These songs are as warm as the fire one might gather around on a camping trip.

Standouts: Change, Time Escaping, Spud Infinity, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, Little Things, Flower Of Blood, Red Moon, No Reason, Wake Me Up To Drive, Simulation Swarm, Love Love Love, Blue Lightning

This is a pretty significant step down for Tove Styrke, losing much of the electric fun that made her last LP so enjoyable.

Standouts: Start Walking, Bruises

Foals dial back the ambition and ramp up the audacity, producing a mindless but fun album that'll keep you grooving all the way til the end.

Standouts: Life Is Yours, Wake me Up, 2am, 2001, Flutter, Under The Radar, The Sound

Dehd's directness in both songwriting and production continues to bring them success, even if every song on Blue Skies isn't quite as memorable as previous records.

Standouts: Bad Love, Bop, Window, Waterfall, Dream On, Empty In My Mind, Stars, No Difference

I've gone through Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers a few times now, and I still don't feel like I have a definitive opinion on it. Kendrick's final TDE album is purposefully big and confusing, and that can work detrimentally to the record. It's long and inconsistent sonically, perhaps to reflect Kendrick's own inner turmoil. That's a central theme to the MM&TBS, something I found similar to Lorde's Solar Power of last year. Unlike that dud of a record, Kendrick allows his turmoil to bring ... read more

Harry's House is an Airbnb worthy of a solid review. This house is smooth and catchy, and a place where your innermost feelings are welcome to be spilled. Styles is as open as he's ever been, even if he does fall trap to some banal songwriting tropes at times. But on the whole this definitely my favorite record of his, an easy listening experience akin to a comfy couch on vacation.

Standouts: Music For a Sushi Restaurant, Late Night Talking, Grapejuice, As It Was, Daylight, Cinema, ... read more

Ten years since the best pop single of the 2010's dropped, a staple of my post-high school graduation summer. I'm old.

It's a wonderful thing to say that, for the first time in a long time, Arcade Fire are making essential listening again. Some of the songs do drag on for a bit too long, but on the whole this is a massive improvement over Everything Now.

Standouts: Age of Anxiety I, End of The Empire I-III, The Lightning I, The Lightning II, Unconditional I (Lookout Kid), Unconditional II (Race and Religion), WE

After spending two years recording apart due to pandemic restrictions, Omnium Gatherum is an explosive reunion. The pure chemistry you can feel from all members of the band recording together is palpable from the moment "The Dripping Tap" kicks off, and the energy never stops. It's as if they had to get two years worth of ideas out in one record, as OG hits on every style the group has tried out before. There's the wonderful psychedelia they're known for (The Dripping Tap), but they ... read more

BCNR have completed their transformation into the zoomer Arcade Fire and it's a beautiful thing to witness.

Must Hear Tracks: Chaos Space Marine, Concorde, Bread Song, Good Will Hunting, Haldern, The Place Where He Inserted the Blade, Snow Globes, Basketball Shoes

Truly euphoric from top to bottom, TILT is a love letter to over-the-top dance music by the some of the genre's best students. Whereas their last album was great for lambasting dance culture, Confidence Man dives deep into the most fun bits of it. Every song is a riot, excellently put together and without a misplaced groove. Janet Planet and Sugar Bones' vocals keep the same energy, beautifully simple and sung with a grin. I found myself repping a big old smile throughout the entirety of tilt, ... read more

Proud of MGK for fully embracing his flop era.

Standouts(?): 5150

Charli returns to the mainstream pop of her earliest records, but with the wisdom and experience she lacked on those records. She's a vet of the industry but a student of pop music still, and her dedication to her craft lends itself well to CRASH's aspirations. These songs are slick and polished, a triumphant return to Charli's roots. They never waste time, coming in to bang and usually doing so. The collaborations are top notch (New Shapes, Beg For You), but Charli is the star of the show ... read more

Reborn sounds cool but not always great. Kavinsky has the synthwave sound down to a T, but that sound isn't enough to carry some of the slower moments on the record. Most of the vocals sound phoned in and unnecessary as well, unlike Kavinsky's star-making "Nightcall" from a decade ago. Reborn isn't the worst thing you'll hear in 2022, but it won't make my night driving soundtrack as much as I'd hoped.

Standouts: Reborn, Renegade, Cameo, Zenith, Vigilante

As a massive fan of Forced Witness, I've been sad to see the character Alex played fade away to make room for more standard social commentary. That removal of the character didn't kill the serviceable Miami Memory, but on Oxy Music the lack of focus really hurts. The instrumentals are laughably cheap, a sad step down from the gloriously slick beats on FW. For the most part Alex is lyrically good, but nothing really jumps out like it used to. It all renders Oxy Music as a missed chance, a ... read more

Early impressions of IMPERA: it's everything I want it to be, a phenomenally made album that revels in its devotion to 80's arena rock. The theming is hit or miss compared to Prequelle or Meliora, but that doesn't really matter when the songs are this much fun. Everyone has been saying "Spillways" sounds like ABBA and that is 100% correct. Love both of the ridiculously over-the-top power ballads (Darkness At The Heart Of My Love, Respite On The Spitalfields), they're like an ... read more

The meticulous detail in both Nilüfer's songwriting and instrumentals means I'll be coming back to PAINLESS for a long time to come. A supremely impressive sophomore project.

Standouts: the dealer, L/R, shameless, stabilise, chase me, midnight sun, trouble, try, belong with you, the mystic, anotherlife

Slutpoop

Metronomy does as Metronomy does, creating solidly unspectacular indie pop. "Right on time" is one of my fav songs of theirs tho.

Standouts: Things will be fine, It's good to be back, Love Factory, Right on time

And just like that, I'm transported back to 2012, where Animal Collective was the most important band in the history of mankind and they could do no wrong.

But really, Time Skiffs is AnCo's most cohesive and enjoyable project since MPP, a delicious slice of the weird and wild the quartet has been doing for so long. It's nice to hear the boys sounding this good again.

Standouts: Car Keys, Prester John, Stung with Everything, Cherokee, We Go Back, Royal and Desire