Rolling Stone's 50 Best Albums of 2014

*High Hopes* is the most unusual album in Bruce Springsteen\'s extensive catalog. It features three covers, two key Springsteen favorites brought up to date—“American Skin (41 Shots)” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad”—and a batch of great songs that are among the most sonically adventurous of the Boss\' career, courtesy of producer Ron Aniello and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello. Versions of Tim Scott McConnell’s “High Hopes” and Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” bookend the record, but it’s Springsteen’s snarling take of Chris Bailey and The Saints’ 1986 single “Just Like Fire Would” that sounds like a lost E Street Band song from their late-\'70s prime. It\'s got the help of the NY Chamber Consort Strings and Morello, who adds heavier guitar touches throughout the album. “Heaven’s Wall” uses the same guests for a very different effect. “Down in the Hole” brings back the brooding synth magic of “I’m on Fire,\" while “The Wall” (a somber, personal tale of visiting the Vietnam War Memorial and remembering guys from the Asbury Park music scene who never returned home), feels like Bruce has struck the nerve that brings about his best work. 

From the spacey opener \"Weight of Love,\" which pulls out a grandiose Pink Floyd-style guitar solo before the vocal even starts, it\'s clear that The Black Keys are thinking big. The album\'s \'70s classic rock vibe gives the Keys a bigger, more cosmic sound, while studio wizard Danger Mouse wraps electronic swirls around Dan Auerbach\'s mountain of guitars. And just when we\'re into the psychedelic groove, the soulful strut of \"Gotta Get Away\" proves the duo\'s roadhouse R&B roots are still right there.

Singer/songwriter/guitar-shredder Annie Clark\'s fourth studio album as St. Vincent is, simply, her best yet. While her catalog is full of twists and turns, including 2013 David Byrne collaboration *Love This Giant*, this self-titled release is both audacious *and* accessible, a canny balancing of Clark\'s experimental leanings with her pop sensibility. Amid a flurry of sonic textures ranging from the clamoring horn section of \"Digital Witness\" to the subdued balladry of \"Prince Johnny,\" Clark critiques our technology-obsessed culture (\"Huey Newton\"), satirizes suburban ennui (\"Birth in Reverse\"), and shares about her love for her mother (\"I Prefer Your Love\"). Her anxieties laid bare, the songwriter asserts herself via pyrotechnic guitar riffs, rhythmic somersaults, and a wayfaring vocal range, resulting in a vertiginous set that\'s as dizzying as it is captivating.

Miranda Lambert is known for being a renegade, unafraid to let it all hang out—and this is probably her loosest album of all. She makes *Platinum* a party, opening up her door to a host of talented friends, including Little Big Town on the slow-rolling, R&B-flavored \"Smokin\' and Drinkin\'\" and Carrie Underwood on the blues-rocking roof-raiser \"Somethin\' Bad.\" And whether she\'s delivering a honky-tonk ode to aging, like \"Gravity Is a B\*\*ch,\" or the wry, folky anthem of anachronism \"Old Shit,\" Lambert sounds supremely comfortable in her own skin.

Despite his reputation as something of a hard-partying rock prankster (not many musicians play a guitar customized with an old beer bottle cap), Mac DeMarco, on record at least, has always been a hopeless romantic. And here, on his second album, the Canadian singer/songwriter effectively leans into loverman mode (just see “Let My Baby Stay”). But “Passing Out Pieces” is a particular marvel: Cast in cloudy synths and dark humor, it’s the sound of slacker rock’s clown prince getting serious.

“As I’m getting older, chip up on my shoulder…” is the opening line from Mac DeMarco’s second full-length LP ‘Salad Days,’ the follow up to 2012’s lauded ‘Mac DeMarco 2.’ Amongst that familiar croon and lilting guitar, that initial line from the title track sets the tone for an LP of a maturing singer/songwriter/producer. Someone strangely self-aware of the positives and negatives of their current situation at the ripe old age of 23. Written and recorded around a relentless tour schedule (which picked up all over again as soon as the LP was done), ‘Salad Days’ gives the listener a very personal insight into what it’s all about to be Mac amidst the craziness of a rising career in a very public format. The lead single, “Passing Out Pieces,” set to huge overdriven organ chords, contains lines like “…never been reluctant to share, passing out pieces of me…” Clearly, Salad Days isn’t the same record that breezily gave us “Dreamin,” and “Ode to Viceroy,” but the result of what comes from their success. “Chamber of Reflection,” a track featuring icy synth stabs and soulful crooning, wouldn’t be out of place on a fantasy Shuggie Otis and Prince collaboration. Standout tracks like these show Mac’s widening sound, whether insights into future directions or even just welcome one-off forays into new territory. Still, this is musically, lyrically and melodically good old Mac DeMarco, through and through. The same crisp John Lennon / Phil Spector era homegrown lush production that could have walked out of Geoff Emerick’s mixing board in 1972, but with that peculiar Mac touch that’s completely of right now. “Brother,” a complete future classic, is Mac at his most soulful and easygoing but with that distinct weirdness and bite that can only come from Mr. DeMarco.“Treat Her Better” is rife with “Mac-isms,” heavily chorused slinky lead guitar, swooning vocal melodies, effortless chords that come along only after years of effort, and the other elements seriously lacking in independent music: sentiment and heartfelt sincerity. We’re only at Part 2 and 1/2 (one EP and two LP’s in) into Mac’s career.

Taylor Swift\'s \'80s-inspired fifth studio effort is her first \"official pop album,\" with heavyweights like Max Martin, Shellback, Ryan Tedder, and Jack Antonoff helping construct a sleeker, glitzier sound. \"Shake It Off\" mimics \"Hey Ya,\" OutKast\'s own pledge of allegiance to populism, and echoes of Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, and Belinda Carlisle can be heard throughout. *1989* is a juggernaut, as brash and brilliant as the lights of Times Square.

A sonic collage artist with a great sense of flow, Flying Lotus (real name Steven Ellison) is the king of instrumental hip-hop. *You’re Dead*, a shape-shifting album with a sense of story, is best listened to from beginning to end. Virtuoso electric bassist and vocalist Thundercat cowrote several tracks. Pianist Herbie Hancock, rappers Kendrick Lamar and Snoop Dogg, violinist/arranger Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, singer Angel Deradoorian (who’s worked with The Dirty Projectors), and others also contribute to this expansive effort. Jazz, prog-rock, fusion, funk, and other elements are bent and stretched; the intriguing result dissolves genre borders.

*Sonic Highways* is an album accompanying the Dave Grohl–directed documentary of the same name, which follows the Foos as they explore American music\'s roots in cities like Chicago, Austin, and Los Angeles. While Grohl\'s lyrics are lifted from interviews with greats like Buddy Guy and Dr. John, the band keep their driving alt-rock sound intact. \"Outside\" rides a gnarled punk bassline to a cathartic chorus and includes a guitar solo from Joe Walsh, while \"Congregation,\" tracked in Nashville, boasts a Southern rock crunch. With its epic, string-section grandeur, the standout \"I Am a River\" captures the resiliency of New York, the city where it was recorded.

Adjectives describing Montreal\'s Ought—such as “nervous,” “jittery,” and “art school”—likely also bring to mind a number of bands from the revered 1978-1985 postpunk landscape. Ought still maintain an outsider status, probably due to their lack (so far) of anything resembling a quirky, three-minute anti-pop song. This debut is exciting, taut, unpredictable, and imploding with an edgy energy that seems rare these days (at least when bombast isn’t part of the equation). Tracks like “The Weather Song” thrill the most when a rocky rhythm suddenly yields to a fast-moving montage of enthusiastic electric piano pounding, snare bashing, and singer Tim Beeler all duking it out. Or when slow, dripping tunes like “Habit” feature Beeler drowsily warning: “I feel/a habit/I feel a habit forming” for the last two minutes, wrought with reluctance and zero satisfaction with the situation. The opening track (“Pleasant Heart”) and the closer (“Gemini”) are ferocious and furious, the former roiling with the epitome of clanging, postpunk angular-ness and the latter building from a restrained aggressiveness to all-out rage over its nearly seven minutes.

Weezer return to their roots here, hiring back original producer Ric Ocasek of The Cars to mold their indelible hooks into sleek punk rock–based new wave hits. Leader Rivers Cuomo mostly ditches his experimental side and focuses on guitar-based rock songs. “Eulogy for a Rock Band” celebrates the music’s potential brilliance. “Lonely Girl” features a blazing guitar solo, and “I’ve Had It Up to Here” shows off Cuomo’s expansive vocal range. Ocasek and Cuomo clearly understand one another and together know how to get the best from every song; even the prog-rock trilogy that ends Weezer’s ninth studio album is kept tight.

*Transgender Dysphoria Blues* is a powerful album that features many changes. Two previous band members (drummer Jay Weinberg and bassist Andrew Seward) had left the group, leaving just guitarist James Bowman and guitarist/leader Laura Jane Grace. However, as the album title and songs make clear, Grace—who’d made previous references to wishing she’d been born a woman—was now going through the changes and issues that come with transitioning one’s gender. As music, the songs on *Transgender Dysphoria Blues* are more powerful than ever: electric punk-pop (in place of folk-punk-pop) that shows that this Florida band are fully capable of performing under pressure. In fact, Grace now writes songs with stronger hook-filled melodies and a better-defined sense of purpose. The emotions of the agitated bellows of “Drinking with the Jocks” and the hummable melody of “F\*\*\*MYLIFE666” are so refreshingly honest and heartfelt that it’s just as incredible that Grace and Bowman crafted the record as a universal cry for anyone who\'s struggled with their identity or place in the world.

FKA twigs’ first full-length album brims with spartan, icy songs that whisk between distorted R&B and ethereal pop. While twigs’ pristine vocals and sensual lyrics are the cornerstone, *LP1* showcases the kind of confident production and instrumentation that play easily alongside celebrated pop minimalists like James Blake. Album highlight “Pendulum\" sees FKA twigs dabbling in manipulated vocals, as wavering guitars and electric drums stutter-step intoxicatingly, while “Video Girl” finds her melodic falsetto fluttering over churning, wobbling synths and creaking percussion.

After a prolific first decade as a recording artist—between the band Rilo Kiley, her solo efforts, and side collaborations, she released eight full-length albums—Jenny Lewis took her time working on *The Voyager*, her third solo album. The six years that followed her sophomore release (2008\'s *Acid Tongue*) let Lewis refine and polish these 10 buoyant tracks. Working with two producers who are worthy of her wickedly intelligent songwriting—Ryan Adams and Beck—she devised her most mature and confident album to date. Lewis has rarely sounded in greater command of her versatile vocal gifts, from the sharp, vaulting chorus of the beat-driven opener, “Head Underwater”—which chronicles her emergence from a dark period (“I put my head underwater, baby/I held my breath until it passed”)—to the classic soul melody of “She’s Not Me” and the pleading western noir “You Can’t Outrun ‘Em.” The effervescent, summery production contrasts thoughtfully with Lewis’ piercing lyrics, which find her surveying life with restlessness and resignation in equal measure.

From the man who defined singer/songwriting in the \'70s comes an album that fulfills the promise of his classic albums *Late from the Sky* and *Running on Empty*. *Standing in the Breach* is a strong, focused album. “The Birds of St. Marks”—a song he’s been finishing since 1967—is brought to perfection. “Yeah Yeah,” “The Long Way Around,” and “Leaving Winslow” feature Browne’s detailed lyricism and first-rate melodies. The cowrite on Woody Guthrie’s “You Know the Night” and translation of Cuban songwriter Carlos Varela’s “Walls and Doors” benefit from Browne’s soothing delivery.

Even though many of the songs on *Are We There* muse on the pain of difficult relationships (plainly evident in the titles of tunes like “Your Love Is Killing Me” and “I Love You But I’m Lost”), Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter Sharon Van Etten sounds strikingly confident on the follow-up to her stellar 2012 album, *Tramp*. Whether she’s leading a dusky, after-hours synth-rock dirge (“Break Me”) or mournful piano ballad (the sublime “I Know”), Van Etten is brilliantly self-possessed. Alternating between a chilling whisper and throaty wail, the songwriter\'s forceful yearning—for sleep, for patience, for a romantic silver lining—unifies much of *Are We There*. But in such capable hands, suffering has rarely sounded so good.

Sharon Van Etten writes from a place of free-flowing honesty and vulnerability to create a bond with the listener that few contemporary musicians can match. 'Are We There' is a self-produced album of exceptional intimacy, sublime generosity, and immense breadth.

The title tune is a raging outlaw anthem full of stadium-sized hard-rock riffs, but it\'s followed by the sparsely produced, intensely inward-looking ballad \"A Man Who Was Gonna Die Young.\" Church manages to maintain the dynamic tension between these two poles throughout the album; \"A Cold One\" and \"That\'s Damn Rock & Roll\" explode with bluesy, roughneck rock licks, while \"Talladega\" and \"Like a Wrecking Ball\" stick to an impressively soulful simmer. The most strikingly ambitious track falls outside of this template, though; the eight-minute \"Princess of Darkness/Devil, Devil\" is an ode to surviving Nashville that starts with a poetic spoken-word piece and segues into a grinding blues-rock stomper. Now, *that\'s* how an outlaw rolls.

Four years after his EP *Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites* remade the music landscape—introducing \"the drop\" to mainstream pop audiences and the visage of its ragamuffin purveyor to nervous parents the world over—Skrillex releases his debut album. In the years since *Scary Monsters*, Skrillex (a.k.a. Sonny Moore) has become a global phenomenon, and his sound has expanded accordingly: *Recess* is a dizzying tour through the sonic palette of global dance music. K-Pop stars CL and G-Dragon show up on the sputtering \"Dirty Vibe,\" legendary jungle MCs The Ragga Twins light up the album opener \"All Is Fair in Love and Bro Step,\" and Chicago\'s astral-traveling MC Chance the Rapper drops a verse on the standout track \"Coast Is Clear,\" which references drum \'n\' bass with its feather-light beat. Dubstep scholars will drool over “F\*\*k That,\" a fathoms-deep speaker-melter that recalls the genre\'s early days. But lest anyone think Skrillex is here to teach a history lesson, a song like \"Recess\" delivers the supple sonic textures and quizzically catchy hooks that have earned him his stripes. As erudite as it is pleasurable, *Recess* was worth the wait.

With 2011’s *Slave Ambient*, The War on Drugs offered a collection of emotionally rich, guitar-driven grandeur that earned songwriter/bandleader Adam Granduciel accolades from far beyond his hometown scene in Philadelphia. The War on Drugs’ fourth full-length operates with a bigger, bolder agenda—evident in the clattering electronics and hypnotic production of the nearly nine-minute opener, “Under the Pressure”. From there, *Lost in the Dream* unfolds with warm, melancholic rock that combines Granduciel’s mystical tenor with a blurry haze of vintage synths, chiming guitars, horn accents and reverb-soaked ambience. Uptempo tracks like “Red Eyes” and “An Ocean in Between the Waves” juxtapose pulsing, mechanical backbeats with droning synths. Ballads, like the heartbreaking “Suffering” and the gently paced title track, float along in a beautiful fog. After *Lost in the Dream* closes with a couple of minutes of wordless feedback, the album leaves a hypnotic, lingering impression.

'Lost In The Dream' is the third album by Philadelphia band The War on Drugs, but in many ways, it feels like the first. Around the release of the 2011 breakthrough 'Slave Ambient', Adam Granduciel spent the bulk of two years on the road, touring through progressively larger rock clubs, festival stages and late-night television slots. As these dozen songs shifted and grew beyond what they’d been in the studio, The War on Drugs became a bona fide rock ’n’ roll band. That essence drives 'Lost In The Dream', a 10-song set produced by Granduciel and longtime engineer Jeff Zeigler. In the past, Granduciel built the core of songs largely by himself. But these tunes were played and recorded by the group that had solidified so much on the road: Dave Hartley, (his favorite bassist in the world), who had played a bit on The War on Drugs’ 2008 debut 'Wagonwheel Blues', and pianist Robbie Bennett, a multi-instrumentalist who contributed to 'Slave Ambient'. This unit spent eight months bouncing between a half-dozen different studios that stretched from the mountains of North Carolina to the boroughs of New York City. Only then did Granduciel—the proudly self-professed gearhead, and unrepentant perfectionist—add and subtract, invite guests and retrofit pieces. He sculpted these songs into a musical rescue mission, through and then beyond personal despair and anxiety. 'Lost In The Dream' represents the trials of the trip and the triumphs of its destination.

The Canadian poet and singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen teamed up with producer Patrick Leonard, a man who’s previously handled the more limber rhythms of Madonna. Together, they made a soothing yet adventurous album: Cohen’s 13th studio release, *Popular Problems*. “Nevermind” coasts on a pulsing synth-led beat while the expected female vocal choir unexpectedly turns to an Arabic chant for peace (“salaam”). “My Oh My” adds a touch of horns. But while this expands the musical portion of Cohen’s efforts, the focus here is still on his rumbling voice (which sounds like he’s met Moses) and his lyrics (which never settle for passable when transcendent is still within reach). Cohen claims “Born in Chains” took 40 years to get right. On the opening track, Cohen turns the joke on himself. “Slow,” he admits, is how he likes most things, as if his fans hadn’t noticed. Getting it right is more important than rushing to keep pace. “A Street” turns its attention to 9/11 with a poignancy that resonates 13 years after that horrible day, with a lingering ache guiding Cohen’s continued eloquence and honesty. 

Though Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers are considered a raw, no-nonsense rock ’n’ roll band, they’ve also always understood the value of smart production. They love to rock—make no mistake—but they also love to make records. 2014’s *Hypnotic Eye* makes that obvious with the timely “American Dream Plan B,” where the band’s textures alter from verse to chorus with ease. It\'s the result of Petty, his right-hand man Mike Campbell (a multi-instrumentalist), and coproducer Ryan Ulyate knowing intuitively how to make basic rock sound multidimensional in the studio—and hopefully on the radio. “Full Grown Boy” provides a light, swinging touch from Benmont Tench’s jazzy piano hands, making the return of Campbell’s electric guitar riffs on “All You Can Carry” a powerful left hook. The sound is often aggressive, as if the guys were hammering things out in the garage out back (“Red River,” “Power Drunk,” “Forgotten Man”). Yet three years in the making suggests that great care and thought went into the emotional immediacy of another powerful and heartfelt Heartbreakers album.

*This Is All Yours* is replete with a mesmeric, album-opening “Intro” of revolving vocal snippets and the disarming, pre-halftime instrumental interlude “Garden of England.” It includes the mischievous guitar groove of “Left Hand Free,” the spectral, Bon Iver-like beauty of “Warm Foothills” and the Miley Cyrus-sampling hypnotics of “Hunger of the Pine.” 

Parquet Courts’ highly flammable third album clinches their place as one of the best—and smartest—rock bands of the post-grunge era. They\'re capable of mixing psychedelic looseness with the muscle of hardcore (“Sunbathing Animal”), odd post-punk experiments (“Vienna II”) with rambling, romantic ballads (“Instant Disassembly”), blues with Black Flag (“Ducking & Dodging”), and poetic visions with moments of hilarious plain-spokenness (“Whoever she might be going to bed with/You can read about that in her Moleskine,” goes a line on “Dear Ramona”). Students of history without being beholden to it, the band manages to synthesize about 70 years of guitar music into a strange, lopsided groove all their own.

The year and change since the release of Parquet Courts monumental Light Up Gold is reflected in ways expected and not with Sunbathing Animal, its sharper, harder follow up. Light Up Gold caught the ears of everyone paying even a little bit of attention, garnering glowing reviews across the board for its weird colors and raw energy, saturated punk songs that offered crystal clear lyrical snapshots of city life. It was immediately memorable, a vivid portrait of ragged days, listlessness, aimlessness and urgency, broadcast with the intimacy of hearing a stranger's thoughts as you passed them on the street. As it goes with these things, the band went on tour for a short eternity, spending most of 2013 on the road, their sound growing more direct in the process and their observations expanding beyond life at home. Constant touring was broken up by three recording sessions that would make up the new album, and the time spent in transit comes through in repeated lyrical themes of displacement, doubt and situational captivity. To be sure, Sunbathing Animal isn't a record about hopelessness, as any sort of incarceration implies an understanding of freedom and peace of mind. Fleeting moments of bliss are also captured in its grooves, and extended at length as if to preserve them. Pointed articulations of these ideas are heard as schizoid blues rants, shrill guitar leads, purposefully lengthy repetition and controlled explosions, reaching their peak on the blistering title track. A propulsive projection of how people might play the blues 300 years from now, "Sunbathing Animal" is a roller coaster you can't get off, moving far too fast and looping into eternity. Much as Light Up Gold and the subsequent EP Tally All The Things That You Broke offered a uniquely tattered perspective on everyday city life, Sunbathing Animal applies the same layered thoughts and sprawling noise to more cerebral, inward- looking themes. While heightened in its heaviness and mania, the album also represents a huge leap forward in terms of songwriting and vision. Still rooted firmly in the unshackled exploration and bombastic playing of their earlier work,everything here is amplified in its lucidity and intent. The songs wander through threads of blurry brilliance, exhaustion and fury at the hilt of every note. Parquet Courts remain, Austin Brown, A. Savage, Sean Yeaton, and M. Savage.

You can purchase this album on vinyl or CD at store.spoontheband.com.

The second solo album from Thom Yorke shares with its predecessor an exclusive reliance on keyboards and electronics to accompany the Radiohead frontman\'s haunting vocals. But *Tomorrow\'s Modern Boxes* is sparser and less groove-driven than *The Eraser*. While a couple of tunes are fueled by modified house beats, pieces like the beatless, ethereal instrumental \"Pink Section\" and the delicately floating \"Interference\" allow Yorke to achieve the kind of sonic simplicity that becomes difficult when you\'ve got a whole band\'s ideas to contend with.

In 2014, Prince released two LPs simultaneously: the 3RDEYEGIRL collaboration *PLECTRUMELECTRUM* and this solo outing. Ostensibly a concept album about a man who wakes up 45 years in the future, *ART OFFICIAL AGE* is a sprawling, spacey R&B fantasia. While the techno beat and airhorns that adorn the playful “ART OFFICIAL CAGE” slyly wink at the era’s fascination with digital recording technology, the album is also a return to form: The slinky, funked-out stunner “CLOUDS” and the pop-ballad odyssey “BREAKDOWN” feel like classics from a bygone era.

Alvvays are two women, three men, a crate of cassettes and a love of jingle-jangle. Molly Rankin and Kerri MacLellan grew up as next-door neighbours in Cape Breton, lifting fiddles and folk-songs. Heartbreaks of different shades soon entered their lives, as did the music of Teenage Fanclub and Belle & Sebastian. Similar noisy melancholy drifted over to Prince Edward Island, finding Alec O'Hanley, Brian Murphy and Philip MacIsaac. Convening in Toronto, the group have been making music since dusk or maybe dawn, when stars were appearing or fading off. As a result, their debut self-titled album is both sun-splashed and twilit -- nine songs concealing drunkenness, defeat and death in tungsten-tinted pop that glitters like sea glass. With needlepoint melody and verse, Rankin and O'Hanley's songs were recorded at Chad VanGaalen's Yoko Eno studio and mixed by Graham Walsh (Holy Fuck) and John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Kurt Vile). The resultant album is loud and clear and sure. Flood your ears.

The New Orleans–based bluesman Benjamin Booker created a near-immediate stir before he’d released a thing, stunning audiences at industry showcases and at Lollapalooza with a sound clearly influenced by the greasy garage rock of The White Stripes. A summer jam session with Jack White and an opening performance on White’s tour seemed to be the seal of approval necessary to prove Booker was, in fact, the real deal. This self-titled debut album made with Alabama Shakes’ producer Andrija Tokic is a pure effort that captures the young man in various settings, from the self-explanatory vibe of “Violent Shiver” to the organ-led soul ballad “Slow Coming.” The hard-shuffling power of “Wicked Waters” demonstrates the no-nonsense appeal of music that comes from the gut. The catchy cadences of “Have You Seen My Son?” were part of Booker’s TV debut and made strong impressions on the late-night-TV crowd, who immediately recognized this man’s obvious talents. For anyone who thinks rock ’n’ roll is dead, play them this set. It’s one great rock ’n’ roll album. 

Following the liquid beats of his 2010 breakout, *Swim*, Caribou’s Dan Snaith has fallen further in love with the dance floor. In his entrancing follow-up, *Our Love*, Snaith blends house, hip-hop, garage, and vintage soul. On “Can’t Do Without You,” Snaith flips a slowed-down soul sample into a vocal mantra that eventually bursts amidst rave-ready synths, while on late highlight “Mars,” he mixes intricate drum patterns, hip-hop samples, and one very nimble flute melody.

When *Lazaretto* roars to action with the sweltering, Hammond-driven rocker “Three Women,” Jack White is on familiar terrain, unleashing a supercharged, garagey blues riff that’s as archetypal as the theme. But when the “red, blonde, and brunette” ladies in question appear in a “digital photograph,” the anachronism is a striking reminder of White’s gift for recasting classic musical elements in arrestingly modern contexts. There are plenty of such moments on *Lazaretto*, like when the title track’s heavy bass rumble is augmented with a squall of 8-bit Atari noise *and* a vaguely Appalachian fiddle solo. Throughout, White’s brand of heated, high-powered blues-rock dominates, but he mixes things up with breezy, country-inflected charmers (“Temporary Ground”, “Entitlement”) and eerie, would-be spaghetti western themes (“Would You Fight for My Love?” “I Think I Found the Culprit”). The album’s best tracks, like “Alone in My Home” and “Just One Drink,” combine all of the above in a heady, hot-blooded, hook-oriented package.

On his first album in 13 years, Richard D. James, the godfather of cerebral electronic music, is in top form. This isn\'t a comeback, nor a departure of any kind: *Syro* sounds like highly concentrated, classic Aphex Twin, a singular aesthetic that dates all the way back to 1982: beat patterns wiggle into the foreground, then disappear; analog synths snap, crackle and pop; moods vacillate between aggressively percussive and smoothly melodic. These tracks – they work together like one long set -- demand to be listened to with excellent headphones, the better to discern their highly intricate sequencing, arguably some of James\' most ambitious. Each tune is teeming with juicy noise, all of it gleefully arranged. What comes through most is joy: it sounds like James is having so much fun. 

Over the course of two astonishing albums, Perfume Genius, aka Seattle native Mike Hadreas, cemented his place as a singer-songwriter of rare frankness, creating songs that, while achingly emotional, offered empathy and hope, rather than any judgment or handwringing. Sparse, gorgeous and with Hadreas’ quavering vocals often only accompanied by piano, they were uncommonly beautiful tales of a life lived on the dark side – scarred, brutalised, yet ultimately, slowly but surely reclaimed. Too Bright, however, is something else altogether. Less self-conscious, and less concerned with storytelling and easily-digested melodies, it is a brave, bold, unpredictably quixotic exploration of what Hadreas calls “an underlying rage that has slowly been growing since ten and has just begun to bubble up”. Recorded with Adrian Utley of Portishead and featuring John Parish on several tracks, it is a stunning about-face which brings to mind audacious career-shift albums like Kate Bush’s The Dreaming or Scott Walker’s Tilt, records which walk the tightrope between pure songwriting and overt experimentation.

The star power of the guests on Future\'s second album—Kanye, Drake, Pharrell, Lil Wayne, and André 3000, among others—speaks to the near-insurmountable heights the Atlanta rapper has reached since his 2012 debut, *Pluto*. That he shows them all up explains how he got there. Take \"I Won,\" a solemn beat over which Kanye and Future exult their \"trophy\" wives. Where \'Ye rifles off shallow boasts, Future\'s verses are sincere, almost touching. On the sprightly surprise standout \"Benz Friendz,\" Future\'s ATL bro André 3000 dances around the whimsical beats like a peacock, but it\'s Future\'s husky baritone that brings the party. Dominated by Mike WiLL Made It\'s 16-ton production (tracks like \"My Momma\" and \"Honest\" lumber like they\'re dragging chains), *Honest* demolishes the line between hip-hop and R&B. Its Auto-Tune hooks, rat-a-tat verses, and confessional lyrics exemplify the best of both genres in 2014.

Recorded at Electric Lady Studios and Atomic Sound in New York City, the ten tracks on ‘El Pintor,’ - taut and epic in equal measure - find the band completely reinvigorated after a three year break from touring. All songs on ‘El Pintor’ were written and produced by Interpol, with Daniel Kessler playing guitar, Samuel Fogarino on drums, and Paul Banks on vocals, guitars, and taking over bass duties for the first time. The album also features Brandon Curtis (The Secret Machines) playing keyboard on nine songs, Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. (Beck) playing keyboard on “Tidal Wave,” and Rob Moose (Bon Iver) playing violin and viola on "Twice as Hard.” ‘El Pintor’ was mixed by Alan Moulder, and mastered by Greg Calbi.

Gary Clark Jr. is one of the most popular and most deserving bluesman working the genre in 2014. Often when somebody reaches Clark’s level of recognition, there’s a temptation to branch out into pop or rock, and Clark has indeed injected his playing with touches of hip-hop and soul, sparingly. But he largely sticks to the electric blues here on this expansive live album. Recorded during an 18-month tour in 2013 and 2014, *Live* deserves to be the crown jewel in the Texas guitar wizard’s catalog. The blues has always been a live music, meant to be heard in bars and clubs worldwide, with the players improvising on the basic framework until they find a way to somewhere new. The vintage soul groove of “Things Are Changin’” provides a change of pace after the intense blues workouts of Lowell Fulson’s “Three O’Clock Blues” and Robert Petway’s “Catfish Blues.” The medley of Albert Collins’ “If You Love Me Like You Say” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone from the Sun” provides 10 minutes of blazing inspiration, while Collins’ “If Trouble Was Money” is yet another highlight. 

The band’s gift for soaring melodies is evident throughout *Ghost Stories*—particularly on the magnetic first single, “Magic.” Chris Martin’s heart-rending falsetto floats along in a haze of synth-washed ambience (as on the entrancing *Kid A*–influenced “Midnight”) or sparely accompanied by acoustic instruments (“Oceans,” “O”). *Ghost Stories* demonstrates the expressive power of understatement.

Purchase physical copies here: neurotrecordings.merchtable.com/artists/yob ____________________________________________________________ Two years after leveling the expectations of critics and listeners alike with Atma, doom trio powerhouse YOB unleashes Clearing The Path To Ascend, an aptly titled album for what will undoubtedly be the crowning achievement for a band whose journey now nears two decades of creating music as commanding as it is cathartic. As is the YOB way, the tracks here don’t simply offer a vacuous glimpse into the already riff-soaked doom genre. These songs demand the tandem attention of mind, body, and soul – etching a mark across a sound that finds YOB as formidable and unequaled as they’ve ever been. True ascension requires a destruction of those barriers that prevent any movement forward. Unsurprisingly, YOB pummels any and all of these obstacles with absolute authority, clearing the way for a genuinely visceral listening experience and climbing upward into a realm that sets the band in a heavy metal place that has been and will always remain wholly their own. YOB’s music is not unlike the path that’s led them to their current place among heavy metal’s elite, slowly building from a hushed ethereal vapor into the thunderous and masterful tumult of sound domination. The ethereal mists of Eugene, Oregon no doubt provided the perfect catalyst for founding member and vocalist Mike Scheidt to call up the signature of surging doom that would soon come to garner YOB its current position as one of the most respected and revered bands in all of heavy metal. While giving due sonic credit to cornerstone influences such as Cathedral, Sleep, Electric Wizard, and Black Sabbath – YOB immediately set out to define a sound wholly singular and utterly devastating in its cathartic enormity, incomparable to any other music being created at the time. Those threads of progressive rock and drone that have always underscored the music of YOB are now fully realized with Clearing The Path To Ascend, as each track forges into the next with a ferocity that’s as completely unhinged as it is utterly focused. Drummer Travis Foster wields his signature rhythmic furor here with bombastic precision while bassist, Aaron Rieseberg, coils around the sonic tide with an unforgiving churn – all the while in a deadly synchronicity with Scheidt’s uncanny vocal range and its pendulous movement between the triumphant howls of a medieval madman and the earth splitting growls of a war-battered titan. With Clearing The Path To Ascend, YOB explores a thunderous dimension that’s familiar in its auditory clout but completely new in the execution of its trajectory, taking the band’s sound into a remarkable place as ethereally compelling in its aesthetic as it is merciless in the magnitude of its sound.