With its mix of rock and balladry, Look Now strikes a fine balance between the lively and the pensive.
Unlike the film, there’s not nearly enough substance here to justify all the bombast.
Dose Your Dreams proves Fucked Up’s got a deep enough bag of tricks to make even conventionality sound compelling.
Egypt Station marks a clean break from the music McCartney has been making for the last 20 years.
The album is an attempt to transpose the Spiritualized space-rock orchestra into Jason Pierce’s bedroom.
Despite its flaws, The Crossing is an important chapter in 2018’s cultural conversation.
Big Red Machine feels like a collection of off-the-cuff experiments between friends.
Even as she continues to explore the dark parts of her soul lyrically, Mitski sounds more confident than ever.
Josh Tillman too often feels hopelessly lost inside his own head on God’s Favorite Customer.
What Heaven Is Like perfectly balances effortless melodicism and noisy, mysterious murk.
For Stephen Malkmus, being a mature artist and an irreverent goofball aren’t mutually exclusive.
Barnett’s impossibly effortless tunesmithing remains a preternatural force on Tell Me How You Really Feel.
Wye Oak’s sixth album, The Louder I Call, plays like a dreamscape—just one set to danceable pop beats.
Years spotlights Shook’s effortlessly refined gift for songcraft.
Messy, uneven, and at times unlistenable, the album’s sheer audacity makes it utterly intriguing.
Aiming for playful rebirth, the Decemberists instead land on cloying kitsch with I’ll Be Your Girl.
A Productive Cough is Titus Andronicus’s freshest, wildest, most unexpected work to date.
As well-realized as the original Twin Fantasy was, it’s obvious that Will Toledo sees the project as a fluid work.
First Aid Kit has gotten exceedingly proficient at imitating their favorite American artists.
Mavis Staples’s album is hopeful and optimistic not in ignorance of political reality, but in spite of it.