album reviews

On Sufjan Stevens’ spare, lo-fi and brilliant new album, joy wages epic battle with desperation and mortality. Spoiler alert: joy wins.

On his previous album, Kendrick Lamar was a filmmaker. On his new one, he’s a writer — and maybe one of the best of his generation.

When a network TV show audaciously shuns Etch-a-Sketch plotting for genuinely complex subject matter, it's something worth celebrating.

Freedy Johnston bows to no one living as a creator of songs of lasting value — intimate, strange, universal. His latest album is no exception.

Filled with songs that are a mysterious amalgam of the personal and the universal, the legendary Rickie Lee Jones' new album is one of her best.

A Guided by Voices superfan ponders the creative rebirth of his spiritual guide Robert Pollard.

Disheartened with his current listening options, Trevor Dunn finds musical solace in the action-packed score for Orphan Black.

Performing a homage can be more difficult than writing an original, but the artists on the new Karen Dalton tribute album acquit themselves nicely.

By making a rock album, David Duchovny is trying something different, and for that he gets a lot of props.

She might be tardy to the party, but PINS' singer has fallen hard for the dystopic sparkle of No Joy. Now she just needs to see them live.

Complex and multifaceted, Lantern shows that Hudson Mohawke has more strings to his bow than just being one of Mr. West’s bombastic beatlords.

Faith No More's reunion album totally sounds like a '90s record, yet it breaks new ground. Our writer explains.