The album doesn’t see the rapper experimenting with his skull-rattling sound very much.
Take the Crown might stand as a stronger “comeback” statement if more of its tracks came across as a bit less desperate to be loved.
The Abbey Road Sessions translates the Australian icon’s biggest hits in often unexpectedly effective ways.
III is an album of earnest, expansive electronica from a duo few are expecting such sincerity from.
DJ-Kicks is a high-energy marathon of unadulterated club anthems that serves as pure musical rapture for house purists.
I Will Always Love You feels like half celebration of an immense talent and half depressing cautionary tale.
The Inner Mansions runs through its nostalgic musical cues like a mindless carousel slide projector.
Half-Made Man is an album about empowerment and growth, so it’s only fitting that it finds Sollee creating career-best music.
Music from Another Dimension pays for each of its gems with a nugget of fool’s gold.
Over the course of Sing the Delta, DeMent confesses, wails, and testifies.
By virtue of the fact that Lotus is Aguilera’s shortest album since her debut, it boasts fewer obvious standouts, but also less filler.
Harem isn’t quite as unique as Old Apparatus’s two preceding EPs.
On Cee Lo’s Magic Moment, Cee Lo accesses his better angels without losing the hard groove or the über-weirdness.
If in concept Merry Christmas, Baby is just short of lazy, in execution it’s just short of a Christmas miracle.
LaVette elevates even the weaker cuts on Thoughtful N’ Thankful.
Dreams and Nightmares delivers a few standout tracks and a ringing confirmation of Meek Mill’s skills.
Hands of Glory exists as merely a portion of a divided project that should have remained whole.
Pig Destroyer’s album is defiantly hideous and if you love it, you love it for its ugliness or not at all.
There’s plenty to love on Macy Gray’s Talking Book even without stooping to the messy business of comparison.
Wreck & Ruin tempers its genuine, heartfelt romance with the darkest comedy.
Psychedelic Pill, the first album of original material from Neil Young and Crazy Horse in nearly a decade, comes on like a flashback.