Amos hasn’t stopped being restless. For once, he’s just found a reason to stay in one place for a while

It captures the specific, suffocating feeling of living through collapse better than almost anything else I’ve heard this year

Just when you think you’ve figured out where Badu and the Alchemist are taking you, another song changes the pace, the mood, or the rules

The Linda Lindas are a force that keeps getting louder with Gotta Get Out

Thank You may not always know when to stop, but it knows exactly what kind of record it wants to be and, more often than not, it gets there

Thank You may not always know when to stop, but it knows exactly what kind of record it wants to be and, more often than not, it gets there

It’s a scrappy, sincere entry in a victory lap that’s been going on for two decades now, and it’s the sound of a band that pioneered a formula and sees no reason to abandon it while it still works this well

This is a band more than two decades into its career who finally stopped chasing their own debut and just made the record they actually wanted to make

The songs are full of small production decisions, but they are just as effective when all you want is a beat loud enough to fill the room

The record saves its real argument for last. The title track and “Last Day” aren’t a one-two punch so much as a single thought split in half — one side aching, one side almost at peace — and together they make the case for the whole album: that dwelling on an ending doesn’t have to mean dreading it

The Dark delivers on what it’s attempted to be: it’s not just another entry in an already stacked discography, it’s one where Chelsea Wolfe stopped hiding in the shadows and let them turn into something that resembles the light

fata morgana never quite lets its feelings settle into one shape. A song can be funny until it isn’t, intimate until it becomes abrasive, beautiful until another layer of sound threatens to swallow it whole

Named after the iridescent butterfly he first encountered in Brazil, the album built its foundation in Wales before taking shape in The Church Studios in London. Ed O’Brien delved into his personal findings to echo a sound remarkably universal

More than anything, Inferno asks to be thought about – to be considered. It does ask for time. Which at this moment might be flat out revolutionary. A stop to the endless scrolling. An opportunity to consider the past, the present, and what might be to come. That might be what we all need

Mary in the Junkyard considers the lonesome, hooded figure on the cover that stares back in the onlooker’s direction, like a sailor who has returned from a journey and made it onto shore nonetheless

It’s not a tidy record, and it doesn’t try to be, but it’s Yard Act’s most confident and cohesive work yet. Chaotic by design, generous with its hooks, and unwilling to repeat itself just because the old formula worked

Big World may not be the pinnacle of what Hovvdy has to offer, but it delivers something unique the duo had to show for ten years into their career

A junkyard of half-formed thoughts, pretentious grabs at poetry, and amusing cultural critique. It might be her rawest album—in terms of writing and production—but it’s hard to separate the ambitious star who loves being on top of the world and one traumatized by its effects

Most albums about loss are content to remain within it. This one moves through it, and earns that movement by its conclusion