Year in review: The 50 best albums of 2021

SUSS occupies a distinct place in the music world, pushing the "country ambient" subgenre into the spotlight. As you may have guessed, "country ambient" uses slide guitars, synth pads, and good old-fashioned acoustic instruments to help create dusty and often emotive soundscapes that could easily soundtrack any Chloé Zhao film. The quartet of old-time pros have churned out a remarkable body of work in just a few scant years, but everything came to a stop when founding member Gary Leib passed away in May of 2021. The "Night Suite" EP is the last bit of new material SUSS recorded shortly before Leib's passing. It's a gorgeous set of recordings that are designed as a travelogue of locations they've hit up on tour, and tracks like the aching opener "Gallup, NM" and the warm "Kingman, AZ" are some of the affecting songs the group has yet created. A fitting tribute to a fallen pioneer.

"SUBA" isn't the first collaborative album from Senegal-born kora player Seckou Keita and Cuban jazz pianist Omar Sosa, but it is handily their best. A lush, stylized journey through the mellower end of Afro-Cuban jazz tradition, Sosa and Keita's team-up feels less genre-specific and more all-encompassing, with the kora and piano alone painting with a wide swath of colors that bend and break tradition with casual ease. The stacked multi-vocal harmonies of "Drops of Sunshine" feel contemporary, but the spritely soft bounce of the piano and the descending kora licks turn the song into something that's simultaneously immediate and eternal. "SUBA" is only the legends' second collaboration, but it feels like they've been communicating on a musical level with each other for decades. Sublime.

Inspired by journeys in psychedelic therapy, the former Wild Beasts frontman's second solo record is a yearning, compelling sonic journey. Always hovering above dreamlike synth pads and the softest of shuffling drums, "Moondust for My Diamond" is a trip all itself, anchored by Thorpe's sweet falsetto. While he occasionally brushes up against hooky pop melodies (like on the excellent horn-accented "Metafeeling"), most of "Moondust" has Thrope walking around unshod in a beautifully perplexed daze. "Surrender all your fictions / Surrender premonitions," he warns us on "Suspended Animation" before sweetly cooing "I'll burn the book for you" over and over. No matter what level of sobriety you are at when you listen to it, this "Diamond" radiates with wonder.

When the dexterous Aesop Rock first started making a name for himself in the early 2000s on El-P's legendary Definitive Jux label, his abstract bars and detailed storytelling was often accompanied by beats from Blockhead. Some fans zeroed in on the distinct sonic whimsy of those collaborations and called them the best that underground rap had to offer, with some splintering off once Aesop kept relying on himself for his productions, even as both he and a solo Blockhead developed feverish fanbases. Reuniting in the eyes of lockdown, "Garbology" is as fresh a rap album you're likely to hear this year. 

"I can hold a wheelie for a decade," boasts Aesop on "More Cycles", one of the many winding tracks the duo have created together. Blockhead's beats are often unobtrusive this time out, focused on making Aesop rocks lines punch all the more, even as they get increasingly (and beautifully) inscrutable. "You cannot domesticate the modern vigilante / Who increasingly identifies as energy expanding," he raps during "Flamingo Pink", and honestly, "energy expanding" is exactly how we'd classify this stellar collaboration.

While contemporary freak-folk icon Devendra Banhart and celebrated Latin engineer Noah Georgeson have been in each other's orbits for some time now, the two have never had an album-length collaboration before. Perhaps to the surprise of many, they have joined forces to create ... -- a full-blown ambient album? Defying expectations, "Refuge" is far from a mere tourist trip through the genre: it is a remarkably considered, deftly constructed record that excels at every wavy level. 

While echoing guitar and ghostly synths make for the foundations of "Refuge", it's the quirky sonic details -- ranging from full orchestrations to field recordings of Tibetan prayers -- that infuse this album with a lush sense of wonder. Tracks like "Three Gates" breathe and unfold at their own pace, revealing their sonic surprises slowly and purposefully. To the casual observer, this album may look like a mere detour in either artists' discography, but as anyone who's spent time under its hypnotic gaze may tell you, "Refuge" may very well become a calming refuge all your own.

Rolling up the sounds of CHVRCHES, Grimes, Charli XCX, and Chairlift all into one package, Magdelena Bay's debut album absolutely shouldn't work as well as it does. Yet the L.A.-based duo of Mica Tenenbaum and Matthew Lewin has managed to create a full-length firecracker that's brimming with every possible electropop trope you can think of. What's most infuriating about them is how easily they pull off every genre detour. A '90s-pop throwback number full of orchestral hit synths ("Secrets (Your Fire)")? Breathy early-2000s stadium electroballads ("Dreamcatching")? A trap-pop number that borrows the dungeon theme from the NES Legend of Zelda game ("Halfway")? All wild ideas executed perfectly. There is no end to Magdelena Bay's creativity, and the confidence exuding from them is frightening. Better you get to know them now before their songs oversaturate the airwaves in a few years.

Yola truly is in a class all her own. A British songwriter who got her start as a session backup singer, her 2019 debut "Walk Through Fire" showed a remarkable grasp of pre-rock songwriting tradition, building sturdy songs around her once-in-a-generation voice. She updates her references ever-so-slightly for her follow-up, bringing in a couple of rock postures while even giving "Dancing Away in Tears" a light disco shuffle. Sounding like it got beamed in directly from whichever era she pleases (courtesy of the ever retro-minded producer Dan Auerbach), "Stand for Myself" is a joyous exploration of country, R&B, and rock traditions, filtered through Yola's empathetic perspective. Sounding more confident than ever, Yola goes for everything from throwback soul on "If I Had to Do It All Again" to proper '70s AM rock on the stellar lead single "Diamond Studded Shoes". With this kind of artistic momentum backing her, Yola can now only be described as "unstoppable."

The Cold War Kids have come a long way since their mid-2000s critical and commercial heyday. The band's blues-licked brand of indie-rock was always interesting, but it simply couldn't sustain itself commercially in the modern streaming era. However, since leaving their label and focusing on independent releases, their "New Age Norms" series have been full of unexpected surprises for those keeping tabs. No longer burdened with expectations, this California-bred band got looser, weirder, and wilder with each new release. "New Age Norms 3", their final chapter in their yearly trilogy, is the best of the bunch. From the growling piano rocker "Times Have Changed" to the spritely synthpop confection "Always" to the what-do-you-even-call-it cut-n-paste blues-funk experiment that "2 Worlds", Cold War Kids sound more energized than ever. If you liked them at one point but fell off due to lack of interest or [gestures at society at large] this, "New Age Norms 3" is more than worth your time. After all, it is a New Age for them ...

A Certain Ratio may not be household names stateside, but in post-punk and indie-dance circles in the U.K., they are treated as legends. One of the early signees to the groundbreaking Factory Records, the English band's output has been sporadic since the '90s, dropping one record in 2008 and the heralded "ACR LOCO" in 2020. Feeling the good vibes from the recent recordings, the group dropped not one but three EPs this year. "ACR:EP" contains their last jams with the late, great Denise Johnson of Primal Scream; "ACR:EPC" is a collaboration with another music icon who recently passed: producer and remixer Andrew Weatherall; and "ACR:EPR" was recorded under a "whatever happens, happens" kind of approach. The result is a funky batch of songs that move from reggae-inspired shuffles to upbeat dance songs to horn-driven party numbers. It's a wild caste of music that doesn't repeat a single song from their 2020 full-length, making for one of the most surprising, groovy, and downright enjoyable set of releases this year. We can guarantee a certain ratio of tracks that you'll love (almost all of them).

If Adele is known for anything at this point, it's taking her time. While the wait between her debut "19" and the cultural touchstone that was "21" took three small years, she waited four-and-a-half years before dropping the chart-swallowing behemoth that was "25". Now, after many teases and rumors, "30" is here, and it is without question the most sonically varied entry in her discography. Adopting affected and characterized backing vocals (and on "Oh My God", layers of her voice are used to create the song's actual rhythmic pulse), she feels looser and playful this time out, even turning a cheeky song title like "I Drink Wine" into a poised and powerful piece of contemplation. 

Working with old standby producer/songwriters like Greg Kurstin and Max Martin and newer voices like Inflo and Ludwig Göransson, "30" is her most diverse and humane set of songs yet. Here, she steps out of her usual sonic box while retaining all of the passionate lyrics and performances that have made her a defining diva of the past decade. Good thing, too, 'cos we're guessing it'll be a decade wait until her next album drops.

There are "pop records," and then there are Pepe Deluxé records. The Finnish duo of James Spectrum & Paul Malmström are masters at cramming every inch of their full-lengths with melodies, and they often cram an entire album's worth of hooks into a single track. It's clown car songwriting, but the often-explosive results must be heard to be believed. For "Phantom Cabaret Vol. 1", their first proper full-length in nearly a decade, they sound as focused as they do absolutely unhinged -- just the way they like it. "I see with my ears!" shouts the soul vocalist on opener "General Deluxé", a song which seems to switch genres every few bars. 

Allegedly, the duo scoured the world for the weirdest instruments they could find (including a drum made of human skin and an instrument activated only by fire), but such curious new sounds would mean nothing had they not wrapped it all up in songs that count. From the comically insane audio tour that is "Halls of Kalevala" to the hard keyboard funk of "22nd Century Dandy", you have assuredly not heard a record like "Phantom Cabaret Vol. 1". It's debatable as to if it's the best album of the year, but, without question, it is certainly the "most" album you'll hear this decade.

The '90s were a transformational time for dance music, as this was the decade where the genre transformed the most and broke through to mainstream culture. Picture it: Fatboy Slim was snagging crossover hits on the radio, Paul Oakenfold kept putting out CD mixes to the masses, and raves soon gave way to the stadium-filling EDM festivals we know today. CFCF's Michael Silver remembers all of this too well. Largely known as an instrumental act focused on mid-to-slow-tempo recordings (nearly all of them excellent, for the record), his aesthetic has been pointing towards electro in the past few years. 

Yet nothing could have prepared us for "memoryland": a sonic time capsule that transports the listener directly back to that era when "trance music" was making a name for itself. Silver fills every corner of "memoryland" with era-specific drum beats and distinctive sonic details, an absolute love letter to the genre. Who else would've thought to comment on the time in the late-'90s when every rock band wanted to be an electro act ("Punksong")? Did he really have to go out and make the best Daft Punk song since Daft Punk disbanded ("Self Service 1999")? The more you know of the era, the more you can spot the influences, but even if you don't, there's no denying the big smile that "memoryland" puts on your face. A masterpiece.

There was nothing inherently wrong with CHVRCHES 2018 album "Love Is Dead", which ended up being the first time the Scottish electro trio decided not to produce an album themselves. As an album-length collaboration with Kelly Clarkson and Adele superproducer Greg Kurstin, it played into their synthpop wheelhouse but did it almost a little too well, making their sound just a tad more generic (a.k.a. mainstream) than fans had come to expect. Thus, their fourth album, "Screen Violence", is a complete course correction, cutting out the fat and giving us what feels like a true-and-proper sequel to their legendary 2013 debut "The Bones of What You Believe". Scoring a cameo from Robert Smith of The Cure is certainly a boon, but it's the lyrics of the slamming gaslight anthem "He Said She Said" that proves that frontman Lauren Mayberry still has some important things to say. Poppy, propulsive, and uncompromising, "Screen Violence" is the sound of a group who just rediscovered what made them great in the first place.

While Durand Jones & the Indications have made no bones about their love of classic soul, their third album, "Private Space", sees their love shift slightly. Moving from a worship of the gritty early '60s Motown singles to a full-on embrace of '70s loverman disco, "Private Space" finds the group more emboldened than ever in their identity. The airy backing vocals and flute work on "More Than Ever" evoke mirrorball VIP rooms, while the falsetto singing and funky rhythm guitars of "The Way That I Do" glides in a way that would make Nile Rodgers blush. The band has always been great at recreating the sounds of a certain era, but their songwriting gets stronger and more individualistic on each new full-length, and the beauty of "Private Space" is that it shows that the group isn't planning on repeating their formula anytime soon. Time to pull that feathered boa out of the closet, 'cos you'll need it when dancing to one of the sweetest musical delights of the year.

Working under the moniker Tempelhof for years, musicians Luciano Ermondi and Paolo Mazzacani made indie dance music that had a hard time breaking through the algorithmic playlist barriers. Taking a break before regrouping as One Million Eyes, the duo now focuses on music that they enjoy making, which, as it turns out, is the sound of beat-driven ambient soundscape. "Brama," their debut album under their new name, is a winsome, gorgeous affair, as the duo uses digital synth pads and programmed drum machines to create a sound that feels damn near close to organic. From the tempo-moving cloud that is "Punta Cometa" to the cinematic star-gazer of a piece that is "Aguirre" to the ominous tennis match that closes out the record in the form of "15-0", it feels as if Ermondi and Mazzacani were right in naming their outfit One Million Eyes because even when positioned in the ambient genre, they can see the multitude of directions their creativity can take them. How lucky for us they explore as many ambient styles as they do on this wild and invigorating debut.

If there is anything the Israel-born Ben Aylon loves, it's drumming. Specifically, West African percussion like the djeli ngoni and the sabar. Yet "Xalam", Aylon's years-in-the-making record following his many appearances under his One Man Tribe moniker, isn't all percussion all the time. He has collaborated with Malian acts of many stripes to create a gorgeous, evocative, and transportive collection of contemporary African sounds. Tracks like the stomping "Benn Takamba" burn every inch of their stringed instruments in both natural and distorted stylings, while the late Khaira Arby provides vocals on the floating, intricate "Alafia". Aylon synthesizes vocals and percussion into a formidable mix, showcasing his compositional chops while also making the record easily accessible for audiences who may have never dug head-on into Malian and Senegalese music. It actually might be our most-replayed record this year.

The sample-driven electro project that is Nightmares on Wax has been releasing ever-curious albums for over three decades at this point. Yet following a cancer scare coupled with the isolation brought on by pandemic-related lockdowns, core member George Evelyn entered the creation of his ninth studio record as if it was the last record he was ever going to make. While this setup might make "Shout Out! To Freedom" seem like a navel-gazing slab of pondering balladry, the result is the opposite of that. "Shout Out!" is a breezy, colorful, and overall joyous affair, awash in so many different moods and styles its as if Eveyln has flat-out rediscovered why he likes making music in the first place. "Creator SOS" floats on by in dreamy waves, while stellar orchestral-soul closer "Up To Us" echoes '70s Motown singles with quiet ease. This kaleidoscopic pop gem is worth a shout-out all its own.

After the one-two album punch of "Brothers" and "El Camino" made the blues-rock duo The Black Keys household names, they got ... a little weird. 2014's "Turn Blue" had them playing around with genre, trying out new flavors, and while it made for an interesting experiment, it didn't quite connect with their fanbase. After taking a break, they tried to course-correct with 2019's obviously-titled "Let's Rock", but it still didn't fully recapture the gritty sound of their early albums. So with "Delta Kream", the boys got back to their roots by covering some of their all-time favorite blues numbers. This was a smart move because with no longer burdening themselves with making a "commercial" album, the guys sound completely at home. 

Produced with a beautiful warmth (it boasts one of the most crystal-clear mixes we've heard all year), Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney are in their pocket tackling classics from John Lee Hooker, R.L. Burnside, and especially the songs of Junior Kimbrough, who accounts for almost half the album's numbers. The guitars buck, Auerbach's voice howls, and the sense of fun the two are having is evident in every number. The slow-burn closer "Come On and Go with Me" may be our favorite, but for anyone who may have walked away from The Black Keys for a spell, there's good news: they're back and sounding comfortable for the first time in years.

While the Minnesota indie-pop act Hippo Campus has always had a distinct and somewhat experimental sound all their own, members Jake Luppen and Nathan Stocker (along with The Happy Children founder Caleb Hinz) wanted to do something different when given free rein in a pro recording studio. The resulting project is called Baby Boys and their debut full-length, "Threesome", is truly the sound of some multi-instrumentalists and producers getting as weird as they can with their pop instincts. "Maggot Water", for example, adds acoustic guitars, squelched and stretched vocal samples, and warbling analog synths to create an accent that is still catchy but sonically otherworldly. 

Like any good threesome, this album doesn't waste a second of time (it comes in at a hair over 28 minutes), but through its kaleidoscopic variety of notes and noises, Baby Boys tackle all sorts of topics regarding intimacy, isolation, and forgetting where someone parked the car. It's said that the rule for any good threesome is to make every member of the party feel welcome, and as the listener, the Baby Boys are happy to welcome you in.

The laid-back, sophisticated, and beautiful music made by pianist Morten McCoy and bassist Jonathan Bremer is so elegant that it feels reductive to refer to it as "chill vibes," but for "Natten", their third full-length record proper, that's exactly what they achieve. Walking a fine line between classic jazz and modern ambient, "Natten", which means "The Night" in their native Danish, is a record that relies more heavily on synthesizers than previous outings, giving the record a chilly, icy feel that still manages to feel inviting. At just under 40 minutes, "Natten" manages to sound like the aural equivalent of the aurora borealis, shimmering in colors and textures right before your ears. In fact, for a record referring to the night, it's fitting that the slow bass and warm melody of closer "Lalibela" evokes the sun slowly warming up the ground you're standing upon. We could stay up all night listening to this one.

How could they! How could the San Francisco black metal kingpins that are Deafheaven turn their back on the genre and make a record full of ... accessible rock music? Blasphemy! In truth, the hard rock titans have never been ones to repeat the same formula, reforming and refining their sound on every release, which makes the Britrock-afflicted shapes of "Infinite Granite" so fascinating. The guitars jangle more than they pummel; some songs have more synth pads than they do deep-throated metal screeching. 

Yet that is exactly why "Infinite Granite" is a remarkable record. This dynamic quintet is unafraid to expand the scope of their songwriting style to craft songs that touch on something they haven't attempted before. While some purists might decry full-keyboard pieces like "Neptune Raining Diamonds", they may have checked out by the time that closer "Mombasa" builds up to a pummelling release that goes as hard as anything off of their legendary debut record "Sunbather". We always knew Deafheaven could rock harder than most: now we can't wait to see what else they do.

Gifted a banjo on her 19th birthday, Margo Ross soon became a self-taught player and songwriter, eventually setting up shop in a cabin in New York to craft the songs that would make up her debut album "Prairie Life". Dealing with friendships lost and gained, this sweetly sad country record isn't really a country record: Ross adorns her songs with too many swelling group vocals and indie-rock guitar licks to be considered a "straight" country album, but its heart is still in very much in telling evocative stories, whether they be over sawing fiddles or throwback keyboards. "Spent a whole day just f---in' around / I just want you to know I'm cool when the s--- hits the ground / I know you'll be my friend eventually," she sings in the strummy "Lost", wherein that desire to be accepted by others becomes your primary goal in life. It's unique little details like this that make "Prairie Life" such a wonderful, heartwarming debut. We can't wait to see where she goes next.

Of every single album on this list, there is perhaps no record as feel-good, goofy, or flat-out fun as "An Evening with Silk Sonic". This inspired funk-pop collaboration between Bruno Mars and the great Anderson .Paak clocks in at barely over a half-hour and never overstays its welcome. Sarcastic, campy, and ridiculous, the duo's Soul Train-indebted rave-up is a tongue-in-cheek collection of songs that, for all of the winks and nods, are still lovingly constructed songs full of incredible production details. "Put On a Smile" almost borders on sweetness, but the trapped-in-domesticity lament "Smokin' Out the Window" and the giddy thrills of "Skate" sound like little else in the Top 40 landscape. Call us greedy, but we don't want an evening with Silk Sonic: we'd love a whole weekend.

The boundaries of contemporary EDM are under constant revision, and the stadium-filling "brostep" sounds of the early 2010s have given way to more mature, contemplative work -- while never sacrificing the power of the backbeat. On his sophomore album, German DJ/producer Ben Böhmer has delivered a record of unexpected beauty. Often going for orchestral swells instead of a big fat bass drop, his emotive brand of dance music is as accessible as it is soulful, aiming for real human empathy at a time when so many dance ballads play with bland melodrama. The warm pulse of "Erase" aims for sunset-tinted euphoria, but tracks like "Escalate" recognize that sometimes all you need to move is just a killer drum pattern. In a genre known for blithering frontmen and too-obvious hooks, Böhmer feels like a breath of fresh air. Who knew the new king of dance music was going to be the chillest guy in the room?

"Can't love for us both / You've gotta live and I gotta go," sings Lindsey Jordan on the opener of her sophomore album, "Valentine". Sick of one-sided queer love but still exploring many facets of it, the 22-year-old indie rocker uses her lithe voice and clever wordplay to deliver another great entry into her developing discography. While she avoids outright ballads, "Valentine" is a mellow affair, often aiming for that slow-to-midtempo sweet spot in its quick 31-minute runtime. Often boiling down complicated feelings like jealousy into simple turns of phrase ("Drinkin' just to taste her mouth," she admits on "Headlock"), there's a beautiful world-weariness to Jordan's lyrics, with her heart having been run through the wringer but still trying to make sense of it all. "Valentine" may not be the record to give your valentine this year, but if you've ever been through heartbreak, this is the perfect soundtrack to recover from it.

There may be no one who loves the genre of "'80s pop music" more than Caroline Kingsbury. While that neon umbrella covers everything from drum machine-driven synthpop to hair metal power ballads, the "obviousness" of '80s pop music allowed simple emotions to be broadcast on as wide a screen as possible. Yet Caroline Kingsbury isn't here for simple emotions. Having moved to L.A. on her own, processing the passing of her brother, and reconciling with coming out to her family all in short order, she has a lot to sort through, and on her sublime debut album "Heaven's Just a Flight", she processes her experiences through octagon drums and smoke machines. Feeling like it got transmitted directly from the heart of 1986, Kingsbury adopts everything from Styx-styled backing vocals to plastic guitar riffing in order to give us a kaleidoscopic peek of her soul. A full 16-tracks long and not a second wasted, "Heaven's Just a Flight" is without question one of the year's most riveting pop delights.

When Maxïmo Park dropped their debut album in 2005, it felt like they were the summation of a rock-revival moment, delivering deft guitar interplay and packaging it all in immediate, bouncy songs. The group has hits in their native England, but what was most surprising is that in the decade-and-half since, the boys just ... kept at it. Great albums, solid songwriting, bristling live shows. Year after year. While their singles don't get any chart placements like the old days, Maxïmo Park remains hugely popular in the U.K., and without missing a beat, their seventh album, "Nature Always Wins", is another winner in a long line of them. Showing their age and getting a bit nostalgic about the important moments of life, singer Paul Smith reflects on his youth while still never once forgetting why the band was formed in the first place (see: to rock out). The bristling alt-pop number "Feelings I'm Supposed to Feel", the stadium-ready opener "Partly of My Making", the New Wave-y "All of Me" -- these all feel like entries on a future Greatest Hits record. Nature always wins -- and so do Maxïmo Park.

For the past decade, Mint Julep have been releasing electropop songs with a slight alt-rock edge, giving them a unique fanbase. The duo consists of a very talented married couple: Hollie and Keith Kenniff. While Keith moonlights under several monikers, including his moody solo instrumental outfit Goldmund, Hollie's new full-ambient solo career continues with her airy sophomore record "The Quiet Drift". Although her husband guests on two tracks, "The Quiet Drift" is a distinct and powerful work all its own, mixing Hollie's vocals with waves of gorgeous, flowing synths, resulting in an airy masterpiece that is easy to get lost in. Unlike most ambient records, where individual tracks can sometimes go on for too long and lose the "groove," Hollie keeps her compositions right around the four-minute mark, ensuring there is enough time to fall into her clouds of melody without ever overstaying the welcome. An addictive record with a surprising amount of moods, "The Quiet Drift" feels designed for everyone, pleasing hardcore ambient-heads, and casual listeners alike.

When it was announced that Kacey Musgraves had divorced from her country artist husband Ruston Kelly in 2020, some thought that the follow-up to her Grammy Album of the Year-winning record "Golden Hour" would be a classic breakup album. While "star-crossed" certainly does have some bite pointed back at her ex, the album's themes and scope are even more ambitious than imagined. At times shucking her country background altogether for some twang-adjacent indie pop, "star-crossed" touches on the entire scope of a relationship, from being young lovers meeting for the first time ("Cherry Blossom Baby") to realizing your partner is saving all of his good stuff for his next fling ("Breadwinner"). The emotions get complex, like when "Justified" explores how you can both hate and love someone simultaneously. Yet this is Kacey Musgraves: a singer-songwriter so clearly in her creative prime (as evidenced by the loving use of disco flute work).

Welsh quirk-rockers Super Furry Animals were nothing if not distinctive during their multi-year run. So when frontman Gruff Rhys decided to also put out records on his own, his output ended up being unsurprisingly idiosyncratic. While never shying away from a pop riff he didn't like, Rhys' high-concept albums sometimes proved to be a barrier for entry to some. Yet with "Seeking New Gods", a record that is designed to be a "biography" of the active volcano Mount Paeku, Rhys has crafted the most accessible and rocking songs of his whole career. "Hiking In Lightning" is the alternative radio rocker we always knew Rhys had in him, "The Keep" is the kind of pensive piano bop that Harry Nilsson would've been proud to write, and the ending ballad "Distant Snowy Peaks" gives us a cinematic, closing-credits finish brimming with emotion. In any just universe, most of these songs would've been college radio hits, but as it stands, "Seeking New Gods" happens to hit a new peak for a songwriter who only seems to be getting better over time.

"I could write a pop song about you," sings Adam Downer of Brooklyn band Carrier, and boy does he ever. Having studied the sticky-hook anatomy of champions like Fountains of Wayne and Weezer (with a peppering of Interpol's early guitar dynamics thrown in just for good measure), the debut album from this four-piece is so unabashedly upfront about its influences that it sounds both nostalgic and refreshing at the same time. 

Focused on big vocal hooks, thumping drum patterns, and throwing as much guitar soloing as you can throw into a song without making it overkill (except on the final minute of "Incinerator", where it's sublime), Carrier pays homage to the alt-pop CDs they grew up listening to by embodying their heroes at every turn. Yet "When New York is Drowning" isn't mere power chord cosplay: the band aims for maximum catchiness while also diversifying their textures when possible, which is why "Little Fish" gives off "Blue Album" energy in a way that only a superfan could write. No-frills pop-rock? Carrier's charming debut gives you all the frills and more.

Few people had a 2021 as good as Japanese Breakfast's Michelle Zauner. Her memoir about exploring her cultural heritage after her mother's passing, "Crying in H-Mart", became a New York Times bestseller, even getting optioned to become a movie. She soundtracked a video game called "Sable" and received her first two ever Grammy nominations for her latest Japanese Breakfast record, "Jubilee". It's quite a lot for someone who is increasingly becoming a multi-hyphenate, but it doesn't hurt that "Jubilee" is Zauner's best album to date. Her pop moments (like the explosive "Be Sweet" and earworm salad that is "Slide Tackle") have her at her most approachable, but that doesn't mean her lyrics are any less biting. "With my luck, you'll be dead within the year / I've come to expect it, there's nothing left to fear," she seethes on "Hell Is", and the effect is striking. We can't wait to see what incredible things she accomplishes next year before taking over every kind of media.

There is no denying that Megan Thee Stallion is a rap superstar, but there was some grumbling among her most hardcore ride-or-die fans that her 2020 debut album "Good News" was the sound of her not at her fire-spittin' best. Over the years, she's dropped a variety of freestyles on her YouTube channel and other outlets, reminding her fans just how funny and charismatic she could be when not burdened with Top 40 expectations. Close to a year after "Good News" came out, Megan put all of those freestyles into one place on the excellent "Something for Thee Hotties". With 21 tracks over 45 wild minutes, Megan unleashes some of her most explicit, loosest, and funniest bars to date, all over beats that are dancey ("Tuned In Freestyle"), radio-ready ("Tina Snow Interlude"), and downright bizarre ("Megan's Piano"). Closing out with her stellar standalone single "Thot Shıt", "Something for Thee Hotties" is one of 2021's naughtiest and most undeniably entertaining listens.

Once the strummy college-rock pastiche of "Blitz" kicks into high gear, it's clear that Unwed Sailor doesn't need a vocalist to create one of the year's catchiest songs. Johnathon Ford's outfit has been churning out reliable instrumental rock for over two decades at this point, but "Truth or Consequences" feels cut from a different cloth. After opening with some amped-up numbers, the band's umpteenth studio full-length finds its real groove in a series of mellow, blissed-out recordings. The loopy, laid-back basslines of "Ajo" give way to some sparkling guitar work, "Voodoo Roux" sounds like a sweet mid-tempo ballad beamed in directly from the early-'90s U.K. indie rock scene, and the glorious title track has the shuffle and shamble of a Sunday morning where you're just dragging yourself out of bed, letting the sun fill your day. A casual listen and an underrated gem at the same time: that's the truth.

The thing about German doom trio Trialogos' debut album "Stroh zu Gold" is that it is truly unclassifiable. With buzzing cellos and echoed violins, "Stroh zu Gold" is a dark, moody record that never wallows. It invites you into its surrealistic world, with opener "Lavu Santu" bordering on optimistic (even anthemic) with its sturdy bassline and washes of guitar feedback. Contrast that to "Rip Current", which plods and squeals like John Zorn fronting a black metal outfit. Somewhat inspired by the dark undertones of the German "Rumpelstilzchen" fairytale, "Stroh zu Gold" captures such a wide range of emotions and textures that it's hard to pin down exactly how doomcore fans will react to it -- but therein lies its appeal. Even for casual doom fans, "Stroh zu Gold" sounds like nothing else; a peerless full-length.

You know you're doing something right when Jay-Z decides to sample you for a single. Floating around since the early 2000s, Thomas Brenneck's cinematic soul-funk group was intended to be the in-house band Dunham Records, the soul-aimed subsidiary of the mighty Daptone Records. Having worked extensively with the late, great Charles Bradley throughout his studio career and featuring members who've played with everyone from The Avalanches to The Roots to Budos Band, "The Exciting Sounds of..." feels like a record made by a group of musicians with nothing to prove: they want to have a good time in the studio.

 Featuring sepia-toned production that makes every track sound like a throwback to an earlier time, Menahan Street Band's third album can't be described as anything other than pure joy. From the tight horn charts to the beautifully unintrusive guitar work to the delicate piano flourishes, "The Exciting Sounds of..." transcends mere soul imitation to become an evocative soundscape in its own right. But not sticking with strict pop song structures and sometimes expanding out to inciting new directions (like the dipped-in-cabernet noir-lounge of "Rainy Day Lady"), the Menahan Street Band have created one of the year's most memorable, hummable, and sometimes even danceable records. We can't wait to see which big-name hip-hop producers sample them next.

If you thought 100 Gecs and the whole PC Music crew were pushing electronic music to its bleeding edge, then you clearly haven't heard of Prolaps. The brainchild of Matt Stephenson (Machine Girl) and Bonnie Baxter (Kill Alters), Prolaps' distinctly disorienting blend of furious drum machines and squelching electronics has been responsible for multiple two-hour recordings this year, each one debuting on a solstice or equinox. Their fourth and final "Ultra Cycle" entry is perhaps the grittiest one yet, taking simple drum loops and covering them in so much noise and chaos that one's brain almost transcends mid-listen. It's not about individual notes or sounds, but the experience one has when placed in a chaotic musical environment, where songs can last anywhere from 4 to 13 minutes. Some "slower" songs like "Green Fog" help serve as a breather from all of the madness, but the best way to sum up this intimidating, boundary-pushing album is by quoting one of its song titles directly: "Mean and Nasty Things For No Reason".

Why would a world-renowned vibraphonist decide to make an album without his vibraphone? To challenge himself, of course. Masayoshi Fujita has deftly challenged compositional form with albums that are at times ambient, at times jazz, and at times simply indescribable. With"Bird Ambience", Fujita tackles the marimba as his new main instrument, but that doesn't mean we're in for whiskey-sipping ambiance the whole time. "Stellar" uses drum crashes and tape loops to make his marimba piece sound like a middle-era Four Tet record, while the aptly-named "Cumulonimbus Dream" floats along like it was part of Thomas Newman's score to "American Beauty". The power of "Bird Ambience" is that even though Fujita is limiting himself to one instrument, that doesn't mean he's limiting himself to one genre. This record shows just how many uses and contexts one man can take the marimba to.

The BBE Music label is largely known as being an archive imprint that turns out extraordinary and unexpected compilations every single year. From '60s Japanese jazz collections to celebrations of Middle Eastern composers to new albums from up-and-coming new acts, BBE rarely misses with their expert level of curation. With "Croatian Blue", DJ Eddy Ramich wanted to focus on compiling the current wave of jazz-accented electronic acts currently operating out of his home country of Croatia. Finalized shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold and only released in the back half of the year, "Croatian Blue" is a blissful journey. Tracks like Koolade's "Mary & Steff" shuffle along at an unhurried mid-tempo pace while Ante Matas ten-minute live-band workout "A Finger of Wine" is draped with delightful instrumental flourishes that give it a distinctly jazzy feel. Well-sequenced and beautifully packaged, "Croatian Blue" gives the world a peek at a distinct scene that's slowly developing its own genre-breaking voice. We can't wait to hear more.

Mixing cello with electropop may seem like an odd move on paper, but Bristol's Elder Island like playing by their own rules. Their 2019 debut "The Omnitone Collection" was very much the sound of a trio finding their collective musical voice, somewhat unsure of what type of pop music they wanted to embody. With their stellar sophomore collection "Swimming Static", the message is clear: they are an electropop machine of the highest efficiency. Tackling themes of isolation, breakups, and the animalistic nature of man, "Swimming Static" is a confident, pounding record dripping with digital charisma. The airy bounce of "Small Plastic Heart" might be their best and most hummable single yet, while "Sacred" stacks its vocals layers like it's Adele's stab at a true and proper electro number. From stuttering percussion to every flavor of synth you can imagine, there's an ocean of sound to be found here. The only question is: are you up for "Swimming" in it?

Throughout her many alternative and traditional folk outfits (Po' Girl, Birds of Chicago, Our Native Daughters), Allison Russell has immersed herself in folk music's storied past while also pushing it towards the future, finding kinship with musicians of all stripes along the way. A talented multi-instrumentalist, Russell has been slowly working on a suite of songs that would ultimately serve as her musical autobiography. The resulting album, "Outside Child," has no right to be as upbeat and catchy as it is while dealing with its gritty subject matter. Alternating between numbers with a soulful bounce and moments of striking cinematic beauty, "Outside Child" is an emotional epic, tracing Russell's life growing up in Montreal to dealing with the sexual abuse of her stepfather to running away as a teenager and finding her calling in music. Whether she's making her voice the siren call in a sea of crashing tympani during "Little Rebirth" or singing over haunting banjo plucks on the frightening "All of the Women" or switching from English to French on a dime, "Outside Child" is a rare record that emits a beguiling emotional gravity, because as Russell tells her own gripping story, we see parts of it in our own. One of the year's unquestioned best.

Bo Burnham's surprise one-man comedy special proved to be as funny as it was emotionally crippling, tapping into the lonely, infuriating, and introspective feelings many of us were experiencing at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Vulnerable to an ugly degree, Burnham doubts himself, interrogates his role as a comedian, and lambastes the societal and capitalistic mechanisms that got us to this desperate point. It may sound heady, but he wraps all of this up in some of the brightest and best songs of his career. From easy goofs like "White Woman's Instagram" and "FaceTime with my Mom (Tonight)" to soul-obliterating moments like the acoustic "That Funny Feeling" (later covered by Phoebe Bridgers), "Inside (The Songs)" is one hell of a souvenir from the arguably best piece of art done about the pandemic. Let's hope we don't go through anything that inspires Burnham to make something on this scale again.

Producer Max Schieble (who records under the name Elbows) wanted to do something a little different when it came to recording his debut album, so he decided to explore the Bay Area where he grew up, recording at the same studio where he learned the basics of programming and engineering as a kid. Taking his fellow bandmates to locales filled with memories, "Tales From the Old Mill" is a quietly nostalgic record filled with lo-fi hip-hop beats, fluid basslines, and the occasional flirtation with organic orchestration. Taking tales of nostalgia and loneliness and hiding all his lyrics behind filtered vocal effects, "Old Mill" is welcoming and warm while also doing what it can to keep the listener at a bit of an emotional distance. It's covered in quirk, madcap ideas coalesced into an immensely listenable collection of songs, but when jazz horns and live vocal samples come through on "Amnesia", a beautifully human element reveals itself, and "Old Mill" reveals more depth and layers than initially imagined. A complicated, lovely, and dynamic album, we'll be hearing some of these "Tales" for years to come.

Tamara Lindeman (who records under her moniker The Weather Station) has one of the sweetest voices in all of music: a beautiful, unassuming tone that elevates her already-great writing. Yet, as has been the case throughout her whole career, her lithe intonations often hide crippling lyrics, and on "Ignorance", her wrecked worldview never been more apparent. Instead of offering us quiet hope or proud protest in the wake of the climate crisis, Lindeman has penned an album's worth of songs that speak to the hard, bitter reality that we are heading towards our own doom. "I feel as useless as a tree in a city park / Standing as a symbol of what we have blown apart," she intones on "Tried to Tell You", and the truth absolutely pierces us. Yet even with her lyrical bluntness, "Ignorance" is quite a delightful listen, careening between her folky roots and straight-up pop-rock. Often backed by creative and buoyant orchestration, "Ignorance" coats its bitter truth pills in some of the most immediate melodies she's yet created, resulting in her best record to date. Let's hope future generations are around long enough to appreciate it.

Over the course of 46-minutes, this extraordinary collaboration between electronic producer Floating Points (a.k.a. Sam Shepherd) and saxophone master Pharoah Sanders centers around a very simple, repeated harpsichord motif. It occurs over and over, with the space in between each "loop" being filled with keyboards, Sanders' delicate sax lines, and the actual London Symphony Orchestra, giving the whole affair an icy, hypnotic beauty. The groove swells, crashes, antagonizes and releases into a state of bliss. Anyone who's heard the record even once can already hear that central riff in their head, but the joy of "Promises" is how such a simple musical idea is expanded, extracted, and folded into itself in ways both expected and surprising. Without question, one of the year's most unexpected and captivating releases.

If you've never heard of Lionlimb before, that's about to change. Stewart Bronaugh's recording moniker has just released their third formal album, and it is downright upsetting how well he knows his way around an indie-pop hook. With almost laser-like precision, he knows the perfect time to bring in a new instrument, the exact moment to release the swell of sounds, and adds little details into every production that give it the perfect melodic kick. Following a neck surgery that was severe enough to make him start asking big questions around mortality, "Spiral Groove" is a delicious pop-rock confection. The grooves are as stern-faced as they are laid back, but it's clear that each song is the work of a true craftsman. From the little ABBA-like ascending piano line that comes in during the post-chorus of "Nothing" to the cascading tom-hits that make the buzzing chorus of "Real Life" nothing short of thundering, "Spiral Groove" is a record that sounds unassuming on first listen only because you aren't aware of the deep earworms that Bronaugh is embedding within you. Impossibly catchy and hugely replayable.

The third album from New York's Lightning Bug shows the rockers very quietly, very purposefully calming down. While their first two self-released records displayed their deep love of the early-'90s U.K. shoegaze scene, "A Color of the Sky" is a much more mature record. Self-produced and swelling to a permanent five members (up from three), there's a gorgeous homespun beauty to this album, perhaps no better exemplified than on "Song of the Bell", a dynamic song that starts in a swirl of feedback and gradually morphs into the kind of rock chorus that NME would've loved to write about back in their heyday. Their guitars still fuzz-out like no tomorrow, but this time out, the static is used as a textural tool to bolster their increasingly-confident songwriting. "September Song, pt. ii" could even be classified as a folk-pop number, proving that Lightning Bug is happy to shed any genre expectations fans may have, crafting what is clearly their most gorgeous record yet.

As a founding member of the great U.K. dance-punk outfit Test Icicles (whose membership would later include the innovator that is Devonte Hynes), multi-instrumentalist Sam Mehran was making quite a name for himself. Tragically, in 2018 it was revealed that he had taken his own life at the age of 31. While many processed their grief by diving into his wild discography, wherein he had many albums recorded under many different names, his close friends began assembling the project he was working on before his passing. "Cold Brew" is a wonderfully unusual record, as Mehran was trying to loosen up his songwriting and production skills by creating short and sweet pop-rock instrumentals with not a moment considered for any singing. Whittled down from over 100 tracks, "Cold Brew" is a rollicking good time. With only a scant few songs clocking in at over three minutes, this record takes thick drum beats, fuzzy basslines, and numerous guitar and keyboard production tricks to just make poppy instrumental hooks time and time again. We fully expect to hear tracks like the strutting "STEELSIE" in TV show soundtracks for years to come. A joyous swan song.

Days before the 2020 presidential election, the ever-pointed Jason Isbell put out a bet. If Joe Biden won the state of Georgia, he would create a charity album where he covered nothing but artists from the state he's adopted as his home base. As it turns out, that's exactly what happened, and Isbell lived up to his end of the promise by dropping the sublime "Georgia Blue". Backed as always by his band the 400 Unit and featuring a cavalcade of guests (ranging from Brandi Carlile to Julien Baker to Béla Fleck and Chris Thile), Isbell tears through a litany of familiar classics with passion. 

From unexpected all-timers ("It's a Man's Man's Man's World" with Brittney Spencer) to contemporary standards ("Honeysuckle Blue") to two R.E.M. covers ("Nightswimming" and "Driver 8"), "Georgia Blue" covers a lot of ground and a litany of styles in its hour-plus runtime (admittedly, 12 minutes of that can be contributed to their take on the Allman Brothers' "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed"). Yet to hear Isbell's voice growl and tear its way through the Black Crowes' "Sometimes Salvation" is truly something to behold. Here's hoping he makes more album-producing bets in the future.

Back in 2012, the band Smile quietly released their debut record "A Flash in the Night". Consisting of the Swedish pop greats Björn Yttling (of Peter Bjorn and John) and Joakim Åhlund (of Teddybears and a go-to producing partner for Robyn), the album was a secret pop gem that has become quietly influential in the years that followed, up to the point where in early 2021, the duo was back at it again. However, a series of lockdowns delayed the record multiple times, only finally coming out in November of 2021. Now bolstered by a new Robyn collaboration, the real draw of "Phantom Island" is the kaleidoscopic array of pop styles the duo plays with, jumping from one genre to another with a giddy sense of fun. The strummy acoustic pop of "Landsort" bumps next to the prog-synth workout "Kattens pyjamas" and circles the jumpy wah-guitar workout that is "Dressed for Success". A delightful and unexpected blast for any true pophead, "Phantom Island" is worth booking a trip to.