The band’s first album in a decade is more haunted than its arena-sized choruses suggest.
On Little Red, the consequences of Katy B’s aloofness are starting to hit home, if only in the moment.
With Past Life, Lost in the Trees has constructed a cinematic universe.
Voices rarely has a chance to establish any momentum before getting tripped up by its own inconsistency.
Killed By Deathrock Vol. 1 carries on the tradition of re-releasing obscure singles from the ’80s, this time focusing on the darkwave and goth subsets of post-punk.
Bad Self Portraits provides fire-hose-level torrents of energy and hip-swaying modulations of tone, rhythm, and instrumentation.
The midtempo ballad is another retread of “We Belong Together.”
Tinariwen’s Emmaar possesses a sense of wonder, restraint, and discovery.
Radio Niger situates listeners on the receiving end of the state-run broadcasting entity for one of the planet’s most diverse nations.
Sam Roberts Band has added some serious production gloss and dance-floor grooves to their repertoire on their latest album, Lo-Fantasy.
The Casket Girls draw on all things cabalistic for their sophomore album, True Love Kills the Fairy Tale.
Wonderland is Dan Deacon visiting Brazil, a pop party rife with cartoony effects.
Burn Your Fire for No Witness is noisier, brasher, and more confident than its languid predecessor.
Too Much Information marks Maximo Park as a band capable of beatific, melancholy-kissed rock that almost no one does well anymore.
The album is a yawner made by two artists whose impressive discography makes its failure that much more confounding.
Dunes is essentially a disillusioned adult’s perspective on the idealism of their halcyon days.
The album contains only a few songs that withstand repeated listens.
Ghettoville is a 70-minute high-wire act, equal parts musique concrète and concrete jungle.
Bad Debt is utterly ageless, like a surviving relic from time immemorial.
Dum Dum Girls’ Dee Dee Penny has settled into a groove as a reliable source of hip, guitar-driven garage-pop.
Last year I made the mistake of second-guessing the Academy’s recent trend of awarding the biggest selling album in this category.