FLOOD

There’s certainly magic in some of the songs on Young’s 42nd album, but many of its moments are well-worn journeys through the past with a bit less punch and panache.

This electronics-heavy introduction to Chris Letissier’s new identity adds some transitory suaveness and sparkle to a well-established pop career.

Actors Banks Repeta and Jaylin Webb discuss James Gray’s semi-autobiographical film, their friendship on and offscreen, and more.

The exploratory minimalist songwriter’s third album is a cluster of nine nocturnal vapors released with the stark atmosphere of a folk-horror film.

This seventh LP grabs the French rockers’ usual bag of pop tricks and gives it a good shake, the 10 tracks breezing by with little room to stop and contemplate the contours of each one.

The UK group’s second LP snaps their post-punk mold into digestible moments of alt-rock, punk blues, and classic sophomore album experimentalism.

Along with his friend and collaborator Wilson, we look back on 20 years of Waits’ conjoined-twin albums Alice and Blood Money.

The eighth studio album from the alt-rock vets mostly sticks to its promise of bigger, bolder tracks, providing a handful of fluttering highs among their near-four-decade discography.

Doug Martsch discusses keeping it fresh after 30 years, his reflective ninth album When the Wind Forgets Your Name, and a quarantine love for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Joe Goddard discusses evolving the spectacle of their recorded output and refining their craft on the band’s eighth studio album.

This remixed odds and ends collection is longer, denser, more disorderly, and less refined than the composer’s solo effort from last year.

These colorful, multilayered songs flow from Noah Lennox and Pete Kember as they avoid the prickliness of other pandemic releases.

On his second album in less than four months, White leans into his softer side, oftentimes overshadowed by his blistering electric guitar solos.

The London trio’s third album is full of hallucinogenic scenes where jazz, prog, electronic, and punk pretzel around each other until it looks like one musical gordian knot.

Nika Roza Danilova also discusses getting to know herself in a new way through her latest collection of gothic songs.

The Real Estate vocalist’s second solo LP can coast by in one moment before jolting you back to bygone days with a sharp turn of phrase or instrumental U-turn.

On his intimate sophomore effort, Strange is thankfully still not settling into one particular style as he soundtracks self-examinations on pained familial histories.

By ramping down the production value, the Swedish songwriter puts a strict focus on the small, captured moments, akin to studying a lover’s face for context clues.

This sixth album often finds a veteran band charging atop vigorous, surging melodies and not being afraid to just lean into the groove again.

The duo’s fourth LP is a multitude of things at one time, and that’s both its downfall and its triumph.