rock genre since maybe Deerhunter's Cryptograms.
Cities might be their most oblique, which is hilarious because it's also their simplest.
Though it’s easily his best and most powerful album since 2005’s Illinois, it never quite reaches the same sweeping highs of that epic concept album. But this effort is a success on its own terms, hushed as they may be.
Every note sounds instinctual, every moment fluid; this is what happens when good friends come together to watch the world burn.
Despite the cautionary title, they recall plenty, and they rock’n’roll too.
Cellular engulfs but never allows you to fully relax.
On Ivy Tripp she particularly excels at sketching out just enough details to make her intentions clear, while leaving enough space to let listeners draw their own conclusions.
What elevates Ripe 4 Luv beyond four absolute bangers and four darn-good in-betweens is how it uncovers the creepiness of power pop relationship dynamics.