The album doesn’t see the rapper experimenting with his skull-rattling sound very much.
Little Big Town makes a shameless bid for the mainstream success that has unjustly eluded them for the better part of a decade.
Andy LeMaster and Todd Fink build a distinct tone without pulling focus from the quality of Azure Ray’s songwriting or their intricate vocal harmonies.
It’s all too murky and familiar, less profoundly complex than inaccessibly complicated.
Now with six albums under their belt, Stars have gone from simply embracing their drippy, sentimental music to full-on bear-hugging it.
Hyperdub Records has used dubstep pioneer Burial’s sales to bankroll some interesting projects, but none as unlikely or rewarding as Sebenza.
Morissette’s trademark songwriting idiosyncrasies are very deliberately scaled back on Havoc and Bright Lights.
Swans’s The Seer has a pretty alien configuration for an album.
A Thing Called Divine Fits is absent of any of the growing pains or false starts one might associate with a young band’s debut.
The album plays so fast and loose with country-music signifiers that it raises questions of why the trio chose to play with them at all.
When it comes to the music of the ’80s, we feel no compelling reason to feel bad about feeling good.
Yeasayer remains just as starry-eyed as ever, clinging to the worst elements of ’60s flower-child psychedelia.
A man without a scene, a full-tilt radical with nothing to rebel against, Ariel Pink has never really found his place.
Jessie Ware can speak volumes about love and fear with just one repeated refrain.
Four is a vacant display of miscellany, a rather depressing scenario considering its makers were once genre-definers.
Swift’s finest songs are flawless in their construction and showcase her effortless, preternatural mastery of pop conventions.
Election Special makes one wish that Ry Cooder had passed both his mic and his guitar back to his brain.
The album perhaps best serves as a warning that not everyone can make the transition from pinch hitter to bona-fide star.
Cabin Fever is a politically charged set that finds Lund at his quick-witted best.
Tracer is a carefully balanced collage of experimental electronica and stylish vocal pop.
San Francisco’s indie-rock veterans’ upcoming album, Breakup Song, is being billed as a showcase of “Cuban-flavored party-noise-energy music.”