Comments (2)
Alabaster DePlume - GOLD – Go Forward in the Courage of Your Love
April 1, 2022
Critic Score
81
7 reviews
The Mancunian saxophonist and poet’s warm and wise album is a balm of spoken word and spiritual jazz, both strangely uncomfortable and strangely comforting.
Aldous Harding - Warm Chris
March 25, 2022
Critic Score
77
28 reviews
The New Zealand songwriter returns with a sparse and oblique album whose gentle psychedelic folk and beguiling free association proudly resist interpretation.
Angel Olsen - Big Time
June 3, 2022
Critic Score
85
29 reviews
Angel Olsen taps deeper into her country influences on a warm, self-assured album whose fluid narration unites love and grief, past and present.
Animal Collective - Time Skiffs
February 4, 2022
Critic Score
75
33 reviews
After a prolific period of experimentation, Animal Collective return with an album that achieves a peaceful equilibrium between their immersive 3D soundscaping and innate melodic charms.
Astrid Sonne - Ephemeral Camera Feed
March 18, 2022
Critic Score
76
1 review
In a recording from Berlin’s Atonal festival captured on camera mics in the crowd, the Danish electronic musician melds the sanctity of live music with the profanity of eavesdropping on strangers.
Axel Boman - Quest For Fire
April 15, 2022
Critic Score
83
1 review
The Stockholm producer offers a bewildering yet comforting gateway to his tragicomic worldview on an ambitious set of complementary albums.
Axel Boman - Luz
April 15, 2022
Critic Score
83
1 review
The Stockholm producer offers a bewildering yet comforting gateway to his tragicomic worldview on an ambitious set of complementary albums.
Bad Bunny - Un Verano Sin Ti
May 6, 2022
Critic Score
77
7 reviews
Much more than a Caribbean summer playlist, Bad Bunny’s latest album is a melodic discourse that questions the powers that be and a call to action that encourages diasporic joy, perreo, and rest.
Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You
February 11, 2022
Critic Score
85
33 reviews
Big Thief’s ambitious yet unburdened fifth album is a 20-song epic of kaleidoscopic invention, striking beauty, and wigged-out humor, rambling far beyond the bounds of their previous work.
Camp Cope - Running with the Hurricane
March 25, 2022
Critic Score
78
13 reviews
Shifting away from the gnawing, emo-inflected power-pop of their first two albums, the Melbourne trio ask: Can softness be as invigorating as fury?
Cate Le Bon - Pompeii
February 4, 2022
Critic Score
83
25 reviews
Cate Le Bon’s wondrous sixth album exists in a waking dreamscape whose locked-in grooves approach the unknowable at slanted angles.
Charli XCX - CRASH
March 18, 2022
Critic Score
76
28 reviews
Charli’s best full-length project since Pop 2 is a canny embrace of modern and vintage pop styles by one of its most sincere students.
Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul - Topical Dancer
March 4, 2022
Critic Score
82
11 reviews
The Belgian duo’s debut album pairs punchy, propulsive electro pop with inventive sound design, absurdist wit, and sly jabs at racism and xenophobia.
Destroyer - LABYRINTHITIS
March 25, 2022
Critic Score
76
18 reviews
Dan Bejar’s marvelously inscrutable songwriting reaches beyond meaning. On his most live-sounding record in years, he finds clarity when language recedes and the music takes over.
Earl Sweatshirt - SICK!
January 14, 2022
Critic Score
80
21 reviews
Earl Sweatshirt used to make you sift through the mud to find the gold. On his latest album, the nuggets are gleaming right on the surface.
FKA twigs - CAPRISONGS
January 14, 2022
Critic Score
79
20 reviews
The singer’s new mixtape is a playful and adventurous flex, full of errant, shapeshifting compositions that flirt with choral music and Afrobeats, schoolyard chants and squeak-rapping.
Huerco S. - Plonk
February 25, 2022
Critic Score
75
5 reviews
On his first album as Huerco S. in six years, the Kansas musician trades his customary ambient textures for an hour’s worth of intricate, off-center head trips.
Jenny Hval - Classic Objects
March 11, 2022
Critic Score
80
24 reviews
The Norwegian artist presents her most unified mind-body work to date, melody-filled art-pop that deals with the nature of self and the freedom of the unconscious.
Joshua Hedley - Neon Blue
April 22, 2022
Critic Score
72
3 reviews
The Nashville songwriter brings country back to the barroom on a vibrant set that pays tribute to ’90s stars like Brooks & Dunn and Garth Brooks.
Junglepussy - Jp5000
February 4, 2022
Critic Score
85
2 reviews
With killer beat selections and a fresh sense of focus, the New York rapper’s latest project exudes the unnerving calm and clarity that come with years of refinement.
Koffee - Gifted
March 25, 2022
Critic Score
78
10 reviews
Breezy, uplifting, and never forced, the Jamaican reggae star’s debut imbues the ennui and uncertainty of this epoch with much-needed positivity.
Leikeli47 - Shape Up
May 13, 2022
Critic Score
82
5 reviews
The anonymous Brooklyn rapper’s third album is a little bolder and a little rawer, but it’s her versatility—across hip-hop, ballroom, house, and R&B—that keeps her sound fresh.
MJ Lenderman - Boat Songs
April 29, 2022
Critic Score
82
2 reviews
On his breakthrough solo album, the Asheville songwriter and guitarist polishes his alt-country vignettes with disarming insight and an immersive, fuzz-stacked sound.
Nilüfer Yanya - PAINLESS
March 4, 2022
Critic Score
80
30 reviews
The singer-songwriter’s striking second album excels at a kind of subtle disclosure, relying less on power than it does texture and immaculately sparing detail.
Pusha T - It's Almost Dry
April 22, 2022
Critic Score
81
11 reviews
The Virginia rapper’s latest is musically varied and vocally impressive, revealing an artist who continues to cut extraneous elements out of his songwriting and drill closer to the core of his style.
Ravyn Lenae - Hypnos
May 20, 2022
Critic Score
84
6 reviews
The 23-year-old Chicago singer’s long-awaited debut makes a close study of R&B history, floating through weightless vocal arrangements with uncommon poise.
ROSALÍA - MOTOMAMI
March 18, 2022
Critic Score
87
17 reviews
The Spanish superstar’s third album is a showcase for Rosalía’s exceptional range. It aspires to stretch itself out across genres and play with form, and attains exactly what it sets out to achieve.
SAULT - Air
April 15, 2022
Critic Score
74
7 reviews
In a dramatic departure from their previous output, the UK collective taps into the spirituality of choral music and contemporary classical in an uplifting, celebratory, utterly gorgeous album.
Sharon Van Etten - We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong
May 6, 2022
Critic Score
79
26 reviews
Produced in her home studio in Los Angeles, Sharon Van Etten’s sixth album embraces the complications of the past two years. It is her most epic record, yet lyrically it is her most insular.
Soul Glo - Diaspora Problems
March 25, 2022
Critic Score
84
11 reviews
On their groundbreaking new album, the Philadelphia hardcore group mixes actionable rhetoric, absurdist humor, and breathtaking vulnerability like no band before them.
The Smile - A Light for Attracting Attention
May 13, 2022
Critic Score
84
28 reviews
The debut from Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and drummer Tom Skinner’s new group is instantly, unmistakably the best album yet by a Radiohead side project.
The Weeknd - Dawn FM
January 7, 2022
Critic Score
83
28 reviews
Conceptualized around listening to a retro-pop radio station in purgatory, Abel Tesfaye’s fifth album is the most thoughtful, melodic, and revealing project of his career.
Undeath - It's Time...To Rise From the Grave
April 22, 2022
Critic Score
82
8 reviews
Zombie armies, mortal standoffs, gravesite robberies: On its ecstatic second album, the Rochester metal band has fun with death.
Vince Staples - RAMONA PARK BROKE MY HEART
April 8, 2022
Critic Score
79
13 reviews
The companion piece to his 2021 self-titled record diverges from the innovation and technical proficiency in favor of introspection and contemplation. It is a richly detailed, deadpan elegy for his stolen youth.
Wet Leg - Wet Leg
April 8, 2022
Critic Score
83
38 reviews
The British indie rock duo have hooks stuffed with bait and a keen eye for assessing self-delusion. Their debut is the sound of two women stoking mutiny from a slow descent into madness.
Yeule - Glitch Princess
February 4, 2022
Critic Score
82
11 reviews
The pioneering second album from the London-based avant-pop artist is a darkly nuanced look at identity and technology, where personal disasters occur at the same scale as the actual apocalypse.
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