Sputnikmusic's Top 50 Albums of 2015

Sputnikmusic's Top 50 Albums of 2015

Original Source →

50.

Fightstar - Behind the Devil's Back
October 16, 2015
Critic Score
70
2 reviews

49.

March 31, 2015
Critic Score
81
26 reviews

It’s an invigorating makeover of Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s firmly entrenched sound, and thus Asunder is both a thematic and musical awakening for the band.

48.

March 13, 2015
Critic Score
73
21 reviews
Blending the light touch of her backing band with selectively applied electronic elements, Marina gives a more refined take on songs that in her past might have been layered in obtrusive electropop production or overwhelming string arrangements.

47.

Cairo Knife Fight - The Colossus
May 29, 2015
Critic Score
80
1 review

46.

April 27, 2015
Critic Score
79
45 reviews

That they were able to put another six years of touring and botched recording sessions behind them and put out this long-gestating, bizarre little Blur album is a testament to the band’s separate creative energies, pooled back into one. The Magic Whip sounds like what these guys were always meant to do.

44.

Soilwork - The Ride Majestic
August 28, 2015
Critic Score
69
6 reviews

43.

October 30, 2015
Critic Score
86
4 reviews

42.

September 11, 2015
Critic Score
77
13 reviews

That's the Spirit is so content to flit away from excitement and into complacency it hurts; you almost want Bring Me the Horizon to trip up on their material, if only because then the element of excitement may come into play. It doesn't, and what we're left with is That's the Spirit, the most soundly generic rock album you'll hear this year.

39.

June 2, 2015
Critic Score
77
39 reviews
If this is meant to be a transitional record – and, despite the halfhearted attempt to tone the theatrics down a notch, it certainly appears to be – it’s an album that nonetheless ends with a promising look ahead.

37.

August 7, 2015
Critic Score
68
22 reviews

Unfortunately, the album’s biggest strength also holds it back from ranking among his finest, as the overarching optimism makes the record feel slightly thin and superficial compared to his previous offerings.

35.

August 28, 2015
Critic Score
76
32 reviews

34.

July 17, 2015
Critic Score
83
49 reviews

It’s reductive and doesn’t help really anyone by saying the hooks just aren’t there on the level they used to be, but it’s telling that I searched the rest of Currents in vain for anything as immediate as the crashing waterfall of multitracked vocals on the chorus to “The Moment.”

33.

Queensrÿche - Condition Hüman
October 2, 2015
Critic Score
75
2 reviews

32.

Turnover - Peripheral Vision
May 5, 2015
Critic Score
75
3 reviews

31.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
85
41 reviews

Vulnicura is gruesome because of its trying structure, abandoning accessibility for labyrinthine ideas that casually stumble off-course.

29.

June 1, 2015
Critic Score
77
7 reviews

It should be stressed that with the The Plague Within album, the veterans of doom and gloom are resisting decay with style, not falling off the high standards they have set over the years.

28.

Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud
September 4, 2015
Critic Score
70
5 reviews

27.

March 23, 2015
Critic Score
76
28 reviews
With this, Earl is setting himself as the anti-hero of the urban catacombs. As his peers conspire to help each other on the way to the perfectly marketable, headphone-empire utopia, Earl cuts up his creations in the subterranean.

25.

October 23, 2015
Critic Score
89
43 reviews

Such is the album’s richness and fluidity that one could ignore Joanna’s words and still come away enthralled, which is not a statement to be taken lightly when it concerns a piece of work as involved as this.

24.

August 21, 2015
Critic Score
78
26 reviews

E MO TION isn’t a stablemate of innovation, nor does it have an elaborate, all-encompassing concept; its allure stems from its consistency, with each and every track seamlessly passing the baton to the next without any significant dip in momentum.

23.

May 12, 2015
Critic Score
78
18 reviews

21.

October 16, 2015
Critic Score
79
40 reviews

The growth that is present in the album is one of ideology as opposed to sound. Deerhunter are looking at the world with a refined philosophical perspective. There’s a subtle undercurrent of optimism that directs the music.

20.

June 30, 2015
Critic Score
84
23 reviews

Summertime '06 is as bleak as mainstream hip-hop will allow for in 2015. It's not overtly enjoyable to experience because this is a reality that does not call for glamour.

19.

August 28, 2015
Critic Score
79
44 reviews

Depression Cherry is a startlingly easy record to get lost in. Some have called this a detriment, causing the record to blur together, to which I say: isn’t that the point?

17.

August 21, 2015
Critic Score
81
18 reviews

The intentionality behind Meliora's accessibility -- namely with the progressive-pop-doom hybrid that Ghost have crafted on Meliora, with the occult aesthetic running in parallel to the music -- is a resounding victory for the Swedish sextet and is assuredly the band's strongest album to date.

14.

May 5, 2015
Critic Score
82
15 reviews

These little flashes of songwriting ingenuity are too numerous to count on Painted Shut, and they make each listen into something exciting.

13.

Kauan - Sorni Nai
October 20, 2015
Critic Score
90
1 review

12.

February 10, 2015
Critic Score
87
42 reviews
Tillman takes his musical cues from his confessional forebears, ‘70s singer-songwriters like Jackson Browne and James Taylor, his soulful tenor a warm and inviting presence that makes his refreshingly modern lyrics and transparent sensibilities all the more affecting.

11.

June 16, 2015
Critic Score
75
10 reviews

8.

June 1, 2015
Critic Score
83
45 reviews

In a sentence, that’s why In Colour is so good: it remodels slabs of wax in a way that not only acknowledges but embraces the pop potential those snippets of sound have been denied for so long.

7.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
89
46 reviews
Not only does it meet every one of our over-the-top demands as fans, it serves as a great entry point for those new comers who have yet to be introduced to one of the most important bands of the last quarter century.

6.

September 25, 2015
Critic Score
88
37 reviews

Deciphering the message in her words relies on just how much time the listener is willing to devote to the album, but with music this brilliant, the task seems all the more alluring.

5.

January 20, 2015
Critic Score
80
30 reviews

3.

November 6, 2015
Critic Score
84
36 reviews

2.

March 31, 2015
Critic Score
91
47 reviews

Shared with us in the most intimate of atmospheres, it’s so threadbare that you might as well be sitting in his apartment with him as he sings and plays you his life story.

1.

March 15, 2015
Critic Score
95
45 reviews
Every song possesses a distinctive identity, a different color fleshed out by its instrumentation. And the lyrical wonders Lamar works on top of all this is even more worthy of praise.
Original Source: http://www.sputnikmusic.com/blog/2015/12/16/staffs-top-50-albums-of-2015-50-31/
Comments
Sign in to comment
No one has said anything yet.
Connect with AOTY
Like Us
Follow Us

February Playlist