Since 2019, Taylor Swift has been leading her fans and her music into a space-time rift worthy of a science-fiction block-buster: when she releases a new album, there's a 50/50 chance that it's an old one. What is the meaning of this devilry? Well, it’s mainly due to complicated and conflicting contracts, copyrights and (very) large sums of money, that have  all led Taylor Swift to decide to re-record and re-release her first six albums with some bonus, previously unreleased period tracks. The latest replicant is the album Speak Now, originally released in 2010. This third album of Taylor Swift’s was a major milestone in her discography: aged just twenty, she wrote all the songs for the first time, whilst moving away from the country aesthetic that had made her famous. It was a very personal album, with a lot of diary-style love stories from the point of view of a young woman barely out of her teens. Thirteen years on, it’s clear why Taylor Swift would sing these songs again (to get her hands back on the revenue generated by her old albums). But how? With a fuller voice, and by tidying up some of the lyrics that might be found off-putting today. Hardcore fans and commentators may cry revisionism, but the rest of us will certainly be delighted to find this early album almost unchanged © Stéphane Deschamps

We love Laufey, and Laufey loves love, as demonstrated on her sophomore album Bewitched. The Los Angeles-based Chinese/Icelandic chantress sweeps us away, reminding us all what it is like to be young and in love. Whether it's love for a friend, a lover, or a love of life, this release is sure to open your eyes, ears and heart. Laufey leans effortlessly into her suave jazz edges, and with huge payoff. From the opening track "Dreamer," the listener is transported to a mid-century era of Jule Styne-esque musicals and films. Bewitched beautifully showcases her deep, full-bodied vocals and storytelling prowess, which she has masterfully developed since her enchanting debut Everything I Know About Love.  Laufey even flexes her compositional skills beyond just songwriting on instrumental track "Nocturne (Interlude)" and on "Promise," where her sweeping arrangements are performed by the London Philharmonia, whose film score credits include Battle of the Bulge and Oliver Twist. From captivating vocal jazz ballads to epic orchestral pop like "Lovesick" (the kind of track you could see the lead character of a romcom betting from a car window), Laufey seamlessly connects different musical histories and genres. Listening to Bewitched is like being dipped in and out of the pinnacle love scene of 14 different films, and you're not sure whether you want to dance, cry or sing jubilantly. The latest jewel in Laufey's illustrious growing crown. © Jessica Porter-Langson / Qobuz

Gone are the times when these masters of stoner rock waved their throbbing heavy guitars while scrunching their eyebrows… Twenty years after forming their band under the Californian sun and palm trees, Queens Of The Stone Age have skilfully evolved without ever selling out. With Villains, Josh Homme and his crew have even taken on a rather unexpected passenger in the name of… Mark Ronson! Two years after his giant hit Uptown Funk carried by the voice of Bruno Mars, the Londoner who exploded onto the mainstream scene with his work on Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black, finds himself producing QOTSA’s seventh album, which unlike usual doesn’t feature any guest. And the result fits in perfectly with this iconoclastic partnership: the band’s usual virile and sparkly rock’n’roll (irresistible on their single The Way You Used To Do) is beefed up by an energetic production. And Ronson’s funky and groovy DNA blends in with the Californians’, more Bowiesque than ever (obvious on Un-Reborn Again). By the way, isn’t the title Villains echoing the Thin White Duke’s Heroes? © MD/Qobuz

Since their 2009 self-titled debut album, Real Estate have distinguished themselves as modern-day jangle-pop torchbearers. The New Jersey group retains that crown on the superlative Daniel, which overflows with crisp, economical pop-rock that often calls to mind the salad days of Fountains of Wayne. Chalk up this sound partly due to their influences—R.E.M.'s lush, moody Automatic for the People and the softer side of '90s rock—and the band's recording process. The members of Real Estate moved in together in Nashville and recorded Daniel in just nine days at the famed RCA Studio A with producer-songwriter Daniel Tashian (Kacey Musgraves' Golden Hour). Understandably, there's a hint of dusky Americana melancholy on the pedal steel-tinted "Haunted World" and the Scottish-pop-influenced "Flowers." However, Martin Courtney's keening vocals are particularly yearning on Daniel, lending buoyancy to the wiry "Say No More" and urgent "Airdrop," and underscoring the restlessness and uncertainty coursing through the lyrics. Jangle-pop has never sounded so fresh—and so irresistible. © Annie Zaleski/Qobuz

Fallen is the major-label debut of Evanescence, a Little Rock, AR-based quartet led by the soaring vocals of 20-year-old Amy Lee. Emboldened by the inclusion of its single "Bring Me to Life" on the soundtrack to the hit film Daredevil, Fallen debuted at an impressive number seven on Billboard's Top 40. But "Bring Me to Life" is a bit misleading. A flawless slice of Linkin Park-style anguish pop, it's actually a duet between Lee and 12 Stones' Paul McCoy. In fact, almost half of Fallen's 11 songs are piano-driven ballads that suggest Tori Amos if she wore too much mascara and recorded for the Projekt label. The other half of the album does include flashes of the single's PG-rated nu-metal ("Everybody's Fool," "Going Under"). But it's the symphonic goth rock of groups like Type O Negative that influences most of Fallen. Ethereal synths float above Ben Moody's crunching guitar in "Haunted," while "Whisper" even features apocalyptic strings and a scary chorus of Latin voices right out of Carmina Burana. "Tourniquet" is an anguished, urgent rocker driven by chugging guitars and spiraling synths, with brooding lyrics that reference Evanescence's Christian values: "Am I too lost to be saved?/Am I too lost?/My God! My tourniquet/Return to me salvation." The song is Fallen's emotional center point and defines the band's sound.© Johnny Loftus /TiVo

After the terrorist attacks in London in 2005 on Infra (2010), the war in Iraq on The Blue Notebooks (2003) and the conflict in Kosovo on Memoryhouse (2002), Max Richter places the migrant crisis at the heart of Exile, released in the middle of summer 2021. Even though his protean work alternates between film music, atypical re-readings of classical pieces, conceptual projects and unexpected collaborations, the German-British composer has always anchored some of his music in reality and in the evils of his time. Here, his commitment is bound up with an unprecedented formal approach. Exile brings together different materials. The central piece that gives the record its title is the ballet music written for the Nederlands Dans Theater company and its resident choreographers Sol León and Paul Lightfoot. Richter's virtuosity lies in the universality of the themes of this work, which is carried by the harrowing strings of the Baltic Sea Philharmonic conducted by Kristjan Järvi. Intensity as well as enchantment remain at the centre of this music, which is more influenced than ever by American minimalists like Philip Glass and Steve Reich but also by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, whom Richter visited during recording…Exile is rounded off by orchestral versions of some of the older chamber works which are typical of his output: On the Nature of Daylight from The Blue Notebooks, Infra 5 from Infra, The Haunted Ocean from the soundtrack to Waltz with Bashir and Sunlight from Songs from Before. In this symphonic context, Max Richter's music reveals new hues that the infinite repetition of the motif of the composition Exiles sharpens over the course of the record... Assembled in this way, all this apparently heterogeneous music succeeds in forming a whole. It mirrors the strong identity of this leading force in the contemporary neoclassical scene, a label that provokes much debate. But never mind the bottle, so long as we get drunk: Exile remains a fascinating recording. It offers a combination of sophistication, simplicity and beauty. © Marc Zisman / Qobuz

No one sounded like the Pixies in the late '80s to early '90s.  Energized by the very real and sometimes visible tensions between singer Black Francis (née Charles Thompson) and bassist Kim Deal, the foursome—rounded out with drummer David Lovering and guitarist Joey Santiago—made a series of albums that sound as visionary and otherworldly today as they did on release. In the oceanic expanse of '90s alt-rock bands, the Pixies' art stood alone until their 1993 split. Despite a trio of new albums since their 2004 reunion, it's been clear that their pervasive magic had ebbed away. But here on Doggerel, their eighth album in their 35 years together, they come closest to making what fans think of as a Pixies record. The opener "Nomatterday," which switches tempos near its middle for an arty interlude, is a beautiful example of Francis' howled vocals, Santiago's distinct, discordant guitar, Lovering's simple, forceful drumming, and menacing bass underpinning from Paz Lenchantin, who joined the band in 2014.  Best of all, it radiates some of the requisite madness that once made their music so special. However, where they were once eternally provoked and urgently reaching, old age has set in as Francis sings about being loaded at the 7-Eleven ("Vault of Heaven"), and in "Dregs of the Wine"—the first Santiago original ever recorded by the band—divulges a mundane reason why he and his ex-wife split: "While I prefer the original version of 'You Really Got Me'/ She will defer to the Van Halen version."  In an odd twist of sequencing, Doggerel closes with its two strongest numbers.  Its most memorable moment, "You're Such a Sadducee," is a stomping pop tune with cascades of vocals and a whiff of "Wave of Mutilation" and the title track effectively wields the loud-soft dynamic that was once the Pixies' most striking songwriting weapons. For new fans, there is much here to recommend, but fanatics will likely find something still missing; the struggle to live up to the Pixies continues.  © Robert Baird/Qobuz

For two decades now, the Texas-reared and California-based sultry-voiced singer-songwriter Jolie Holland has perfected a folk/country hybrid with a distinctive singing style deeply rooted in blues and jazz. On her sixth studio album, she fearlessly encompasses even more genres and styles, but with a forceful ease and downright dreamy tempos. Guitars slither awake and bark distorted tones over percolating ambient tones. Fiddles and cellos drone from classical realms into Appalachian territory and back. It’s all collaged together with the clarity of a great soundtrack.Holland's always strong songwriting is helped in parts by Big Thief's Buck Meek, who adds his own verse to the title track. (And yes, that’s the same Meek who included a version of the song on his own 2023 album, which he named … Haunted Mountain.)  His contributions to "Highway 72" are such that you have to listen over and over again. The term "instant classic" has been used to death, but the song (which references one of Hank Williams' best) just seems to have been there forever. If only Deadwood was still filming, so that it could close out an episode.This release is no sell-out, by any means. It's Holland's most ambitious, clear-sounding, and overtly political recording to date. Its themes tackle what Naomi Klein has termed disaster capitalism, the onus of patriarchy, the legacy of colonialism, and the onset of fascism across the world. It's so strong and so real that one cannot imagine a world where such music might be released and not resonate with the larger world. Haunted Mountain matches its thematic cohesion with a slower tempo that's at times—as with the whistle-and-strum closer "What It's Worth"—downright somnambulant. This is very powerful stuff; don't drive at night or operate heavy machinery while under its influence. © Mike McGonigal/Qobuz

Disturbed's fourth full-length offering announces its arrival with an air-raid siren. It's an appropriate gesture for the popular Chicago-based metal collective, whose rapid ascension from buzzed-about Ozzfest highlight to commercial hard rock juggernaut has been as divisive as it has been impressive. While Indestructible doesn't meddle with the melodic hard-hitting Pantera-inspired formula that fueled its predecessors, the dreaded nu-metal tag that followed the band out of the turn of the century seems wholly eradicated. If anything, Disturbed owe more to early-'90s Metallica and Brian Johnson-era AC/DC than they do Tool or Korn, as each staccato, tech-heavy riff is balanced out by some truly artful soloing and frontman David Draiman's mean and melodious pipes. Standout cuts like "Inside the Fire," "Deceiver, " "The Curse," and the skull-cracking title track, even though they could have appeared on any of the group's first three records, still manage to fire on every cylinder. Like its closest contemporary, Godsmack, this is a band that favors reliability over experimentation, and each piece of Indestructible, whether it's the pseudo-horror/fantasy artwork, the drop-D riffing, or the obligatory "shout-outs" in the liner notes to the purveyors of each member's gear endorsement deals, fits together like the world's most obvious puzzle. That said, there's a reason each of the group's previous albums bested the million mark, and with metal growing increasingly self-aware and divided between hardcore and hard rock, a new Disturbed record seems like a solid foundation on which to duke it out.© James Christopher Monger /TiVo

As a guitarist in the beloved band Big Thief, Buck Meek traffics in a precious brand of indie folk. On his own, the former busker with a distinctive twang is informed by the country sounds of places he’s lived, including Southern California’s Topanga Canyon and central Texas. There are traces of Gillian Welch and Townes Van Zandt in both his songwriting and storytelling. There’s also a sunshiny brightness to his Americana, as on the spirited "Cyclades." Guitars get raucous, like colts kicking up dust, as Meek recounts family lore about his father driving a motorcycle around a Siskiyou County, California forest and running into a gang of elk, and his mother playfully letting go of the steering wheel in Greece and sliding across the line toward a truck. "Secret Side" is beautiful and gently tumbling, as Meek sings about coming home and unexpectedly hearing your partner singing in a voice you've never heard before, singing words you've never heard before—and how none of us can ever wholly know another person. His voice cracks, a sort of exclamation point, as he marvels, "I saw you feel without a reason." Spare and simple, "Lullabies" lets Meek’s poignant voice shine against the quietly strumming guitar as he describes watching the agony and otherworldly delirium of childbirth, lifting lines from "You Are My Sunshine" while Mat Davidson's fiddle weeps quietly in the corner. The title track, co-written with Jolie Holland, is an amiable amble; the music is rustic and sunny (thanks in part to Davidson’s pedal steel) and the lyrics like a dreamscape: "Every dewdrop on this haunted mountain/ Is like a tiny crystal ball/ Early in the morning/ I peer into the living leaves/ And prophesy with the light of dawn." "Paradise" is lazy Sunday morning soulful, with Meek stretching to reach falsetto heights. "Didn't Know You Then" is a sweet country jangle with the beautiful looseness of R.E.M. covering Velvet Underground songs (see: Dead Letter Office). "Undae Dunes" finds Meek playing with dynamics—a determined, Flaming Lips-ish marching beat; howling, confused guitar—as he spins a tale about a boy who willingly goes up off with extraterrestrials: "Blue eyed boy, shining like a movie/ In corduroys kissing Susie … UFO touched down/ Climb on Jim/ "Please don't go" she begged/ But he was gone with the wind." © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

The Smashing Pumpkins waste no time. Billy Corgan and his reformed band are back together after releasing the very short Shiny & Oh So Bright Vol.1 in 2018, their first album in 18 years. Cyr is conceived as its follow-up and we notice from its sleeve that it is once again produced by the studio TNSN DVSN. Still, from the Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness era, only drummer Jimmy Chamberlin and guitarist James Iha are back, bassist D’arcy Wretzky is still yet to reconcile with the tyrannic Corgan. At it seems they never will. While the reformed band’s work produced by Rick Rubin revives their golden age of alternative rock, Cyr also embraces a fresher pop sound for one simple reason.“I got sick of making music that people kept telling me didn’t sound contemporary.”, explains the frontman. In this twenty track double album, Corgan accentuates the synths and feminine choirs. At the beginning, we are reminded of the Canadian band TR/ST with Sulk and its dark pop sound and hammered kick drums. This formula is repeated (which may weary some) but is switched up on Wyttch and its heavy guitars, the organ on Save Your Tears and the chiaroscuro Purple Blood. This unique double album, the opposite of the best-selling one sold in the 90s, proves (if it can continue) that Billy Corgan is best when surrounded by the Pumpkins. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

After drifting away from her pioneering fusion of trip-hop and folk with diversions into jazz-tinged, acoustic alt-folk, Beth Orton's sixth solo album, 2016's Kidsticks, found her broadly re-embracing electronics. Six years later, Weather Alive nestles into a comparatively hushed, atmospheric blend of acoustic and electronic timbres that's meticulous and nebulous at once. The album finds her joined by a skilled group of backers, including core players Tom Herbert (bass) and Tom Skinner (drums), with help from, among others, synth player Francine Perry, vibraphonist Sam Beste, saxophonist Alabaster DePlume, and Shahzad Ismaily, who moved between guitar, Moog, harmonica, and additional bass and percussion. It was self-produced at her home studio, with Orton's unusually brittle vocal performances accompanied by a "cheap, crappy" upright piano in her garden shed. She begins with an absorbing, seven-minute title track that introduces the singer's weary rasp against a backdrop mix of sustain and improvised interjection by duo bass, synthesizer, near and distance saxophone, close-up piano, hand drums, vibraphone, and more. Her first words, "In the morning/All is dawning/In the stillness of the day," evoke a low-lit scene that's eventually populated by the root of a tree, steps down to water, shadows that breathe, and weather "so beautiful outside/It almost makes me wanna cry." Instrumentation expands to include drum kit, percussive noise effects, and plenty of shimmer by the time lyrics arrive at "The love, the love we're giving/Gonna bring us back into being." It ends with a spaceship-like whir that is mirrored at the beginning of the more-skittering second track, "Friday Night." Weather Alive's misty atmospheres part somewhat one-third and two-thirds of the way through for the livelier "Fractals," which actually establishes a bass groove, and the spare "Lonely," which features one of the more expressive vocal performances of Orton's career. The rest of the album, including its over-seven-minute closer ("Unwritten"), maintains an immersive quality that's as haunting as Orton's rough-hewn vocals, song titles like "Haunted Satellite" and "Arms Around a Memory," and lyrics such as "It's just that I was getting unwritten." © Marcy Donelson /TiVo

Attempts to bring the improvisatory aspects of jazz into the Western classical music tradition (and vice-versa) can result in brilliant work such as the Stan Getz/Eddie Sauter classic Focus and Miles Davis' iconic Sketches of Spain, or diluted auditory mush that comes oozing out of the outdoor speakers at an overpriced Sunday brunch near you. On Mary Halvorson's Belladonna, the result is a unique album that is as exciting for its superb writing as it is for the originality of its spur-of-the-moment solos.  Opening track "Nodding Yellow," sets the scene for the whole work: the Mivos Quartet— Olivia De Prato (violin), Maya Bennardo (violin), Victor Lowrie Tafoya (viola), and Tyler J. Borden (cello)—plays a melody reminiscent of the darkly moving strains of Maurice Ravel's only string quartet; Halvorson's inventive guitar tone plays counterpoint to the strings that is as daring as James Blood Ulmer's groundbreaking Harmolodic Guitar with Strings. Ballad "Moonburn" sets Halvorson's bracing guitar against a romantic figure that is slowly being explored and opened up to offset the quartet's beauty..  "Flying Song" is reminiscent of Jim Hall's improvisatory work with Gunther Schuller. The album's longest work, "Haunted Head," starts with a Halvorson melody layered with a high eerie figure from the Mivos Quartet that gives way to an evocative cello phrase.  The interplay is so fluid that it is hard to tell when composition starts and improvisation ends.  © Rick Banales/Qobuz