Probably as delicate of a combination between electronica, orchestral arrangements and the most recent artistic works of Radiohead as it could have been made. There were parts that were probably underappreciated on my behalf and then there were also bits that immediately convinced me to return to this project as soon as possible to hear them again. The title track and "Obrigado" were the main causes, of course, but the way the whole album was built really made me think that there was ... read more

Once again I am very glad to find out that a Fontaines D.C. album that I had been familiar with before was indeed a lot better than I initially had gave it credit for. Not sure whether I can fully agree with the popular opinion on what are the strongest parts of the album songwise, but that amazing sense of darkness throughout the entire project was what gave Skinty Fia such a big character after the cold and restrained A Hero's Death, which in of itself was set up as a strong followup to ... read more

Guys, I think I might not understand JPEGMafia...

What was there to expect from an album that's called Experimental Rap and proceeds to deliver exactly that to its listener? While something like this did come to my mind, it was just one massive eyeroll after another. Adding a ton of Vine boom sound effects and 15 year old dubstep demos simply does not cut it for daring and compelling hip hop, although I would be one to speak as the supposed "fan" of the genre. JPEGMafia as an ... read more

Lately been going through a rougher patch when it comes to my mental health, so for now, music has more than ever helped me get through my struggles. However, you can't always be sure whether you are going to be in for a smooth ride for all brand new records released in the past week, and that's why I'd like to give a special thanks to Nova Koma for delivering one of the most refreshing and satisfying new additions to the Latvian alternative rock and indie music scene. What ... read more

That's an earful. That's very much some of the biggest amount of 8 song musical content I've heard in quite a while, and while it does go a little too far into the technical twisters that take away opportunities to craft something with a more robust structure, it's pretty safe to say that the album doesn't get boring either. The Mars Volta has never shied away from doing absolutely anything that gets stimulated by the brains of Omar Rodríguez-López and ... read more

The album's title is a cool hidden reference to the number of listens you should have for the album. That applies to myself as well, as I suppose it's the type of record that one would get quite attached to if heard on a regular basis. It has not happened yet, so the connection I've got with the heavier tracks, acoustic meditations and the drone-esque pieces, as diverse as they were, couldn't really fully do the trick as well as other Pink Floyd works from the same time ... read more

Edgars Liepiņš was an actor and singer, but primarily a comedian who happened to dip his feet in both performative arts while keeping the same essence. The music career, however, wouldn't have been as big of a success if it wasn't for the work of composer Raimonds Pauls, a national treasure of Latvia who was the undisputed king of catchy and memorable songs back in the 70s for the nation. Skaista Bij' Jaunība was recorded in 1979 and consists of a concert programme of ... read more

The genre clickbait situation is getting crazy. Now that would be a great title for a YouTube video, but considering that this is an AlbumOfTheYear review, it's easy to be straightforward and say that this is not an indie record. I guess that's on me for not taking this page as my direct source for the sound of the album, but I wonder how anyone could make a mistake like that in any case aside from not actually listening to the record. Anyway, this is pop, mostly synthpop. It has some ... read more

The opener was slightly too subtle, but the rest had got everything under control and made the album appear as sweet as a lot of other enjoyers have talked about. Indie folk singer songwriters aren't much of a rarity nowadays, which has made me worried about getting acquainted with too much of them, as other genres have brought me to the point where I simply don't have the capacity left for any new discoveries in spite of how musically strong they might be. My limit for this genre ... read more

You could make an argument for this being the loudest country album, because I certainly have a hard time believing that anything here could be considered traditional punk by any means. Not that there's something wrong with stepping away from your roots, and, truth be told, quite a few Social Distortion hit singles already hinged on somewhat jangly and expressive guitar riffs that gave more of a countryside road trip vibes than a packed alternative club (looking at you, "Story Of My ... read more

Chill electronica that shows plenty of signs of intelligence, but also occasionally gets pushed into the territory of staleness that sometimes can occur to electronic music projects that are a little too overconfident in their sound and end up pushing the same formulas and formats across the entire record. Hairless Toys is by far not the worst case of this, though, there are a lot of lovely production decisions, and even the less impressive tracks have got strong bits in them that are easy to ... read more

Kneecap's notoriety has travelled far and wide enough to reach me, so I figured giving their music a try would be a good choice to see whether they even had something to sell to begin with. It's safe to say that the answer is yes, there are some seriously dimensional sounds that made me the most excited I've been about a new hip hop album in quite a while. The fact that it's tough to tell what these fellas are even rapping about doesn't even take away from the ... read more

It sure is an album. Maybe if I listened to a lot less music in general, I would have vibed with this, but in this reality, Victory Garden is just a regular pop rock record that doesn't seem to have an intention to expand the current Young The Giant's fan turf zone. At least not in the terms of people who would consider themselves music geeks that just haven't had the pleasure of stumbling upon the band. But I'm probably going a little too deep into this. Sometimes it really ... read more

Heard this one was well received. Tori Amos always felt like one of those artists who had culturally stayed behind in the 90s, as I am not familiar with a lot of people who didn't experience the 90s as a decade and are regular listeners of Amos's music. In Times Of Dragons is an unhealthily large dose of intelligent art pop, featuring 17 tracks of consistently decent music, which is not bad, of course, but we've got a classic case of "less is more". The songs are simply ... read more

galaktik did some carrying in this one, as there are a lot of tracks in here that mostly just sound cool based on beats alone, and then Marko arrives and just is present with his unique vocal timbre, not offering a whole lot else than the usual straightforward hip hop that one would expect from his territory. It ain't quite bad either, of course, and I do feel like it should be polite to congratulate Marko on finishing his long overdue debut LP, but the album's main source of my ... read more

Sometimes you really have to wonder whether music can be used as a light source. Surely something this bright could actually glow if somehow converted into physical energy? It's far too good to not do that.

Whether I need to limit my random thought additions to my album reviews is a question that can be left for later, but albums like Helplessness Blues really are the ones that make me feel as free, as happy and as fulfilled about the fact that no matter how many times you might think ... read more

The debut is a classic which I'm quite fond of, just like a lot of other alternative music fans. Having missed out on the two 2010s return albums, I was interested to hear how a 2026 American Football project would sound like. Pretty damn good is what the answer turned out to be. Is it weird to say that the album sounds like clean shoegaze in the style of Slowdive, except without the actual presence of shoegaze in the music? Those are the vibes that I caught in here, and it was incredibly ... read more

The Black Keys have been seriously productive in this decade so far, Peaches! is literally the fifth album in the past 5 years that they have released. The fans may celebrate, while others understandably might point out serious flaws in their output that makes every new project feel less and less special as it pops up on a regular basis. So it was absolutely good news to find out that Peaches! is a gritty blues cover album in a similar fashion to Delta Kream, which helped me wash away the ... read more

Fully agree on this being an overly bloated album, it never helps to have your Americana project too long if the individual tracks aren't distinguishable enough to be easily told apart from one another. Prior to the album's release I got to hear the leading title track single a bunch of times and never managed to remember how it sounded like, even though I found it to be the greatest track here, which probably indicates that maybe Noah Kahan generally doesn't like to stick around ... read more

This is a soundtrack of a ballet that's based on the works of a popular Latvian writer and poet Imants Ziedonis. He wrote the storybook "Krāsainās pasakas", which translates to "Colourful fairytales". Every tale in the book is based on a different colour, and that's essentially what's going on in this album, with each colour receiving a different piece of the soundtrack. Considering that the actual visuals, which is the ballet performance, are obviously ... read more