OPN uses Again to embrace the ambient electronic soundscapes his albums are wont for. But in the crevaces of drum machines and synths lie melodies and motifs that bind the songs together and call forth one's attention in a way standard ambient music cannot.

While I agree this album wasn't as stupendous as their eponymous hiatus ender, Slowdive still continues to perfect the genre they helped found and codify. I find this addition to their canon almost as compelling as the last.

Massachusetts hardcore outfit Fiddlehead mince no words and waste no time on Death Is Nothing To Us, indulging in the anxiety and reprieve that only the best hardcore bands can summon.

The Japanese House has perfected their pop ambitions with In The End It Always Does and put together a salvo of hits in their ephemeral, sunshine-on-a-breezy-day style.

Feist contains Multitudes. But beyond the standard indie pop fare lies an artist who strings together textures seamlessly.

Yvette Young brings all of her guitar playing virtuoso to bear in catharsis. Melodies move beyond comprehension and the listener is left to wonder how this degree of skill is acquired in a human lifespan, let alone utilized to effectively on an album as pretty and deep as this one.

My achilles heel incarnate, every time something gecs comes out I think to myself "I'm past the gecs, I'm an adult and responsible snake parent, I don't need hyperpop this badly." And I'm wrong; I need this shit, it is full of bangers and silly lines and music that tickles my lizard brain (snakes are lizards). A good time is infectious, and 100 gecs always know how to deliver that have-fun virus.

Love to see YLT back at, a classic band that works together so seamlessly every new album is almost an instant classic for them.

All it takes is one minute of listening to Militarie Gun before the first "OOH OOH" shatters your ego and it's all over from there. A band I can't wait to see live and break one of ribs.

Some might say this duo trends closer to dream pop, but for me it feels like The Cure reincarnate. Whistful vocals and otherworldly melodies remind me of classic new wave sounds, and I found this album innately listenable.

Olivia has done what so many have tried and so few have succeeded at: no longer being a Disney kid. GUTS represents an obvious depature from the mouse, but it really shines as a synthesis of pop and pop-adjacent genres to create an insanely fun and listenable album that trumps every aspect of her first album.

I've loved ANOHNI since 2016's HOPELESSNESS, and this album uniting with Antony and the Johnsons again filled me with delight. It's a spell-binding and emotionally raw album.

Arriving at a hodgepodge of discordant shoegaze with insanely distorted instrumentation and hushed vocals, Jane Remover builds a rich but empty void on Census Designated.

It is 2023, I am enraptured by Sufjan's combination of experimentation and personal expression. It is 2015, I am enraptured by Sufjan's combination of experimentation and personal expression. It is 2010, I am enraptured by Sufjan's combination of experimentation and personal expression. The man who defined so many of our quietest moments once again invites us into a world of pain and hurt and has us asking for more.

Having matured alongside the earlier Mitski works, I often suffer whiplash from the style of the later releases. Mitski doesn't often reinvent her sound, but every album is an incremental step forward and each one cements her songcraft further.

Jeff Rosenstock has long since transcended ska punk, finding himself at the nexus of cathartic indie while still mixing the ska-tinged anthems he's known for. Few albums this year have captured the utter chaos we are forced to confront every day, but HELLMODE smashes right into that with enough room to contemplate our deepest of feelings too.

This album made me emotionally attached to windows, or maybe just gazing longingly through them.

The most ascendant DJSTTDJ collection, an album of such length and power it transcends the medium, finds Sabrina in the throes of crafting seamless beats for almost four hours. Any song can be played at any moment, which is necessary to try to even fit this album into one's daily life, and a wave of comforting, stimulating dance music will follow. Somehow, inhumanly, full of bangers from start to finish.

I spent my fair share of the last couple years beating my friends over the head with this band's 2021 EP, I Became Birds. Their first LP, the whaler brings out the expertly-crafted, stochastic emo of Home Is Where to paint portraits of every kind of modern angst.

Wednesday mixes styles and influences seamlessly, bouncing between classic indie and noisy shoegaze with effortless aplomb. All this to craft a dark album with a laser focus.

The line "don't waste your pearls on me" is echoed across the album's powerhouse song "Turbines/Pigs", ten minutes long and set against beautiful and wandering piano notes. BCNR were forced to reinvent themselves after the departure of frontman Isaac Woods, but have metamorphised into a tender new sound cut through with their old intensity.

The year of the boy comes to a close with a phenomenal, mainstream crossover smash from boygenius. What started as a passion project from three, quietly adored singer-songwriters exploded into a worldwide sensation and the record reflects the hyper focus necessary to spend a year making music and touring with your supergroup like this. And I really appreciate all the silly little outfits they put smallest member Julien Baker into during the year.

Trading the stochastic and crunchy noise of 2021's To See the Next Part of The Dream for streamlined melodies and vocals brings Parannoul's songcraft into the focus. Adding texture in this more traditional way gives the album room to breath and tell a more varied story with new varying instrumentation.

Caroline's post-Chairlift output has seen her embracing synthesized ultra-pop, while continuining to flex her incredible vocal range. Desire features less of next-most-recent-album Pang's PC Music collaboration, but Caroline's own production more than fills the gap.

Hotline TNT devours the space their album occupies. Every moment, every note, every strum is a vibrating, condensed mass of energy. Guitars are crunchy, warbling, they walk back and forth along the curves of your brain. The cascading wall of guitar sound is paired with Will Anderson's methodical, uninstrusive vocals to snap you out of guitar-fueled reverie at just the right moments. I was compelled when I listened for the first time, mindlessly favoriting every other song on the album while my mouth hung open. I'm so glad I was able to find an album that I connected with at first glance, it's a reminder that unexpected emotions can strike us whenever we're least ready.