Album Reviews: Billie Eilish, Marina, Half Waif

 Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever (Los Angeles) After becoming one of the single-most popular singers on the planet and making a documentary charting how tumultuous that journey can feel, Billie Eilish's latest record maintains darkness. With a lot more flourish, tempered moments and the emotional intimacy that has people

Album Reviews: Leon Bridges, Charlotte Day Wilson, Chinese American Bear

 Leon Bridges - Gold-Diggers Sound (Atlanta, GA) While he's not the first, Leon Bridges has certainly learned enough from his peers to know when to expand his retro sounds to something less immediately identifiable. With a smoky cool and a mystery in its bones, Bridges makes a new kind of

Album Reviews: Altin Gün, Molly Burch, Clairo

 Altin Gün — Âlem (Amsterdam, Netherlands/Indonesia/Turkey) With an already very steady stream of music, Altin Gün has somehow dropped a second 2021 release in less than six months. With a little more genre fusion, the group takes a moment to explore a whole aesthetic through a record, though perhaps with

Album Reviews: Museum of Love, Delivery, Faye Webster

 Museum of Love — Life of Mammals (Brooklyn) For those enamored with the electronic chapel that is DFA Records, Museum of Love's latest record manages to fulfill both an abrasive art and analogue electronica need. Constantly bubbling with a danger from its synths and a chaos from its voices and

Album Reviews: Laura Mvula, The Go Team!, Bobby Gillespie & Jehnny Beth

 Bobby Gillespie & Jehnny Beth — Utopian Ashes (Glasgow, Scotland & Poitiers, France) Merging the emotional intensity of Jehnny Beth's music and performances, with the arrangements and swing of Bobby Gillespie's work isn't an immediately apparent concept. While more of a fun mix of jams, orchestration and amazing harmonies than

Album Reviews: Sleater-Kinney, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Migos

 Sleater-Kinney — Path of Wellness (Olympia, WA/Portland, OR) Though a more strict art-rock turn and the departure of certified drum-Goddess Janet Weiss certainly had given a mixed sense of niche to the last Sleater-Kinney record, they're asserting they're riotous as ever on their new album. With their classic bombast, a

Album Reviews: Tyler, The Creator, Doja Cat, Gaspard Augé

 Tyler, The Creator — Call Me If You Get Lost (Ladera Heights, CA) After the chaotic, art-pop, start-to-finish flow of IGOR, Tyler the Creator's latest record feels more like an unpredictable pop collection that has its best moment in single songs rather than as an entire unit. Though this amounts

Album Reviews: Loraine James, The Anchoress, For Those I Love

 Loraine James — Reflection (London, U.K.) The abrasive world experimental electronic music isn't always easy to dive into, but Loraine James provides a cool, yet challenging album to tempt fans into their sound. With intoxicating beats and unusual synth tones, this record holds nothing back. "Built to Last" throws you

Album Reviews: The Armed, Iris, Hayley Williams

 The Armed — Ultrapop (Detroit, MI) Though metal and punk in their undercurrents, there's also a fusion of noise and ambient pop to the latest The Armed record that makes it feel utterly unique in our music landscape. Definitely a dense and often overpowering experience, those looking for something sonically

Album Reviews: Japanese Breakfast, Rostam, Wolf Alice

 Japanese Breakfast — Jubilee (Philadelphia, PA/Eugene, OR) After releasing a book only a few months ago, Michelle Zauner has managed to finish a record that also evolves her sound even more than her last album. Warm, hopeful and full of a wonder instrumentally that is often hard to find, Japanese

Album Reviews: Black Midi, Bachelor, PACKS

 Black Midi — Cavalcade (London, U.K.) Grime, freestyle and a furious melding of solo styles from both rock and jazz make every Black Midi record soar. Unpredictable as ever, this record wastes no time grabbing you and saying "Let's go all out!" This is immediately apparent as John L rolls

Album Reviews: Chai, Sharon Van Etten & Angel Olsen, Olivia Rodrigo

 CHAI — WINK (Nagoya, Japan) Though their live shows and aesthetics come off as playful, CHAI bring a true sophistication to their studio recordings. As they mix this kind of fun and more lush sensibility into their albums, WINK ends up a sublime listen that will appeal to your mind

Album Reviews: St. Vincent, Natalie Bergman, The Vaccines

 St. Vincent — Daddy's Home (Dallas, TX) The more she dives into full-blown art-pop, the more Annie Clark's music demands repeat listens to really get into it. In a record that infuses her style with a bit of soul-era-Bowie swagger, Clark is definitely pushing limits, and playing a more take-it-or-leave-it

Album Reviews: Teke Teke, Teenage Fanclub, Mighloe

 Teke Teke — Shirushi (Montreal) As a wonderful blend of modern experimental stylings, rock and a personally eclectic range of Japanese rock influences, Teke Teke is a rare band that sounds like few others. As their songs straddle fun and catchy moments with a lot of indulgent sonic departures, this

Album Reviews: Girl in Red, Julia Stone, Porter Robinson

 Girl in Red — If I Could Make It Go Quiet (Horten, Norway) With over four years of great songs behind them already, Marie Ulven's debut feels like a cementing of her craft rather than an introduction. An aggressive and polychromatic approach to pop, this record constantly veers between catchy

Album Reviews: Spirit of the Beehive, Brockhampton and Paul McCartney Remixes

 Spirit of the Beehive — Entertainment, Death  (Philadelphia, PA) Experimental music can sometimes feel like it explores more than it evaluates, and Spirit of the Beehive find a way to make their explorations feel worthwhile. With the right balance of unusual soundscapes and pounding rock moments, this is a record that

Album Reviews: La Femme, Lost Girls, Serpentwithfeet

 La Femme — Paradigmes (Biarritz/Paris, France) With a constant sense of quirk and dark pop, La Femme always bring a unique voice to their records. With the theatrics mixing into their dark pop in a more subtle way, they evolve themselves first here rather than trying to change all of pop

Album Reviews: Tune-Yards, Bell Orchestre, Death From Above

 Tune-Yards — Sketchy (Oakland, CA) Tune-Yards have consistently made wonderfully abrasive, yet funky tracks, and it feels even more infectious this time around. Through some more restrained performances however, Tune-Yards shows a power to really harness the might of their sound in interesting ways going forward. "Nowhere, Man" refines a

Album Reviews: Vallens, L’Impératrice, Les Shirley

 Vallens — In Era (Toronto) As they move further away from the guitar and punk-noise of their fellow Toronto artists, Vallens makes a startling leap on their latest album. Recalling late Bowie, a David Lynch mood, Sade, and some Warpaint here, this album is a dark dive that still drives

Album Reviews: Jane Weaver, Genesis Owusu, Bülow

 Genesis Owusu — Smiling with No Teeth (Koforidua, Ghana/Canberra, Australia) For a visceral and often very danceable listen, Genesis Owusu offers you abrasive music with an inescapable catchiness. So many layered productions and a strong sense of how to guide a song forward keeps this album constantly exciting. "On the

Album Reviews: Brijean, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Lydia Luce

 Brijean -— Feelings (Oakland, CA) While connections to Toro Y Moi give you a fraction of the picture, Brijean's hazy dance-pop is so much more than that. Shimmering harmonies, funky bass and a constant gloss that is soothing yet moving, this duo delivers a standout release of the year. The

Album Reviews: Strumbellas, Lael Neale, The Staves

 Lael Neale — Acquainted with Night (Los Angeles) While we've undoubtedly hit a saturation point with lo-fi music, there's a spare few like Lael Neale that can find a magic in its timbres. By bringing out the raw character in each instrument's minimal scope, Neale is able to harness a

Album Reviews: Denzel Curry, Anna B Savage, Katy Kirby

 Anna B Savage — A Common Truth (London, U.K.) Whether from its emotional content or just the mood it carries in its instrumental bones, Anna B Savages latest release has a feeling that is best described as brutal. With overwhelming sweeps of harmony and a momentum of change, this is

Album Reviews: Arlo Parks, John Carpenter, Pop Evil

 Arlo Parks — Collapsed in Sunbeams (London, U.K.) There's something truly transfixing to solo artists that can spin instruments and voices around them like they simply command music to a recording. That magic is flowing in every second of Arlo Parks debut, for songs that expand on their simple cores into

Album Reviews: Madlib, Altin Gün, Besnard Lakes

 Madlib — Sound Ancestors (Oxnard, California) After a heavy 2020 supply of records, and the recent passing of frequent collaborator MF Doom, Madlib would've been forgiven for taking a year off. The producer wastes no time however in creating a lush sonic tapestry, rich with tracks that fuse everything from