Wale The Gifted

The-Drum Contact

Chi-Town dance-floor retro-futurists honor their forebears by not aping them

Steve Gunn Time Off

Kurt Vile cohort has a ramshackle six-string beauty all his own.

Sigur Ros Kveikur

Art rock's weirdest mainstream success story butch it up to delightful effect

Jimmy Eat World Damage

Aspirational mall-rockers don't write themselves off yet.

Kelly Rowland Talk a Good Game

Brave, triumphant, visionary R&B; from Beyoncé's very good friend (honest).

J. Cole Born Sinner

Young rapper proves that superstar envy does not a superstar make.

Zomby With Love

Dance-floor enigma sprawls out with results more overwhelming than electrifying.

Kanye West Yeezus

The SPIN Review by Greg Tate

Jason Isbell Southeastern

Alt-country wordsmith deftly triangulates Elvis Costello and Flannery O'Connor.

Fat Tony Smart Ass Black Boy

More nerd-rap odes plaints about gentrification, Jetta fellatio, Groupons, and other pressing matters.

Black Sabbath 13

Metal gods, possibly estranged for longer than you've been alive, refuse to evolve (or embarrass) themselves

The Lonely Island The Wack Album

America's preeminent joke-rap trio struggles with the ol' signal-to-noise ratio

Laura Mvula Sing to the Moon

Heartbroken Brit uses orchestral elegance and bracing maturity to make "Gospeldelic" a thing

Alice in Chains The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here

Zombie-grunge weirdos carve a little more nostalgia-friendly meat off them bones

Camera Obscura Desire Lines

More lovely, literate, lachrymose Scottish pop, more crowd-pleasing than ever

Eleanor Friedberger Personal Record

The prog-pop indie queen further mines simpler, sweeter solo pleasures.

Queens of the Stone Age ...Like Clockwork

More unbearable tension and hard-won release from the Sexiest Heavy Group on the Planet