It’s only when considered in its full form that the true beauty, complexity, and intricacy of this coming-of-age debut can be fully appreciated.
That’s how Boy King comes across on the first few listens, as if it’s squaring up to us, strutting, all testosterone and violent, eyeballing virility.
Melancholy lyrical ruminations on fatality are nothing new for Cohen, but on these nine new songs he seems resigned – even comforted – that the end is getting near.
The unsettling irony of this album is that it sounds mellow as hell. And it’s amazing - Rashad’s raspy-suave flow floats over subtle jazz-inflected beats, sounding like Vince Staples hotboxing a Cadillac.
Not every moment of I Like It When You Sleep works perfectly, but it’s exhilarating to hear a band stretch past their comfort zone in so many different ways.
Dupuis’s credo on Slugger is so simply, yet still colorfully as expected, stated and essential that flash-drive copies of Slugger should accompany all high school freshman Health class textbooks.
A Moon Shaped Pool stems from such a vital and private place that its quiet cohesion yields some devastatingly beautiful results.
For a band trying to embody the mindset of an “old-ass dude living alone” you’ll be surprised at just how warm and inviting Light Upon the Lake is, as well as the size of the smile it leaves on your face.
For an album that is at times intentionally difficult to follow - for all its vague and indistinct meanderings between subjects, between minds and bodies, between place and time, Blonde remains a highly accessible album - and not just sonically.
This is an assured step forward in every sense - Honeyblood are back from the brink and there’s a new sting in their tail.
This is not as bleak or as unrelenting a record as it might seem on the face of it, and it isn’t, either, quite the record we might have expected to follow The Shadow of Heaven. Rather than build on that record’s elegance and lightness of touch, MONEY have traded it out for something less polished, that’s often brutal in its emotional delivery.
Leave Me Alone is flawed, but its flaws are what makes it so beguiling. Trying something new isn’t their focus right now, and that’s fair enough when they're intent on making sure everyone is having this much fun.
Preoccupations' greatest asset is in its breadth of ability; spontaneous, yet considered; off-kilter, but instinctive; eccentric, although well composed.
Angel Olsen isn’t a chameleon; she’s simply one of the best songwriters we have, who can play any style of music she turns her muse to. MY WOMAN is Olsen at the top of her game - heartfelt, insightful and musically adventurous.
A Good Night in the Ghetto is an outstanding listen for so many reasons. It’s smart, it’s catchy and it even manages to successfully reclaim the word ‘hoochie’.
Hopelessness essentially represents the fight to find your own unique place in a world that has grown ugly, and a sincere desire for us all to wake up and take action to ensure it doesn’t get any uglier than it already is.
In the end, A Tribe Called Quest were all about beats, rhymes and life, and this album has that in spades. They may have grown older but their wit and skill with the mic have not eroded. It’s a real joy to hear these three men, particularly Q-Tip and Phife, get back to it like old times.
Running Out Of Love isn’t the sound of hectoring; it’s The Radio Dept. getting on with the business of making important records, being one of the most challenging, uncompromising and rewarding bands we have and proving that political music is as vital as ever.
Whether or not grime loses its threat in the near future, Konnichiwa will still stand tall as a hard-hitting soundtrack to unfulfilling life in cruel Britain that's achieved by giving a microphone to voices that otherwise wouldn't have been heard.
Coloring Book is a staggeringly mature record, and while it isn’t on par with Acid Rap in terms of unforgettable lyricism, it also has a different mission.
Equal amounts tender and wild, Mitski places power in vulnerability. Validating every topsy turvy emotion, Puberty 2 is a soundtrack of self-awareness and self-acceptance at its most real.
Meredith consistently does a phenomenal job of blending her concert hall ambition with a more mainstream musical sensibility.
Rich, deep, full of wit, rapid fire lyrics and fantastically unusual production, it’s Danny Brown proving yet again that he is one of the most exciting rappers working right now.
Jenny Hval remains one of the most powerful, honest and funny performers working in music today, and this dissection of her self and her work is fascinating to the point of obsession.