Album Reviews

Since crash-landing into the indie blogosphere two decades ago, Lily Allen’s greatest strength has been her voice — an airy soprano that can communicate disdain with a sighed lyric or an audible eye-roll. It’s helped her stand out even as she’s shape-shifted through genres — and as she’s dealt with …

In late 1961, barely a year after he’d arrived in New York City from the Midwest, Bob Dylan already contained multitudes. The proof arrives early in Through the Open Window, the 18th edition of Dylan’s ongoing Bootleg Series. That fall, Dylan, then only 20 years old, recorded his first album …

Following her 2018 breakthrough, By the Way, I Forgive You, Brandi Carlile embraced many roles: Brandi the Underdog, a singer who conquered the mainstream after a decade of hustling; Brandi the Steward, ushering in the resurgences of icons like Elton John, Tanya Tucker, and Joni Mitchell; Brandi the Author, with …

The cover of “RIP,” a recent single off Miguel’s fifth album, Caos, depicts the Danza de los Diablos, or Dance of the Devils, and the album it comes on finds the singer folding allusions to his Mexican roots into a moody, visceral version of his always-ambitious alternative R&B. Miguel kick-started …

On It’s Not That Deep, Demi Lovato just wants to have fun again. After a few years leaning into the punk-rock edge of her 2022 album Holy Fvck and revisiting her old songs with a grittier twist on 2023’s Revamped, Lovato is back to the sound where she shines brightest. …

B.A.P.S (short for ““Black American Princesses”) was a 1997 comedy starring Halle Berry and the late Natalie Desselle as two working-class women from Georgia who luck their way into the world of the Beverly Hills elite. Dismissed by critics at the time as “tacky” and “abysmally awful,” and accused of …

Over the course of her career as Sudan Archives, self-taught violinist and Cincinnati native Brittney Parks has paired her instrument of choice with forward-thinking songcraft in ways that elevate both her instrument and popular music. On her third album The BPM, she takes her fiddle to the club, melding kinetic …

There are good albums and great albums, and then there are holy records — worlds you enter as if into a dream and emerge with spirit and neurochemistry changed. Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 classic Nebraska is one of those. Conceived at the crest of the Reagan years when the singer was …

The last couple decades have been lousy with bearded musical visionaries. Yet despite all that heavy traffic, Tame Impala‘s Kevin Parker has easily carved own his own unique lane. He’s the Australian sonic explorer with the stretchy falsetto and plush, funky space-rock style whose studio scientist skills have landed him …

They Are Gutting a Body of Water have been one of the most crucial American shoegaze bands over the past decade, from the DIY neo-shoegaze hotbed of Philadelphia. Douglas Dulgarian began making noise as TAGABOW in 2017, playing house shows and releasing early cassettes like 2017’s Sweater Curse. But the …