Isaiah Rashad's storytelling has developed masterfully over the years, and he puts it on full display on IT'S BEEN AWFUL with more introspective and reflective lyrics than I would have expected from him. It actually gets a little dark at times, but Isaiah clashes it with more upbeat production and sometimes you really lose track of the contents of the tracks. The vibes in general are really good, it's a super laid back album at most points and it creates an easily digestible, ... read more

FINALLY, Kacey Musgraves is back to making the music she is best at. Middle of Nowhere feels more honest and vulnerable than anything she's released in nearly a decade and it pays off big time. This feels like a return to making proper, authentic country in a space she thrives in. I loved the instrumentals being filled with Mexican influence and it makes it a more unique listen while keeping the production simple enough that her voice still gets to shine. I do wish she'd use less ... read more

A step behind some recent releases, but nonetheless still pretty solid work.

It grew on me a little bit, but I still think Your Favorite Toy is a pretty underwhelming follow up to But Here We Are.

Mitski's newest album is a bit too one-dimensional in my opinion, but it's still pretty solid. I just wish she'd dive a little deeper into her experimental side.

In The Great Divide, Noah Kahan, someone who has already showed excellence for years in expressing emotions vividly, has stepped up his game once again. Kahan has a sensational ability to create an atmosphere that listeners can sink into and feel like they are reimagining their own experiences, and he's captured that sensation again in The Great Divide with a ton of emotional tracks, most notably including a great intro track with End of August.

While it may not be as catchy as Stick ... read more

Really fun production and a great feature list give Thundercat a really solid album with Distracted. I think the back end of the album fights off some lulls on occasion, but it's not enough for me to say this wasn't enjoyable. I think every feature was great, especially the inclusion of the Mac song that just blew me away with how much of a vibe it was. Pretty fun album altogether with a small handful of tracks that will stay in rotation.

Drag Me tricked me so hard, I thought this was going to be something pretty good! Oops.

Sam Barber sounds a lot more focused on Broken View compared to his debut album and I think that helped my focus on the album, too. Sam's thoughts feel much more funneled as opposed to some scattered songs from Restless Mind that felt out of place. He seems to sing with more confidence now and write with more conviction and emotion, something he was already great at. I think Sam could have used a feature or two to bounce off of in tracks and throw a little bit of variety into this album, ... read more

Bruno Mars sounds less interested and inspired in The Romantic than some of his classic albums, but this had its moments still. If it was longer than a half hour, I may be on here complaining that it was a lot of filler, but at least it was concise.

I don't really think this is the disco/house kind of music that Harry Styles led people to believe. Aperture actually had me pretty excited at first, but it all went downhill from there. It's completely fine, I guess, but the way others hyped it up to me, I really expected a pop AOTY-type contending project, but this is far from that. It can be nice cleaning the house background music, I guess, but that's all I can really take from this.

I like to see Gorillaz taking risks and looking to make unique music a quarter century into the group's run a lot. The Mountain is a really solid album that got me invested into a project I didn't have a ton of interest going into.

Dandelion serves as a proper arrival for Ella Langley in the upper echelon of modern country music. Ella sounds matured and has turned into a much improved songwriter than she was on Hungover. Many songs off this album have a feeling to them that remind me of what I'd hear on CMT when I was growing up, a testament to Miranda Lambert's hands being all over this, but also shows the impressiveness of Ella's vocal talent. Songs like Bottom Of Your Boots and Speaking Terms are some of ... read more

Somehow, production is still doing Brent Faiyaz such a disservice. He's a talented vocalist, but whoever is mixing and mastering his songs is really selling him short. When you have a voice like his, production really doesn't even have to do all that much. Brent's voice should never be overpowered by instrumentals, and yet that's what most of Icon felt like to me.

Baby Keem's growth as an artist on Casino is apparent, most notably in his production and delivery. Keem sounds so much more comfortable in pretty much every track of the album, and the variation of production styles this time around push Casino just past his debut album, to me, but it's close. It's funny that Baby Keem took so long to put out this sophomore album that he's 1) not really even a baby anymore and 2) sounds so much different now than he did on Melodic Blue. It ... read more

DaBaby's best work in YEARS!

As a massive fan of Megan Moroney, I was eagerly anticipating the release of Cloud 9 as soon as it was announced, and I think Meg mostly delivered like she always does. She opted to lean further into her pop country side than she did in Am I Okay and I think it mostly worked out in her favor, as evident in some tracks with a perfect blend of the two genres like Medicine, Stupid, and Change of Heart. The pink theme was definitely displayed well with such an expressive album, but I don't ... read more

Joji came up with a wildly uninspiring and seemingly incomplete album here with Piss In The Wind. How do you give us a 21-track album that only runs 45 minutes? So many of these songs feel like they sprung from decent ideas, but were not given enough time to be fully realized in totality, winding up in a lot of thoughts that feel unfinished. I'm not the biggest Joji fan as it is, but I wanted to give this a shot and was left completely floored (in a bad way) at how unimpressive this came ... read more

It could be bias, it could be everyone else underrating it, but something about The Fall-Off is really working for me. This may be J Cole's most experimental work yet, and as far into his career as he is, I find that really impressive.

This entire project listens like a love letter to hip hop, as told by his exploration of various styles he uses throughout the album. As a concept, I think this has to be his most cohesive work since Forest Hills Drive. The two-disc layout seemed risky at ... read more

I really wanted to love this album, but Don Toliver gives me pretty much nothing of substance, lyrically, on OCTANE. Despite some really impressive production at times, Don running through a lot of mumbling and filler lines just doesn't do it for me. It's like he took everything that people drag Travis Scott for and used only the criticisms to construct an album. Don't get me wrong, the production is mostly really good, so much so that it doesn't tank the score I'm ... read more