Spafford are known for their improvisational skills, and they waste no time before taking the audience on a magic carpet ride to a higher dimension.
On Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City, James Alex's (Beach Slang) homage to his heroes sounds exhausted.
Animals is both a personal and creative coming of age story, and a satisfying yet frustrating tale about avoiding the tragedy of getting left behind.
Songwriter John Ringhofer digs up a decade's worth of odds and ends for an expansive look into the corners of his career as Half-handed Cloud.
In The Opposite of Fate, Alison McGhee humanizes the abortion issue in a way that is unexpected and heartening.
Gwen Stefani's solo debut transcends a cynical reading even in 2020, remaining a crown jewel in the formative pop sounds of the 2000s and beyond -- with a few concessions.
Tsuge's narrator's mustache is no more convincing a disguise than Superman's Clark Kent glasses—which is the paradoxical point in The Man Without Talent.
Smithsonian Folkways chronicles 50 years of folk recordings on Sound Portraits from Bulgaria. It is a truly essential addition to any global folk collection.
Kiwi Jr.'s Football Money is a jangly, sugar-coated, charming debut album destined to be cherished by indie pop/rock fans of all stripes.
The stories in Jac Jemc's False Bingo are wound tight, propelling the reader to ambiguous and nerve-wracking ends.
On Deleter, Holy Fuck have enthusiastically thrown themselves into the kaleidoscopic world of the early 1990s house scene while adding a few footnotes using their particular musical vocabulary.
The last month of the 2010s was defined by an explosion of black metal grimness, modern and retro sprinkled with death metal brutality, caustic hardcore and some historic re-releases.
Montreal's Little Scream offers up reflections on class and poverty disguised as sweet low-key pop songs on her real grower of an album, Speed Queen.
Versatile drummer Terri Lyne Carrington leads a date that sums up the jazz of the decade, from hip-hop influenced political songs to freely improvised instrumental music supplemented by orchestral composition.
Too adventurous for blues, too raw for jazz, Mose Allison danced on the ivories in both worlds, tipping his hat to singer-songwriter pop along the way. A new tribute album reveals the many avenues worth exploring of one of the most singular voices in music.
The Cambridge Companion to the Rolling Stones, the first book of academic essays about the band, considers not only what the band accomplished, but why, 60 years since they formed, the Rolling Stones still matter.
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