Warm Chris blends the breezier '70s folk of 2019's Designer with the jazz explorations and the dark chamber pop of 2017's Party. As usual, the idiosyncrasy and mystique of the Kiwi folk star's songwriting is thrilling with Harding unafraid to treat the ridiculous and the sublime with equal reverence. It’s this unpredictability that keeps the listener constantly on their toes, perplexed and enthralled all at once.

Labyrinthitis brims with mystic and intoxicating terrain, circuitously drawing ever inward, with each turn offering giddy surprise, anxious esoterica, and thumping emotionality at equal odds. While Bejar initially envisioned it as a straight dance record (“just like Donna Summer’s greatest hits”), that simple notion is exploded into a million shining pieces, finding joy in mutual discovery instead of isolated certainty.

Like all good Afrofuturist stories, it begins with an existential crisis. "It's darker than anything we've done previously," says Eno Williams, the group's singer. Produced by British synthpop group Hot Chip, a collaboration born out of a shared love of Francis Bebey and Giorgio Moroder, Electricity reveals a gleaming, supercharged, Afrofuturist blinder.

Asking Alexandria teams up for the first time with Better Noise Music for their seventh studio album, See What's On the Inside. The band returns with a revival and a rebirth after spending the winter of 2021 living in the studio, the first time they had spent an extended period alone together writing and recording in over a decade. The product is the truest album by the band yet.

Tell Me That It’s Over gives Wallows the opportunity to dive further into the exploration that they started on their first album, informed by everything from lo-fi post-punk to indie-folk to early-’90s dance-pop psychedelia. These 10 tracks bounce of the walls with an as much sadistic glee as nervous energy. There’s an innate ability present that makes any day that much sunnier with every listen.

After a decade building a reputation as one of the most ferociously creative art-rock groups working, Famously Alive finds Guerilla Toss coming into the fullness of their power, celebrating their prismatic idiosyncrasies from a place of optimism and abundance. It is a joyous album, equal parts bizarre, accessible, and fun, built off psychedelic texturing and Krautrock syncopation with the gloss and glow of contemporary pop music.

In the five tracks that make up Absent In Body‘s debut record, the band delivers music that is furiously spiritual. Its harshness is balanced by tranquil progressions that stir the mind – that lull listeners into a state where there is calm and storm. Made up of brilliant musicians Amenra’s Mathieu J. Vandekerckhove and Colin H. Van Eeckhout, Neurosis’ Scott Kelly, and ex-Sepultura’s Igor Cavelera.

Like the creeks that run and tributaries that trickle throughout singer-songwriter Ian Noe’s homelands in Eastern Kentucky, water flows throughout his new LP. Thoughtfully and intentionally named, River Fools & Mountain Saints highlights Noe’s storytelling prowess through 12 country rockers and Appalachian ballads, depicting contemporary and historical life in the region.

Like only the most gifted storytellers, Matisyahu spins the rare kind of stories that simultaneously enlighten, enthrall and expand the audience’s sense of possibility. On his eponymous new album, the Grammy Award-nominated singer/songwriter/rapper shares his most autobiographical work to date, merging that personal revelation with a shapeshifting collision of reggae and hip-hop and boldly inventive pop.

Like their sci-fi-noir rock contemporaries Garbage, Placebo are a band to which music is finally catching up. Nine years on from their seventh album Loud Like Love, Never Let Me Go finds their brooding cyber rock gently tweaked and polished – a little more synth, a touch more buzz and clatter – yet sounding as timely and relevant to future rock trends as ever.

Kelly’s ability to churn out infectious bangers is present here in his second collaborative project with drummer/producer Travis Barker. “emo girl” is a bucketload of charm; serving as a playful twist on the classic, doe-eyed poppy love song – the lyrics are so ridiculously self-aware that you can’t help but love it. And the Bring Me The Horizon feature ‘maybe’ is also a total delight, with Linkin Park-y guitars and a slick, irresistible flow.

Steve Poltz is a living example of the American music tradition, a songwriter who can bend your ear with a hooky melody, then break your heart with a wry observation about the human condition. Now in Nashville, Poltz enlisted members of The Wood Brothers for Stardust and Satellites - an album dealing with loss (he's lost both parent's in the past two years), simple joys and childhood memories.

Possessing one of the most distinctive and recognizable voices on the planet, former Men at Work frontman Colin Hay faces down struggle, loss and the existential questions about mortality on Now and The Evermore. It’s a defiantly joyful celebration of life and love drawing on vintage pop charm, pub rock muscle, and folk sincerity to forge a sound that's at once playful and profound, clever and compassionate, whimsical and earnest.

Fighting Demons, the fourth studio album and second posthumous album from Juice WRLD, is now available on vinyl, CD, and cassette with features from Justin Bieber, Polo G, Trippie Redd, Suga of BTS and more. It serves as a tie-in for an HBO-produced documentary titled Juice Wrld: Into the Abyss.

Approaching nearly 30 years since the beginning of their journey as one of Swedish Black Metal's most genuine and unvarnished exemplars, Dark Funeral continue to reach for new heights to bring audiences into its otherworldly & unholy visions on the band's seventh full-length. The new record sees the Satanic vanguards deliver their most aggressive and expansive songs to date.

Antidawn reduces Burial's music to just the vapours by exploring an interzone between dislocated, patchwork songwriting and eerie, open-world game-space ambience. In the resulting no man's land, lyrics take precedence over song, lonely phrases color the haze, a stark and fragmented structure makes time slow down. The result is both comforting and disturbing, producing a quiet and uncanny glow against the cold.

The release of their critically acclaimed 2020 album, Nothing As The Ideal, would’ve traditionally been followed by a lengthy 18-month tour across the globe. But those plans (and the world) were brought to a halt. This did not stop All Them Witches from assembling to broadcast a live set for their fans. That 16-song set, roundly received as an amazing performance, is now available on 6 variations of color vinyl across 3 LPs.

Kaina creates generational music that surpasses borders, a unified expression of her native Chicago, and her Venezuelan and Guatemalan heritage. On It Was A Home, she deepens that storied lyricism through a sound that is gentle, yet full of intent while exploring love, legacy, and ancestry with self-reflection and self-love and how her upbringing allowed her to occupy that emotional space.

Ghost, one of the most esteemed and celebrated rock bands in the world today, return with their fifth psalm, Impera, fronted by the newly anointed Papa Emeritus IV. A dozen songs take on themes of isolation and demigod worship, as well as colonization of both space and mind. And all with the infectious hooky brand of rock their fans have grown accustomed.

Classic Objects is a map of places; past places, like the old empty Melbourne pubs Hval’s band used to play in, public places Hval missed throughout lockdown, imagined, future places, and impossible places where dreams, hallucinations, death and art can take you. It’s also Hval’s version of a pop album, mixed to sound as though it’s played through a stereo in a mysterious room.

Five Legged Dog — a four album acoustic retrospective/covers tribute, is a testament to Melvins’ unmatched work ethic and their penchant for pushing the envelope, then shredding it to bits. Said Melvins founder, Buzz Osborne, “One acoustic record seems like a joke and two is pretty normal, but doing FOUR?!? That’s like going to war against an army of gorillas on LSD.”

“The pandemic and lockdown really brought home the truth that spontaneity can be taken away,” said Adams. “The title song 'So Happy It Hurt' is about freedom, autonomy, spontaneity, and the thrill of the open road. The album of the same name touches on many of the ephemeral things in life that are really the secret to happiness, most importantly, human connection.”

A twenty track chronological journey through Franz Ferdinand’s career to date, Hits To The Head effortlessly runs through early singles, including the megahit “Take Me Out” while reminding us of their dancefloor appeal with cult classics “Michael” and “This Fire” standing out as forgotten indie bangers. A perfect reminder of their lasting importance and a celebration of feel-good outsider indie anthems.

Financial troubles and tornados among other things (ahem, pandemic) called for a stop-start recording process. But out of hardship the strong survive, and Rebelator is more than just survival. There is massive power in the playing here, but the down time seems to have added a freshness and a crispness to their sound. More melodies, more hooks, more experimentation. There’s hope in this heavy.