The Off-Season is yet another legacy-minded and self-satisfied cornball effort from J. Cole. J. Cole is, somewhat inexplicably, really popular amongst hip-hop fans — and just…
CHAI’s latest continues to reevaluate genre boundaries with catchy experimentation and through sly feminist modes. CHAI is a band guided by an explicit mission statement.…
Beam Me Up Scotty’s reissue holds up as Barbie’s career-best record. Twelve years have passed since Beam Me Up Scotty was originally released, a stretch…
Exodus holds some poignancy as DMX’s final work, but it’s an ultimately indecisive and bloated record. We’ve seen it time and time again now: up-and-coming rapper…
J. Cole J. Cole is, somewhat inexplicably, really popular amongst hip-hop fans — and just about nobody else. He garners little critical praise from most…
DJ Khaled is pretty clearly only concerned with stacking bills and building brand, so it shouldn’t surprise that his music continues to suck. There was…
Despite remaining mostly palatable, BROCKHAMPTON’s underwhelming latest makes a strong case that it should be the terminus of their collaborative efforts. When Kevin Abstract pensively…
There’s plenty in Pretty Summer Playlist to interest listeners, but it still feels like a casual stop-off on the way to a future, career-defining project.…
Ultrapop finds The Armed in peak form, cohering an onslaught of sound and influence into something of a new package for the mysterious group. Detroit…
Second Line continues Dawn Richard’s transitional phase, bridging a streamlined sound with her avant-garde style. Though well-received upon release, Diddy – Dirty Money’s Last Train to…
…jook ’til i die is evaboy’s grandest work, directing his nostalgia-bred sounds toward the future rather than indulging in rehash. As it currently continues to…
Course in Fable is Ryley Walker’s second superb effort of 2021, vastly different than his first but no less affecting. After a massively successful independent…
Nurture is album of human reckoning, mining personal darkness and coming out of the other side almost wholesome. Despite a multi-year creative drought, work with…
BROCKHAMPTON When Kevin Abstract pensively observed that “It’s kinda sick and I was born in 1996 and 1999 the only year that I remember,” on…
Giddens and Turrisi’s latest collab is an intimate, interior record that beautifully blurs its sonic lines. Rhiannon Giddens may not be the only musician who…
Freedom. is a platitude-heavy onslaught of alternately generic and sympathy-seeking songwriting that makes for a wholly embarrassing EP. Offering a second helping of solipsistic pop…
Sweep It Into Space is more self-aware tinkering than substantial reinvention, but it affirms that the rockers suitably understand their own strengths. At this point,…
Gojira’s latest record is their least brutal, but also arguably their most cohesive, mature effort to date. Five years after they released 2016’s Magma, French…
Lovato has clearly evolved as a person and seeks to lyrically contend with her traumas, but her music hasn’t done much growing. It’s often said…
Rhiannon Giddens & Francesco Turrisi Rhiannon Giddens may not be the only musician who recorded an album during lockdown, but she may be one of…
Slime Language II boasts grace notes here and there, but is largely a disorganized, overlong effort from the talented team. What’s changed for YSL (Young Stoner…