The Sacrament of Sin is the seventh studio album from German power-metal outfit Powerwolf and follows their 2015 release Blessed & Possessed. Recorded at the beginning of 2018 at the Fascination Street Studios in Örebrö, Sweden with producer Jens Bogren (Amon Amarth, Opeth), the album sees the group deliver a collection of bold, anthemic power metal in their trademark style.© Rich Wilson /TiVo

The number of metal bands formed after the turn of the century that have managed to become real headliners can be counted on one's fingers. Powerwolf is one of them. Call of the Wild is their tenth album: the group was formed in 2004 and has been releasing records like clockwork ever since. The band has stuck, limpet-like, to its chosen style (power metal) from the outset. But over the years it has added various spices to its unchanged basic recipe in order to avoid the "photocopier" effect that plagues this rather formalised genre. The increasingly grandiloquent Powerwolf serves up a collection of hymns with some larger than life choruses. Increasingly focused on arrangements worthy of a big-screen film soundtrack, the quintet's music gives pride of place to Falk Maria Schlegel's flamboyant keyboard performances, which are better for creating a cinematic atmosphere than those of many competitors, who often struggle to recreate the majesty of a symphony orchestra with two Casios and a Roland. With Call of the Wild, Powerwolf could even appeal to fans of musicals: their music is always melodic and accessible to a wide audience, and Attila Dorn's vocals remind one of the powerful and spirited performances for which Demis Roussos became famous. The reference to Roussos might raise eyebrows at first glance, but it is actually much more accurate than you might think. Unsurprisingly, the band have announced that they are planning a very major stage production for their coming tour. It makes sense: it's hard to imagine such a forceful musical explosion being performed without a visual counterpart to match. Bursting with out-of-the-box hits (Beast of Gévaudan, Dancing with the Dead, or the lighter Undress to Confess), Call of the Wild is a very smart move by the Saarbrücken band: it's accessible for a lot of people but as power metal, it is still eminently credible and expertly written so as not to alienate purists. Great work. © Charlélie Arnaud/Qobuz

Layers is the debut full-length release from French DJ and producer Kungs. Composed of pulsating disco beats, bright guitar work, and varied organic instrumentation, the album features guest vocals from Ephemerals and Jamie N Commons on the singles "I Feel So Bad" and "Don't You Know" as well as his remix of Cookin' on 3 Burners' "This Girl" single.© Rob Wacey /TiVo

Most pop stars reach a point where they accept the slow march of time, but not Madonna. Time is Madonna's enemy -- an enemy to be battled or, better still, one to be ignored. She soldiers on, turning tougher, harder, colder with each passing album, winding up with a record as flinty as MDNA, the 2012 record that is her first release since departing Warner for Interscope. That's hardly the only notable shift in Madonna's life since the 2008 release of Hard Candy. Since then, she has divorced film director Guy Ritchie and has seen her '80s persona co-opted and perverted by Lady Gaga, events so cataclysmic she can't help but address them on MDNA. Madonna hits the divorce dead-on, muttering about "pre-nups" when she's not fiercely boasting of shooting her lover in the head, and she's not exactly shy about reasserting her dominion over dance and pop, going so far as to draft Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. as maid servants paying their respect to the queen. Whatever part of MDNA that isn't devoted to divorce is dedicated to proving that Madonna remains the preeminent pop star, working harder than anybody to stay just on the edge of the vanguard. All this exertion leads to an excessively lean album: there's not an ounce of fat on MDNA, it's all overly defined muscle, every element working with designated purpose. Such steely precision means there's no warmth on MDNA, not even when Madonna directly confesses emotions she's previously avoided, but the cool calculations here are preferable to the electronic mess of Hard Candy, not least because there's a focus that flows all the way down to the pop hooks, which are as strong and hard as those on Confessions on a Dance Floor even if they're not quite so prominent as they were on that 2005 retro-masterwork. MDNA does echo the Euro-disco vibe of Confessions -- "Love Spent" consciously reworks the ABBA-sampling "Hung Up" -- yet as a whole it feels chillier, possibly due to that defensive undercurrent that pervades the album. Even if she's only measuring it in terms of pretenders to her throne, Madonna is aware of time passing yet she's compelled to fight it, to stay on top, to not slow down, to not waste a second of life, to keep working because the meaning of life is work, not pleasure. Naturally, all that labor can pay off, whether it's through the malevolent pulse of "Gang Bang" or the clever "Beautiful Stranger" rewrite "I'm a Sinner," but, ironically for all of Madonna's exhausting exertion elsewhere, these are the songs that benefit from her finely honed skills as a pop craftsman, illustrating that no matter how she combats it, she can't escape her age and may indeed be better off just embracing it.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Madonna's souvenir of her 2012/2013 world tour is her fourth live album and, like so many live albums from the new millennium, it is a multi-media spectacle that perhaps would make more sense as an at-home video experience than an aural adventure. That said, there are unexpected musical moments that do make MDNA World Tour worth hearing: "Like a Virgin" is spun into a waltz, "Like a Prayer" is given a dark disco makeover, and there is a general enthusiasm for Madge's newest material, as evidenced by the emphasis on MDNA and Confessions on a Dance Floor material in the set list. This concentration on newer material does mean this is a live album for the dedicated, but that is true for any live album released three decades into an artist's career. It boils down to this: if you think you're interested in hearing the MDNA World Tour, the nerviness of this performance is just enough to make your investment of time worthwhile.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The single-disc distillation of the epic triple-disc box Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones naturally pales in comparison to its parent set, which thrives on the kinds of details and detours that can't be captured in a tight 16-track disc. Where the box overspills with dancefloor smashes and club staples, this condensed Finally Enough Love focuses on edits and remixes of big pop hits. The concentration means that Madonna's 1980s and '90s singles occupy a greater percentage of space than they did on 50 Number Ones, yet the concentration on dance tracks and mixes still makes this version of Finally Enough Love feel fresh: this presents a portrait of Madonna as a dance artist, not a pop star, and it's a useful and instructive comp for that very reason.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The Sacrament of Sin is the seventh studio album from German power-metal outfit Powerwolf and follows their 2015 release Blessed & Possessed. Recorded at the beginning of 2018 at the Fascination Street Studios in Örebrö, Sweden with producer Jens Bogren (Amon Amarth, Opeth), the album sees the group deliver a collection of bold, anthemic power metal in their trademark style.© Rich Wilson /TiVo

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The single-disc distillation of the epic triple-disc box Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones naturally pales in comparison to its parent set, which thrives on the kinds of details and detours that can't be captured in a tight 16-track disc. Where the box overspills with dancefloor smashes and club staples, this condensed Finally Enough Love focuses on edits and remixes of big pop hits. The concentration means that Madonna's 1980s and '90s singles occupy a greater percentage of space than they did on 50 Number Ones, yet the concentration on dance tracks and mixes still makes this version of Finally Enough Love feel fresh: this presents a portrait of Madonna as a dance artist, not a pop star, and it's a useful and instructive comp for that very reason.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Layers is the debut full-length release from French DJ and producer Kungs. Composed of pulsating disco beats, bright guitar work, and varied organic instrumentation, the album features guest vocals from Ephemerals and Jamie N Commons on the singles "I Feel So Bad" and "Don't You Know" as well as his remix of Cookin' on 3 Burners' "This Girl" single.© Rob Wacey /TiVo

Most pop stars reach a point where they accept the slow march of time, but not Madonna. Time is Madonna's enemy -- an enemy to be battled or, better still, one to be ignored. She soldiers on, turning tougher, harder, colder with each passing album, winding up with a record as flinty as MDNA, the 2012 record that is her first release since departing Warner for Interscope. That's hardly the only notable shift in Madonna's life since the 2008 release of Hard Candy. Since then, she has divorced film director Guy Ritchie and has seen her '80s persona co-opted and perverted by Lady Gaga, events so cataclysmic she can't help but address them on MDNA. Madonna hits the divorce dead-on, muttering about "pre-nups" when she's not fiercely boasting of shooting her lover in the head, and she's not exactly shy about reasserting her dominion over dance and pop, going so far as to draft Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. as maid servants paying their respect to the queen. Whatever part of MDNA that isn't devoted to divorce is dedicated to proving that Madonna remains the preeminent pop star, working harder than anybody to stay just on the edge of the vanguard. All this exertion leads to an excessively lean album: there's not an ounce of fat on MDNA, it's all overly defined muscle, every element working with designated purpose. Such steely precision means there's no warmth on MDNA, not even when Madonna directly confesses emotions she's previously avoided, but the cool calculations here are preferable to the electronic mess of Hard Candy, not least because there's a focus that flows all the way down to the pop hooks, which are as strong and hard as those on Confessions on a Dance Floor even if they're not quite so prominent as they were on that 2005 retro-masterwork. MDNA does echo the Euro-disco vibe of Confessions -- "Love Spent" consciously reworks the ABBA-sampling "Hung Up" -- yet as a whole it feels chillier, possibly due to that defensive undercurrent that pervades the album. Even if she's only measuring it in terms of pretenders to her throne, Madonna is aware of time passing yet she's compelled to fight it, to stay on top, to not slow down, to not waste a second of life, to keep working because the meaning of life is work, not pleasure. Naturally, all that labor can pay off, whether it's through the malevolent pulse of "Gang Bang" or the clever "Beautiful Stranger" rewrite "I'm a Sinner," but, ironically for all of Madonna's exhausting exertion elsewhere, these are the songs that benefit from her finely honed skills as a pop craftsman, illustrating that no matter how she combats it, she can't escape her age and may indeed be better off just embracing it.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo