The NFL selecting Bad Bunny as the Halftime Show performer for Super Bowl LX isn’t much of a surprise when you realize how they’re trying to expand football beyond just the states. The league has played games in Ireland, England, Spain, Brazil and Germany this year, with plans for Australia in the future; why not get the most global superstar going to headline the biggest show of the year? Beyond his international appeal, Benito has earned the right to headline a show this big. ... read more

One of this year’s most thrilling parties has been EUSEXUA, FKA twigs’ headfirst dive into rave and club music. That album is a celebration of the dancefloor performed with an eerie calmness, one that maintains an alluring energy despites twigs’ voice rarely rising above its trademark whisper. But what’s a party without an afterparty? To keep the party going, EUSEXUA Afterglow sees the original’s delicate balance thrown off its equilibrium with louder synths, ... read more

We’re nearing two full decades of Danny Brown influencing a new generation of musicians, and his wild delivery and unique aesthetic has given him a wide-ranging set of disciples. You’d think his pupils would mostly be fellow rappers, and plenty of them are, but a subset reside in the ever-changing world of hyperpop, and Danny is here to embrace them. Stardust was born from a now-sober Brown’s new appreciation for life and electronic music after allegedly listening to 100 gecs ... read more

The band Cocteau Twins weren’t actually comprised of identical siblings, but if they were, Hatchie could have been the honorary Cocteau Triplet. Harriette Pilbeam’s musical project has always shined with that hazy, mesmerizing brand of pop music of that iconic Scottish group, and Liquorice only furthers her place among dream pop’s best. Through 36 beautiful minutes, Hatchie completely envelops you in a sound that’s lush and longing as she navigates love and loss through ... read more

Quick, who’s the first name you think of when it comes to modern Americana? For me it’s Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band, but Katie Crutchfield and MJ Lenderman pop up as well. The latter two have collaborated before, but with Snocaps, they along with Crutchfield’s sister Allison (of Swearin’ fame) have formed a bit of a alt-country supergroup. Listening to their self-titled debut project, I find it fittingly named; the trio has climbed the steep mountain of indie ... read more

Where do you go once you’ve reached the pinnacle? It’s a logical question for British rock titans Florence + The Machine, who are now festival headliners after years of building their baroque craft. 2023’s Dance Fever was as mainstream as the band had gotten, full of songs worthy of being screamed at the top of your lungs. Everybody Scream is also full of tracks worth yelling, but in a much more intricate, at times pained manner. Welch challenges the listener more than she has ... read more

Hayley Williams has spent pretty much the entirety of her life under the control of a record label. She signed to Atlantic Records when she was 14 and has been part of Paramore ever since, producing some of the most seminal pop punk music of this century. So who is the real Hayley Williams? Now free from her Atlantic deal and operating under her own whims (and on a label imprint named Post Atlantic to make her feelings quite obvious), Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party is a good look into her ... read more

At the time, the title for The Last Dinner Party’s debut record seemed a bit silly. Prelude to Ecstasy? How is this a prelude when the record was as dynamic and memorable as it was? It appeared that the ecstasy was already here, but now that we’ve been gifted a followup a year later, it’s true: the ecstasy was yet to come. From The Pyre improves on everything the British quintet did on their debut, building majestic baroque pop and alternative rock that’s uncompromising ... read more

“I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables… I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars.”

James Murphy once uttered those lines on “Losing My Edge”, commenting on the desire to stay cool by keeping with modern trends. By those standards, Kevin Parker is about at the middle point. His fifth album with Tame Impala, the dance-dominated Deadbeat, is a far cry from the poppy psychedelic rock he perfected ... read more

Jazz and funk are buzzwords for certain people. Not everyone likes sitting through instrumental jam sessions where aimlessness is often the name of the game. But anyone and everyone should be able to find some joy in the way the Diasonics navigate the two genres. The Moscow quintet plays with a purpose on Ornithology, an album inspired by birds that moves along as freely as our winged friends do.

The backbone of any great funk group in my mind is fearless drumming, and Anton Moskovin is more ... read more

I’ve been around for chillwave, tenderpunk, and lo-fi hip hop beats, yet in the ever-expanding sea (and not seapunk) of microgenres that the internet produces, I admit that I’d never heard of egg punk until now. It’s a more recent style of DIY punk in the wake of COVID-19 shutdowns; younger groups haven’t had access to the resources past up-and-comers might have, leading to an incredibly rough yet cohesive version of punk rock. This all leads us to Snõõper, ... read more

With an Ian Curtis-esque baritone and moody instrumentals to match, John Maus has always been one of alt pop’s most fascinating figures. After a seven year absence, his return with Later Than You Think continues his shadowy hypnagogic pop work in solid fashion. There’s plenty of classic Maus basslines on this one, wrapping them around descending synths and thumping drums on highlights like “Because We Build It”, “I Hate Antichrist” and “Tonight”. ... read more

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” That’s the ethos of the final album from alternative dance icons Saint Etienne; though their time as a band has come to an end, they’re going out on their own terms. The trio spends much of the album ruminating on the end, from the end of their own career through dance euphoria (The Go Betweens) to the end of a relationship with synthetic melancholy (Fade). Sarah Cracknell’s soft voice guides us ... read more

A.J. Jackson and his band have set themselves apart in the endless sea of indie pop with a cinematic approach to their sound and their visuals. The Cali quartet up things further with Saint Motel & the Symphony in the Sky, where each track is inspired by “the classic Hollywood film system”. There’s a lot of piano and string-driven Vaudevillian pop to this one like “Everyone’s A Guru Now”, and the high points rank among the band’s best. The pure ... read more

When Djo was dropping random singles last month, I certainly wasn’t expecting a brand new record to follow. And yet here we are with The Crux Deluxe, basically constituting an entirely new album on top of the already-excellent base record. Looking at it as a separate work, it’s a solid pop rock release, if not nearly as cohesive as the original. Highlights include the run from “Purgatory Silverstar”, a multi-part epic the classic rock vets would be proud of, to ... read more

One of the world’s foremost DJs decided to make one of the decade’s best dream pop albums a few years ago with & The Charm. That version of Avalon Emerson was calm and collected as she drifted across the dredges of aging, a far cry from the controlled chaos of her mixes that have dominated late-night raves for years. But the pulse of the dancefloor beckons, and Avalon’s return with the Perpetual Emotion Machine EP is an easy switch back to those addicting dance beats she ... read more

Taylor Swift’s unrivaled fame and popularity were never her choice. I doubt she set out to cultivate the most rabid fanbase in music and produce the biggest tour in music history, her work chose that for her. Swift always seemed aware of her everpresence yet never succumbed to it. Just look at the album art for her records over the last ten years; she almost never directly looks into the camera, letting her demigoddess presence speak for itself. She only confronted the viewer on the front ... read more

Cameron Winter sure devotes a lot of his time to screaming. The lead singer of Geese spends much of their latest album Getting Killed stretching the limits of what his voice can do, often at a loud level. Yet even after several listens of the New York rock outfit’s third record, I’ve come away convinced he’s not even close to the height of his powers. Winter’s voice is a force of nature with the authority of a pastor giving an impassioned sermon; turn away and be ... read more

Wednesday have been writing the same song over and over again, and that’s on purpose. Frontwoman Karly Hartzman said as much when describing Bleeds, the North Carolina quintet’s 6th LP. What you hear here is quite familiar to their efforts on Rat Saw God, and that’s not a bad thing whatsoever. The band is as in control of their Southern Gothic intentions as they’ve ever been, calmly and confidently switching between sludgy riffs and quaint Americana on a whim. Their ... read more

“I’m not trying to be anything that I’m not, my dear.”

That’s a line Ian Richard Devaney utters on “Under the Water”, a highlight from Nation of Language’s latest album Dance Called Memory. In the context of the song, Ian Richard Devaney opens his true self to salvage a relationship that’s quickly sinking beneath burbling synthesizers. But it’s a perfect line to describe the trio on the whole: Devaney, Aiden Noell and Alex MacKay have ... read more