The Line of Best Fit's Best Albums of 2018

The Line of Best Fit's Best Albums of 2018

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50.

March 9, 2018
Critic Score
72
40 reviews

As recently as his last record – Love This Giant with St. Vincent – he produced a glorious, real masterpiece. So, strangely, this is just business as usual for a man who, at this stage, would find it impossible to make anything less than amazing. Long may he continue.

49.

April 27, 2018
Critic Score
87
41 reviews
Given the switch in tone, it feels like Monae is more comfortable in her skin and her sound, but is this a good thing for the music?

48.

March 2, 2018
Critic Score
79
25 reviews

As impressive as No Burden was on its own merits, independent of and regardless of its creator’s youth, inexperience, and slapdash conception, Historian is a monolith of American songwriting. Lucy Dacus strikes peerlessly at the core of our emotions at once with wit and gravity, loftiness and plain-spokenness.

47.

July 27, 2018
Critic Score
74
11 reviews
Gaika is not just the artist we want, but the artist society desperately needs.

46.

May 4, 2018
Critic Score
85
3 reviews

45.

October 12, 2018
Critic Score
75
33 reviews

Depending on your taste, and depending on how you like your Vile, this could be his best record in ages, or you could be a tad put off by the spaced-out, long-winded nature of it.

44.

May 18, 2018
Critic Score
80
41 reviews
There are no easy answers, not for the listener to unwrap, and not even for Barnett herself - but that's never what was on offer. What Barnett does offer with her second record is a deep breath of fresh air, a pause for thought wrapped up in distortion and fuzzed up refrains.

43.

June 29, 2018
Critic Score
87
12 reviews

It’s a most welcome and inevitably stunning missing chapter from one of jazz’s finest quartet.

42.

How to Dress Well - The Anteroom
October 19, 2018
Critic Score
71
12 reviews

The Anteroom is often a challenging listen. Its constantly adapting sonic landscapes are fitting for an urgent political and ecological moment.

41.

AURORA - Infections of a Different Kind (Step I)
September 28, 2018
Critic Score
77
3 reviews

In Infections..., AURORA has crafted a uniquely textured and markedly positive response to troubling times.

40.

September 14, 2018
Critic Score
86
16 reviews

39.

June 1, 2018
Critic Score
82
27 reviews

As Neko Case gets older, her songwriting and overall musicianship have no intention of plateauing. Instead, they grow with her, and the end result is always something organic and strangely beautiful.

38.

June 1, 2018
Critic Score
79
28 reviews
OPN’s latest long-play is just as much a satisfying experience as it is at times unsettling and disorienting, by the end you do actually feel like you’ve been told a story.

37.

August 24, 2018
Critic Score
76
8 reviews

Ultimately, Re:member succeeds through the brilliance of its composer’s craftsmanship. The technological advances incorporated are, if not incidental, then very much secondary to an outstandingly humane creativity so consistently in evidence here.

36.

January 26, 2018
Critic Score
80
25 reviews
Here to prove that guitar music isn’t quite bereft of life, Icelandic-Brightonian trio Dream Wife deliver their debut full-length, a punk-punched festival of empowerment ablaze with brash bangers fit for the indie disco.

34.

July 6, 2018
Critic Score
81
19 reviews

An album that sees Years & Years revisit the musical, lyrical and aesthetic concerns of their debut and refresh them with unprecedented confidence and self-knowledge.

33.

September 14, 2018
Critic Score
64
18 reviews

These young Mancunians have perfected what makes pop such an addictive, essential genre, and My Mind Makes Noises is both immediate and idiosyncratic. Pale Waves’ presence may be gloomy, but their songwriting and ambition could not be brighter.

32.

September 14, 2018
Critic Score
70
6 reviews

With East Atlanta Love Letter, the artist has trumped his opponents and influences with a fragile grace and solid talent for songwriting, echoing that of our most decorated balladeers.

31.

March 30, 2018
Critic Score
79
19 reviews

Golden Hour imagines a world much sweeter than the one we’re living in; and for 45 minutes, it can just about take you there. Kacey Musgraves’ golden hour is far from over.

30.

March 2, 2018
Critic Score
79
21 reviews

Clean showcases what it is to be stuck in a quicksand of self-loathing, and have it stop you from seeing your own accomplishments and more importantly, being proud of them. If Allison isn’t already chuffed with this debut, she should be.

29.

March 30, 2018
Critic Score
80
17 reviews

Songs of innocence and experience make Amen Dunes’ Freedom a devastating listen.

28.

April 6, 2018
Critic Score
77
22 reviews

I Don’t Run is cut from precisely the same musical cloth as Leave Me Alone, all languid vocal takes, chirpy lo-fi guitars and scratchy production. The overall feel of it, though, is different, and sounds every inch the work of a band who came off the road not worn out and ready for a break, but itching to dive back into writing whilst the engine was still running.

27.

June 8, 2018
Critic Score
84
22 reviews
With a great collaborator at his side and an audibly more measured compositional approach, the third in Kanye West’s seven-track album trilogy is the finest yet.

26.

August 31, 2018
Critic Score
83
20 reviews

Bloom is an exceptional pop album, but maybe more importantly it’s a beacon for queer people who struggle to reconcile our neuroses – societal and personal – with our potential for joy and love.

25.

July 20, 2018
Critic Score
80
34 reviews
It all results in a moreish stew of hazy, swooning R&B that’s practically impossible to resist.

24.

August 10, 2018
Critic Score
80
17 reviews

On her resoundingly beautiful debut At Weddings, Tomberlin charts an adolescence and young adulthood spent casting off the confinements of youth.

23.

October 26, 2018
Critic Score
80
14 reviews

A powerful documentation of letting relationships, jobs and regrets go, Saturn is an emotional journey through struggle and empowerment, through loss and rebirth.

22.

June 8, 2018
Critic Score
79
36 reviews

At its core, Lush is partly a remarkable debut, for the solid shape it's delivered in, mostly cohesive, conceptually speaking, but it's true that the cohesiveness of Lush lacks any true dichotomy to "spice" up the album.

21.

June 22, 2018
Critic Score
84
33 reviews
This is a record that throbs and vibrates with an infectious pulse even when the instrumentalists aim for the outer reaches of lightning-speed look-at-me flurries of virtuoso showing-off.

20.

May 11, 2018
Critic Score
72
44 reviews

Despite the huge burden of expectation, Turner and co. sound cocksure on TBH&C. Sadly, this doesn’t equate to anything resembling brilliance.

19.

June 8, 2018
Critic Score
75
25 reviews
Her debut is skilfully arranged so that most music fans will be able to unearth some element that they can relate to. Smith’s debut may cast the net wide, but she is an artist with ambition, who doesn’t want to be limited to one specific market. A multifaceted performer, her music reflects her personality.

18.

September 14, 2018
Critic Score
85
26 reviews
The album marks an extraordinary point in the trio’s career – an album rich in darkness and in texture, finding Low in experimental sublimity, further reminding us that their range has only gotten exceptionally larger and better over time.

17.

October 26, 2018
Critic Score
88
29 reviews

On first listen, the absence of a nihilistic mantra to grasp onto may disappoint fans, but the deceptively simple pleasures of Honey open up with each listen.

16.

March 30, 2018
Critic Score
81
10 reviews

The richness of the source material and the deftness of interplay of each member of the band ensures that Your Queen is a Reptile leaves you with a sense of having been a part of something truly special.

15.

August 24, 2018
Critic Score
83
34 reviews

The past few years have seen Dev Hynes become one of the most prominent, important voices in pop. Negro Swan builds upon this legacy.

14.

September 21, 2018
Critic Score
86
36 reviews

Chris is the sound of an already accomplished artist pushing things even further, exploring new territories rather than resting on their laurels.

13.

August 17, 2018
Critic Score
77
28 reviews

It does exactly what it says on the tin. Fifteen tracks that put a smile on your face and a tear in your eye.

12.

September 21, 2018
Critic Score
82
15 reviews

Kevin Abstract is so often the mastermind, but on Iridescence, there’s no reliance on one member to take centre stage and in turn, some who were prone to lingering in the shadows have burst into the limelight.

11.

January 12, 2018
Critic Score
83
25 reviews

Whip smart, furious and, most importantly, fun, Songs of Praise is the first essential album of 2018. And what an album it is.

9.

June 29, 2018
Critic Score
82
35 reviews

Reflecting Walton and Hollingworth’s growth and maturation over a period of approximately two years, it is a creative and infectious record, which after repeat listens, moves from being intriguing to simply irresistible.

8.

November 30, 2018
Critic Score
83
44 reviews

Comparisons will be made to Radiohead’s OK Computer, another era-defining third album that examines the internet’s effects on our interpersonal lives. But A Brief Inquiry… actually resembles Kid A’s best two tracks, “How to Disappear Completely” and “Motion Picture Soundtrack” – music that wrenches magnificence from the barest bones of humanity. By interrogating the strategies we employ to keep on living in an impossible world, this astonishing album has become one.

6.

April 6, 2018
Critic Score
82
23 reviews

With the success that “Bodak Yellow” brought her, this album could have been filled with 13 carbon copies. But it isn’t; instead, Invasion of Privacy is filled with carefully crafted tracks which ably show her many sides. Cardi B knows who she is and where she came from and she isn’t trying to hide it from anyone.

5.

March 9, 2018
Critic Score
84
28 reviews

Although on initial listen, Cocoa Sugar appears a somewhat sparse and restrained affair, there is in fact little restraint to be found in the record’s emotional depth; and its ability to explore and convey a plethora of intangible human experiences.

4.

August 31, 2018
Critic Score
88
34 reviews

Joy… delivers on the momentum that they have been building, and seizes a piece of the zeitgeist in the process.

3.

June 15, 2018
Critic Score
82
23 reviews

We wind up with an album much like its title; Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides is difficult to comprehend, and even knowing the meaning doesn’t make “I love every person’s insides” any less weird. But there always is a meaning, and that’s what makes SOPHIE vital as an artist.

2.

August 10, 2018
Critic Score
79
17 reviews

Tirzah has made 11 raw, honest, and beautifully unusual pop songs that will remain with you whether you like it or not, bringing you back time and time again, motivated by your devotion to this record.

1.

August 17, 2018
Critic Score
85
40 reviews
“Be the cowboy you wish to see in the world”. You may not see it emblazoned on a plane come election time, but it is the slogan that inspired Mitski’s fifth and most rewarding record yet.
Original Source: https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/listomania/best-albums-of-2018
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