45 Best Albums of 2015 So Far
It's nearly half over, but the year of the dueling streaming services has already given us plenty of reasons to press play. Mumford went electric, Dylan went Rat Pack and Mark Ronson went to the top of the charts. D'Angelo made a huge impact on 2015 with his bold return (after 14 years without a new album), which was followed by comeback LPs from Faith No More (after 18 years) and the Sonics (49 years). And of course there has been no shortage of newcomers — indie wordsmith Courtney Barnett, hip-hop's giddy Rae Sremmurd, high-concept dance crew Future Brown — turned heads as well. Here's the best of 2015's first six months.
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Kendrick Lamar, ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’
We Say: Thanks to D'Angelo's Black Messiah and Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly, 2015 will be remembered as the year radical Black politics and for-real Black music resurged in tandem to converge on the nation's pop mainstream. To Pimp a Butterfly is a densely packed, dizzying rush of unfiltered rage and unapologetic romanticism, true-crime confessionals, come-to-Jesus sidebars, blunted-swing sophistication, scathing self-critique and rap-quotable riot acts. Roll over Beethoven, tell Thomas Jefferson and his overseer Bull Connor the news: Kendrick Lamar and his jazzy guerrilla hands just mob-deeped the new Jim Crow, then stomped a mud hole out that ass.
Learn More: Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly: A Track-By-Track Guide
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Courtney Barnett, ‘Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit’
We Say: Courtney Barnett is only on her first proper album, but she's already setting herself apart as one of the sharpest, most original songwriters around — at any level, in any genre. The Australian singer-guitarist, 27, is a self-strafing humorist à la Lena Dunham who's also a Dylan-style word ninja, spooling out honest, funny, indelible stories wrung from the everyday stuff even a good novelist might overlook. Her loose, conversational lyrics are full of images you can't shake and characters you need to know more about. You don't just quote a Courtney Barnett song, you recap it.
Learn More: How Courtney Barnett's Thoughts Became 2015's Sharpest Debut
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D’Angelo and the Vanguard, ‘Black Messiah’
We Say: D'Angelo has kept the world fiending 14 years for the follow-up to his Crisco-thick R&B classic, Voodoo, but as the man himself purrs in "Sugah Daddy," "Can't snatch the meat out of the lioness' mouth/Sometimes you gotta just ease it out." Black Messiah shows how deep easy can go. D'Angelo and his band have built an avant-soul dream palace to get lost in, for 56 minutes of heaven.
Learn More: The Second Coming of D'Angelo
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Bob Dylan, ‘Shadows in the Night’
We Say: Dylan transforms everything on Shadows in the Night — 10 slow-dance covers, mostly romantic standards from the pre-rock era of American popular songwriting — into a barely-there noir of bowed bass and throaty shivers of electric guitar. Frank Sinatra is a connecting presence: He recorded all of these songs, and Dylan made Shadows at the Capitol Records studio in Los Angeles where Sinatra did his immortal work for that label. Yet Shadows in the Night is less a tribute to Sinatra than a belated successor to Dylan's 1992 and '93 LPs of solo folk and blues covers, Good as I Been to You and World Gone Wrong: a spare, restorative turn to voices that have, in some way, always been present in his own.
Learn More: Bob Dylan Will 'Uncover' Frank Sinatra Classics on New Album
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Drake, ‘If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late’
We Say: The 17 tracks that Drake released at midnight on a recent Thursday hit harder and hold together more cohesively than most big-budget event albums. There's nothing resembling a radio single on If You're Reading This It's Too Late, and not many of the seductively sung hooks that rocketed the Toronto MC to fame. Lyrically, he's in pure stunt mode, using his star power to turn obscure slang into the height of style. ("Running through the six with my woes" sounds cooler than "Hanging out in Toronto with my friends," doesn't it?) The lower stakes for this project let him refine and focus his strengths; the brags are less humble, the threats more pointed.
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Madonna, ‘Rebel Heart’
We Say: Rebel Heart is a long, passionate, self-referential meditation on losing love and finding purpose in chilling times. It's also a chance for the Queen of Pop to floss a bit and reflect on how she painstakingly carved a path others have happily twerked down in the years since her 1983 debut. The über-fit 56-year-old star gleefully enunciates "bitch" on the refreshing, reggae-tinged "Unapologetic Bitch" and the frenetic, Nicki Minaj-assisted "Bitch I'm Madonna," both featuring Diplo's ear-tingling airhorn blasts.
Learn More: Madonna on Making 'Rebel Heart,' the Age of Distraction and Joan of Arc
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Björk, ‘Vulnicura’
We Say: Björk's 2011 Biophilia addressed the universe, from molecular to cosmic levels, and was presented in elaborate formats, including an interactive app. Her latest couldn't be simpler: a breakup album, that most common pop coin. But with Björk, even simplicity is intricate business. Arranged for voice with orchestral strings and electronic beats, Vulnicura is a unified set of nine dark, swarming, melodically distended songs. There is clearly some autobiography here about her relationship with artist/co-parent Matthew Barney. But whatever informed it, this may be the most heart-rending music she's ever made.
Learn More: Bjork on Feeling Like an Alien, Child Stardom in Iceland and 'Vulnicura'
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Mark Ronson, ‘Uptown Special’
We Say: Superproducer Mark Ronson first branded himself via Sixties pop-soul flavors with Amy Winehouse. This LP moves on to Seventies and Eighties funk, with more sharp casting: Stevie Wonder offers a harmonica benediction alongside session guitarists Carlos Alomar (David Bowie) and the late Teenie Hodges (Al Green); Kanye point man Jeff Bhasker rocks verses by novelist Michael Chabon; and Tame Impala's Kevin Parker morphs from psych-rocker to space-funker.
Learn More: Mark Ronson on Loving Steely Dan and Finding the Funk With Bruno Mars
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Jack Ü, ‘Skrillex and Diplo Present Jack Ü’
We Say: Skrillex and Diplo's first album together has one purpose: moving bodies. But that simple quest has led the duo to a wonderfully trim set that's as forward-sounding as any dance release in recent memory. In dubstep's peak days, Skrillex blasted through songs like these with overpowering explosions of computer-generated noise. Here, he and Diplo flip the script: On "Jungle Bae," "Febreze" (which features 2 Chainz) and the single "Take Ü There," sparse bass drops act as black holes, using negative space to change the gravitational pull of an entire track.
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Mumford & Sons, ‘Wilder Mind’
We Say: Mumford & Sons are the defining act of the past few years' folk revival, but there's always been more rock in their blood than that label suggests. Folkie fans shouldn't be too alarmed, though. Even amid all the new sounds on Wilder Mind, the impassioned earnestness that made Mumford & Sons stars is still their driving force. The same clear-eyed, full-hearted intensity that set the table for fellow U.K. roots newcomers like Laura Marling and Jake Bugg animates highlights like "Believe" and "Only Love," where lyrics about balancing doubt and hope in the face of fading romance take on a universal power.
Learn More: Mumford & Sons Talk Going Electric on New Album 'Wilder Mind'
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Kacey Musgraves, ‘Pageant Material’
We Say: Kacey Musgraves' follow-up to 2013's Same Trailer Different Park is more calculated and confident, intent on both courting and bending the mainstream with wit and timeless arrangements. It misses some of Trailer's storytelling wistfulness and formal experiments – but track for track, it's stronger, an object lesson in Nashville songwriting. Songs like the title track allude to Musgraves' whiplash fame, but she dodges any second-album slump with weed jokes and homegirl charm.
Learn More: Unbreakable Kacey Musgraves: Nashville's Sharpest Rebel Walks the Line
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Florence and the Machine, ‘How Big How Blue How Beautiful’
We Say: Florence and the Machine's 2012 MTV Unplugged set was startling. The band's first LP since that session seems informed by it: Finally, Welch is leaning hard into the classic rock and soul sounds her vocals always flirted with, like Ophelia in a Mondrian miniskirt. Gone are the signature African-goth drums, replaced by a dry, midtempo Motown backbeat dressed in tambourine shimmer and orchestral flourishes.
Learn More: Florence Welch on Stripping Down at Coachella and Fooling Neil Young
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Muse, ‘Drones’
We Say: Drones is a truly guilty pleasure, like watching The Daily Show and knowing Jon Stewart's best jokes start with someone else's colossal error or hurt. The concept here is even darker than Muse's 2012 planet-death treatise, The 2nd Law: the long-distance killing of modern warfare and the collateral damage in conscience and ideals. But Drones is also Muse's welcome jump back from recent ornamental extremes to the simpler brawn and riff heroism of 2001's Origin of Symmetry. The heart of the action in most of these songs is a chunky update of the guitar-bass-drums charge of Origin's "New Born" and "Stockholm Syndrome" on 2003's Absolution. It's what Muse do best; it's good to hear a lot more of it.
Learn More: Inside Muse's 'Drones' Strike: Matt Bellamy on High-Concept LP
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Pops Staples, ‘Don’t Lose This’
We Say: This deep set by the great R&B-gospel mediator Roebuck "Pops" Staples is a rare example of a posthumous reclamation that feels stronger than the original might've been. Working with unfinished 1999 tracks (originally intended for a lost Staple Singers album), producer Jeff Tweedy isolated voices and Pops' quicksilver guitar — like his singing here, an object lesson in tender power — using minimal additions. The result is bracing, timeless gospel blues.
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Blur, ‘The Magic Whip’
We Say: Blur's classic lineup — singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree — has made its first new album in 16 years, one as quixotic and seductive in its modern searching and subversive pop highs as their Nineties winners.
Learn More: How Blur (Finally) Got Back in the Studio
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Jamie xx, ‘In Colour’
We Say: What Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" was to the hippie era, Jamie xx's solo debut is to British club culture: a wistful valentine conjuring a more innocent time. Exhibit A is "Gosh," which flips a sound bite from a pioneering U.K. jungle broadcast. But the track isn't jungle per se, because the head chef of the xx shoots for moods, not rote styles — which is why he's among pop's greatest producers.
Learn More: Jamie xx on Breaking His Stereotype for Bright Solo Debut In Colour
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Kid Rock, ‘First Kiss’
We Say: Now 44, Kid Rock finds himself looking back wistfully, tracking the passage of time. First Kiss presents few surprises, mostly because Kid Rock's journey from abrasive rap metal to unreconstructed heartland rock has landed him in a sweet spot: big guitars, big drums, big choruses and gravelly vocals. "I know what's right," he declares on the thumping "Ain't Enough Whiskey," and there's no arguing with music offered with this degree of energy, joy and conviction.
Learn More: The Killer Inside Kid Rock
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Sleater-Kinney, ‘No Cities to Love’
We Say: Sleater-Kinney called it quits in 2006, after a 12-year run as America's fiercest punk band. Once you get over your shock that this album exists, it comes on like one of their toughest ever — 10 songs in 33 minutes, not a dud in the bunch, all surging in uptempo stomp-down-the-door mode. There's more low-end thud to their sound than before. The whole album crackles with the palpable excitement of three rock lifers in a room, eager to see what happens when they plug in and let it rip.
Learn More: Sleater Kinney: Return of the Roar
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Rae Sremmurd, ‘SremmLife’
We Say: This brother duo from Elvis Presley's hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi, radiate an inescapable exuberance, shouting with the zeal of freshly minted stars as they build off the joyous bounce of last year's hits "No Flex Zone" and "No Type." Producer Mike Will Made It's phantasmagoric funk is a perfect backdrop for rhymes about safe sex and paychecks, emptying out the ATM, and the raw thrill of making it big.
Learn More: Flex Appeal: Meet Hip-Hop's Hottest Duo Rae Sremmurd
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Marilyn Manson, ‘The Pale Emperor’
We Say: On The Pale Emperor, Manson puts himself forward as a sort of trash-culture elder statesman, a freak of wealth and taste – "the Mephistopheles of Los Angeles," as he dubs himself on one pounding track. He wrote these songs with producer Tyler Bates, a movie and video-game composer whose résumé includes plenty of action and horror flicks. The music has a kind of sweeping creepiness that reflects that background. But it's usually pretty grungy, like Nirvana at their blankest or the Doors pulling an all-nighter in Trent Reznor's dungeon.
Learn More: Marilyn Manson: The Vampire of the Hollywood Hills
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Alabama Shakes, ‘Sound & Color’
We Say: On their 2012 debut, Boys & Girls, Alabama Shakes coined a hot retro mix of black Southern soul and white rock & roll that made the Shakes a rare success story among new guitar bands in the streaming era. Sticking to that formula must have been tempting, but Sound & Color shows that this band aspires to be much more than roots-rock poster children. This is a weirder, woozier, fiercer and sexier record than their debut in nearly every way.
Learn More: How Alabama Shakes Gambled Big on Wild Second Album 'Sound & Color'
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Leonard Cohen, ‘Can’t Forget: A Souvenir of the Grand Tour’
We Say: The fourth live album to come out of Leonard Cohen's 2008-2013 world tour is a fascinating glimpse into his creative process. More than half of its 10 songs were recorded in soundchecks, where Cohen and his band were able to test new tunes and refurbish standards like 1971's "Joan of Arc," heard here in a lustrous duet with Sharon Robinson.
Learn More: Leonard Cohen on Longevity, Money, Poetry and Sandwiches
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Faith No More, ‘Sol Invictus’
We Say: Sol Invictus, the band's first record since 1997's underrated Album of the Year, offers newer, better versions of Faith No More's formula: spaghetti-Western guitars ("Cone of Shame"), proggy keyboard drama ("Matador") and tons of vocal contortions from lead singer Mike Patton ("Rise of the Fall").
Learn More: Faith No More: How Rock's Most Contrarian Band Made Up and Came Back
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Zac Brown Band, ‘Jekyll + Hyde’
We Say: They triangulate country bounce, classic-rock flex and jam-band wiggle like crossover wizards. Their frontman has a buttery midrange tenor, can sell the heck out of a song, and keeps his lumberjack beard nicely trimmed. With the possible exception of their relentless likability, there's nothing unlikable about the Zac Brown Band. On their fourth LP, they bang out styles with such preposterous ease — Seventies Philly soul, old-timey gospel, Celtic folk, metal, reggae, jazz — they could incorporate as a single-band music-placement agency.
Learn More: Zac Brown Band Take Chances at Jekyll + Hyde Tour Opener
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Sufjan Stevens, ‘Carrie & Lowell’
We Say: The 2012 passing of Sufjan Stevens' estranged mother, Carrie, sparked an existential crisis in the 39-year-old singer-songwriter. Here, on his most emotionally draining album, he joins Nick Drake and Elliott Smith in the canon of artists who channel suicidal thoughts into impossibly pretty songs. Stevens strips his sound far enough to reveal his deepest anguish.
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Earl Sweatshirt, ‘I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside’
We Say: On his excellent second LP, Earl Sweatshirt keeps deepening his game — spooling out dense, mordant rhymes over zombifically blunted tracks as he somehow sucks you into his sunless reality. It's sometimes dark and paranoid enough to make There's a Riot Goin' On sound like the Three's Company theme. It's amazing that music so claustrophobic can be this engrossing.
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The Sonics, ‘This Is the Sonics’
We Say: Punk before punk, garage rock before anyone flagged it, the Sonics' 1965 Here Are the Sonics mixed Chuck Berry and Little Richard with greaseball white-boy originals. This reunion concedes nothing to the following half-century. The new songs sound vintage; so do the covers: Their take on the Kinks' "The Hard Way" out-rocks the original, echoing the Brits' more loutish "You Really Got Me." They can still teach their garage offspring a thing or two.
Learn More: The Sonics Go Back to the Garage After 49 Years
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Speedy Ortiz, ‘Foil Deer’
We Say: Massachusetts indie rockers Speedy Ortiz take a plunge down the rabbit hole on their second LP. Frontwoman Sadie Dupuis is their bedraggled Alice in Wonderland, tumbling past the cartoonish faces of every ex-friend and bitter stranger, with plenty of Mad Hatter-worthy wordplay along the way ("We were the law-school rejects/So we quarreled at the bar instead").
Learn More: Speedy Ortiz Outsmart the World
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Chris Stapleton, ‘Traveller’
We Say: Old-school country mixed with Southern rock, a voice like a soul singer and no flashy production. If Chris Stapleton's debut album Traveller feels old, well that's the point. "If somebody tells me it sounds dated, I'd say that's great, as long as the date is 1978," says the lauded songwriter with the impressive vocal range. From autobiographical weepers such as "Daddy Doesn't Pray Anymore" to the soaring, arena-ready "Parachute," each of the album's 14 tracks go straight for the emotional jugular and give a glimpse inside a wildly introspective mind.
Learn More: Chris Stapleton on Why Stunning New Album 'Traveller' Isn't for Kids
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Future Brown, ‘Future Brown’
We Say: Future Brown feels like a genuine next-generation moment. Dominican-American MC Maluca spits hot Spanish over a synthesized koto melody, dancehall queen Timberlee rides a sci-fi bounce, and grime vet Riko Dan flows basso profundo. Opening and closing the proceedings is rising Chicago bad girl Tink, sounding like Scarlett Johansson's Her character after too much digital tequila.
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Father John Misty, ‘I Love You, Honeybear’
We Say: Upping the spectacle from Fear Fun, his 2012 debut, I Love You, Honeybear is an autobiographical set about love, marriage and derangement that's both ironic and empathic — an approach connecting singer-songwriter Josh Tillman less to his previous band, Fleet Foxes, than to the SoCal tradition of Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson and Beck. Shaped by folk-rock swami Jonathan Wilson, the details bring it home: the corny poignancy of mariachi horns and strings on "Chateau Lobby #4 (in C for Two Virgins)," a cage match with sentimentality; the scalding guitar on "The Ideal Husband," a lover's panic attack.
Learn More: The Gospel of Father John Misty
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Fifth Harmony, ‘Reflection’
We Say: On the debut from Fifth Harmony (which formed during the second season of The X Factor, in 2012), high self-esteem feels like a party. Infectious lyrics like "Think I'm in love, 'cause you so sexy/Boy, I ain't talkin' 'bout you, I'm talkin' to my own reflection" complement club-ready beats that leave no room for saccharine ballads.
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Kamasi Washington, ‘The Epic’
We Say: Part of an exploding network of L.A. visionaries, Kamasi Washington is the sax-wielding jazz guru on recent masterpieces by Kendrick Lamar and Flying Lotus. Now he's made one of his own — a three-disc debut on FlyLo's label with a 10-piece band, plus choir and strings. To be sure, it's a jazz album, as much about tradition as expanding it: It's clearly shaped by crate-digger funk and film scores, hip-hop collage and gospel.
Learn More: 10 New Artists You Need to Know: Kamasi Washington
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Rhiannon Giddens, ‘Tomorrow Is My Turn’
We Say: Over the past two years, Rhiannon Giddens has become one of the most promising voices in American roots music. Produced by T-Bone Burnett, Tomorrow Is My Turn is a feminist tour of the American roots canon — from Nina Simone to Dolly Parton to Odetta. Giddens digs into the tortured lost tales of folk-song heroines like Geeshie Wiley and Elizabeth Cotten. Giddens imbues these classics with a freshness and vitality that feel right at home in 2015.
Learn More: Rhiannon Giddens' Old-Time Religion
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Refused, ‘Freedom’
We Say: Refused’s 1998 album, The Shape of Punk to Come, rewrote the hardcore rulebook with its audacious mix of aggro rock, electronica, free jazz and hip-hop. The Swedish band broke up shortly after the record's release, but 17 years later Refused have made an even more adventurous follow-up. Daft Punky electro-funk (“Servants of Death”), big-band horns ("War on the Palaces") and cheerleader chant-alongs (“Françafrique”) bump up against Black Flag-waving ragers, including two improbably helmed by Taylor Swift producer Shellback, who let Refused run wild.
Learn More: Refused on First Album in 17 Years: 'F–k What People Expect of Us'
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Joey Bada$$, ‘B4.DA.$$’
We Say: Brooklyn's Joey Bada$$ made his name with a couple of mixtapes released while he was still in his teens, trading on classic boom-bap New York rap. His official debut LP still sounds like it's stuck in the past, with solid production from old-school legend DJ Premier and his latter-day disciple Statik Selektah. But tracks like "Piece of Mind," about the day-to-day struggle of being a black youth, explore fresh lyrical ideas.
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Metz, ‘II’
We Say: On II, the trio has taken its sound – think Nirvana's In Utero with zero apologies, Black Flag brawling Big Black, the Jesus Lizard and Mary Chain – in an even less polished and accessible direction. The record twitches with the flying-off-the-rails urgency of the band's live shows as Metz sandblasts the industrial precision of their first album into a nastier, more shambolic attack.
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Leon Bridges, ‘Coming Home’
We Say: Leon Bridges is a throwback to the days when guys did things like “swim the Mississippi” to impress their dates (“Better Man”). But this retro-soul man doesn’t have to work so hard to win you over on his debut LP: His smooth, Sam Cooke-esque croon makes Coming Home the best kind of nostalgia trip. Tunes like the tender title track dance right back to the late Fifties, and album closer “River” is a gospel-blues testimony that runs deep.
Learn More: 10 Artists You Need to Know: Leon Bridges
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Steven Wilson, ‘Hand. Cannot. Erase.’
We Say: Porcupine Tree leader Steven Wilson's fourth solo effort is a concept album based on a true story, but the grandest gestures here are found in the music. The 10-minute-plus "3 Years Older," for one, brings together Wilson's mannered, erudite vocals with Rush-like guitar blasts, ELP-esque keyboard freakouts, stately piano tinklings, swelling strings, CSN-style harmonies, shimmery acoustic guitars and warped, tech-doom soloing — and that's just the first full song. "It’s not complicated," Wilson sings at one point. Right, and neither is quantum physics.
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Jazmine Sullivan, ‘Reality Show’
We Say: Before releasing Reality Show, 28-year-old R&B star Jazmine Sullivan already had two excellent, modernly classic albums under her belt. With her latest, the Philadelphia singer has solidified her status, crafting a collection of bass-heavy songs filled with pain, hope and introspection that explore the love of others as much as the love of self. Reality Show is not Sullivan's reality, but intense character studies that shift from reflections on self-image ("Mascara") to bad romance ("Stanley"), all sung from her consistently maturing voice.
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Bosse-de-Nage, ‘All Fours’
We Say: Like their pals in Deafheaven, Bosse-De-Nage are a Bay Area black-metal duo with indie- and post-rock inclinations — but their music is as dark, gnarled and introspective as the former's is epic and expansive. On All Fours, Bosse-De-Nage whisper secrets like Slint ("Washerwoman") and blaze the sky like Darkthrone ("A Subtle Change"), but what takes the album to an unnerving next level is vocalist-lyricist Bryan Manning's surreal psychosexual imagery, which could be straight out of Georges Bataille's worst nightmares.
Learn More: 10 Artists You Need to Know: Bosse-De-Nage
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Mbongwana Star, ‘From Kinshasha’
We Say: This heady and high-energy Afrofuturist collaboration unites former members of Kinshasa's crippled Staff Benda Bilili crew and the Irish-expatriate producer known as Doctor L. As agents of change (that's what 'mbongwana' means in Lingala), the seven-member group sounds like the inevitable sequel to the D.I.Y. Congolese techno-folk hybrid pioneered by Konono No. 1 (who guest in "Malukayi"). Distorted guitars, sci-fi synths and roadside percussion sketch strategies far from the sweet rumba and soukous riffs that bubble up and fade away.
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Downtown Boys, ‘Full Communism’
We Say: This six-piece Rhode Island punk act gets its unabashedly Marxist-feminist message across in ways that are both fun and furious. The group's first full-length album flies by in a boisterous, intoxicating rush, 24 minutes of saxophone-laced noise and radical slogans. Downtown Boys' bilingual lyrics are a powerful statement in their own right, a key part of their mission to invade and upend the traditionally white, male punk scene.
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Death Grips, ‘The Powers That B’
We Say: Once intended to be the death knell of the cagey noise-rap trio, fourth album The Powers that B instead paves a twisted road forward. The first disc treats Björk's elastic voice as a "found object," sampling the singer into electronic drum pads and making her sputter, flicker and hiccup. But the leap forward is on disc two, where the band connects with washed out shoegaze wash, hardcore guitars and colorful noise that swirls instead of shocks.
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Hop Along, ‘Painted Shut’
We Say: What's up with Philly lately? The most-mocked city in indie rock is suddenly bustling with fantastic young guitar bands like Hop Along. Their second album is a deep dive into raw emotions and ragged melodies.