Absolute fucking anarchy, and yet Human Sadness is one of the most gorgeous songs I've ever listened to.

Favourite Song: Human Sadness

Best: Take Me in Your Army, Crunch Punch, M.utually A.ssured D.estruction, Where No Eagles Fly, Father Electricity, Business Dog, Dare I Care

Worst: Xerox

My first encounter with a 1975 album is one of pleasant surprise. The words I've heard used about this band range from childish to uninspired, and I can kind of see that sort of aspect with a lot of the choices made on this album (like the opener literally being All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem) and Matty Healy's hard stuck angsty teenage mindset in terms of writing. But nonetheless I still had a pretty fun time. There's a nice helping of bops and ballads despite the ballads being pretty much ... read more

An emotional indietronica triumph.

Favourite Song: Rising, Rising

Best: Act One: The Queen of Fiji, Wake (E-bow), Anachronism, Slow Burn, Slaves, Epithelial, Akureyri, The Hunger in Your Haunt, Epilogue (Ossuary)

Worst: Act Three: Looming

Fuck Alexis, but damn this is some chaotically pleasing noise rock. The first half is infinitely better than the second.

Favourite Song: The Hit

Best: The Virgin, The First Supper, The Theater Goer, Our Queens, The Dead Singer, The Unattractive Portable Head

Worst: Sweet Georgia Brown

Touching and gentle.

Favourite Song: I'll Keep Coming

Best: Breathe In, Easy Way Out, Nobody Loves Me Like You, I'm Leaving, Phantoms, Anything You Need, Vampire on My Fridge

Worst: Dreamer

I can't believe Bowie invented ambient music.

Also Heroes sweeps any other Bowie song.

Favourite Song: Heroes

Best: Beauty and the Beast, Joe the Lion, Blackout, Moss Garden, The Secret Life of Arabia

Worst: Sense of Doubt

A Glimpse of Us? More like A Glimpse of A Good Album!!! (please can you make a song longer than 2 and a half minutes I want to listen to actual music again)

I feel the exact same way about this album than I do with Nectar: the substance is good, but most of the songs are just too fucking short. It's not even that Joji's obviously pining towards TikTok, because the songs clearly can't fit into a tidy trend. It's honestly just laziness at this point. Like the lead single is an actual song, but ... read more

A glorious closing album for a glorious metal band.

Favourite Song: Dissociation

Best: Limerent Death, Symptom of Terminal Illness, Wanting Not so Much to as To, Fugue, Low Feels Blvd, Surrogate, Honeysuckle, Manufacturing Discontent, Apologies Not Included, Nothing to Forget

Worst: N/A

Fun.

Favourite Song: Should Have Known Better

Best: Death with Dignity, All of Me Wants All of You, Drawn to the Blood, Eugene, Fourth of July, The Only Thing, Carrie & Lowell, John My Beloved, No Shade in the Shadow of The Cross, Blue Bucket of Gold

Worst: N/A

Carly says the F word to open the album 10/10

Yet again Carly Rae Jepsen surpasses all others in her field, and yet she doesn't even use her maximum powers. Despite having a few duds, The Loneliest Time has a great range of pop to satisfy for weeks or months to come until the side B album inevitably comes out with like 800 tracks or however many demos she said she did for this thing. I highly doubt that any other album that comes out this year will please me as much as this thing does.

And ... read more

A whole lot of dated 2010's electropop.

Favourite Song: Lies

Best: Bubblegum Bitch, Primadonna, Starring Role, Living Dead, Valley of the Dolls, Fear and Loathing

Worst: The State of Dreaming

Fundamentally this is probably the best Dillinger album (but is either my 2nd or 3rd favourite from them). It has everything you'd ever need from one, compacted into ten solid tracks.

Favourite Song: Gold Teeth On A Bum

Best: Farewell Mona Lisa, Good Neighbour, Endless Endings, Widower, Room Full of Eyes, Chinese Whispers, I Wouldn't If You Didn't, Parasitic Twins

Worst: Crystal Morning

Thriller is much more consistent than Off the Wall, but the whole album is overshadowed by the three-song UNGODLY streak of Thriller, Beat It and Billie Jean. Making three of the most iconic songs of all time and putting them next to each other on an album is the ultimate power move, but was a move that made the starting and closing songs (even though they're still decent) feel a lot less impactful.

Favourite Song: Beat It

Best: Wanna Be Startin' Something, Baby Be Mine, Thriller, Billie ... read more

Freddie Gibbs drops another good album (SHOCKER). But it's only good. Nothing more.

-5 points for including Joe Rogan, but +5 points for including the main man Jesus himself.

Favourite Song: Zipper Bagz

Best: Couldn't Be Done, Blackest in the Room, Pain & Strife, Too Much, Lobster Omelette, Feel No Pain, PYS, Dark Hearted, CIA

Worst: Space Rabbit

Music for being thrown into a ditch.

Favourite Song: Them Bones

Best: Dam That River, Rain When I Die, Down In A Hole, Rooster, Junkhead, Dirt, Hate To Feel, Would?

Worst: Sickman

Maths is hard.

Favourite Song: Setting Fire to Sleeping Giants

Best: Panasonic Youth, Sunshine the Werewolf, Highway Robbery, Van Damsel, Phone Home, We Are the Storm, Baby's First Coffin, Unretrofied

Worst: Crutch Field Tongs

And the award for most atrocious album cover of the year goes to...

So I didn't like RINA, I liked SAWAYAMA, and now I'm dwindling around Hold The Girl, predominantly because it just didn't do that much for me. I like the explosive unapologetic pop bangers and the moments where Rina truly gets to shine in more alternative production choices like on This Hell and Imagining, but a large portion of the songs are stuck in heavy sentimentalisms that carry on from her first LP. And even worse, ... read more

A serene, adult delve into a very different side to pop.

Favourite Song: Kaputt

Best: Chinatown, Blue Eyes, Savage Night At the Opera, Suicide Demo For Kara Walker, Poor In Love, Downtown, Bay Of Pigs

Worst: Song For America

Filthy bangers that have stood the test of time impressively.

Favourite Song: Telephone

Best: Bad Romance, Alejandro, Monster, Speechless, So Happy I Could Die, Teeth

Worst: Dance In The Dark

I'm not huge on the band's original vocalist, but everything else on this album is still hardcore and wondrously chaotic.

Favourite Song: The Running Board

Best: Sugar Coated Sour, 43% Burnt, Destro's Secret, Calculating Infinity, 4th Grade Dropout

Worst: *#..