Recorded at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in August 2022, Tales of Time sees American blues guitar virtuoso Joe Bonamassa play through tracks from his 2021 album, Time Clocks, live. The set is rounded out by two songs from his 2018 album Redemption. © Rich Wilson /TiVo

Time Clocks slowly comes into focus after the short atmospheric instrumental "Pilgrimage" sets the stage for a moody, cinematic record. In its brief minute, Joe Bonamassa plays a fat, melodic phrase that sounds uncannily like David Gilmour, a tone and aesthetic he'll return to throughout Time Clocks. Other blues and classic rock greats are alluded to on the album -- the winding riff propelling "Notches" harkens back to Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac, Clapton is always lurking around the corner -- but at this stage of his career Bonamassa is a stylist, tying together recognizable influences into something distinctively his own. Here, he's leaning toward somber introspection, filtering his musings on life and society through a Pink Floyd prism. Listen to the title track, where the stately tempo, backing vocals and stair-stepping minor-key riff all recall Floyd, yet he adds flourishes in his arrangements and solos that steer these astral sounds right down to earth. Much of Time Clocks rambles -- six of its ten songs are over six minutes, with another coming close to that mark -- but the blustering "Questions and Answers" shows that this wandering provides for a more interesting listen than when Bonamassa keeps things on the straight and narrow. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Neon-toned and deliciously funky, Foster the People's third studio album, 2017's Sacred Hearts Club, finds the group eschewing its pleasant indie pop sound in favor of an album of lightly experimental, fluorescent-lit, groove-based tracks. Produced by lead singer/songwriter Mark Foster and keyboardist Isom Innis, along with Josh Abraham, Lars Stalfors, and Oligee, the album is the Los Angeles band's biggest departure yet from the amiable, youthful vibe of 2011's Torches. These are kinetic, hip-hop-inflected tracks rife with '80s-style synths, finger-snapping basslines, skittering dance beats, and club-ready, falsetto-tinged hooks. If there's any contemporary touchstone for the band's approach here, the album-ending ballad "III," with its dreamy, pulsing synths and angelic, cloud-light melodic hook, certainly makes the case that Foster have been listening to a lot of M83. As if to announce the new direction, they kick things off with the steamy, new wave-cum-hip-hop jam "Pay the Man," which finds Foster diving headlong into a hip-sway-inducing rap. Similarly, cuts like the stadium-sized anthem "Doing It for the Money" and the sparklingly buoyant "Sit Next to Me," with their icicle guitar hits and bubbly keyboards, bring to mind an inspired mix of '80s Tom Tom Club and Prince, with just enough modern EDM flourishes to keep things from getting too nostalgic. Along those lines, we get the spacy electro-Motown of "Static Space Lover," the buzzy, blacklight-drenched house music anthem "Loyal Like Sid & Nancy," and the sexy, crystalline, digital hip-hop and R&B flow of "Harden the Paint." Ultimately, the beauty of Sacred Hearts Club is that it sounds like a Foster the People album without unnecessarily rehashing the sound that made them famous.© Matt Collar /TiVo

Everyone knew that Sudan Archives (real name Brittney Parks) would one day release a belter of an album. Well, here it is. Natural Brown Prom Queen is a dive into a lost world somewhere between modern RnB, electronic glitch and the upbeat violin melodies that the album’s creator loves so much. There’s an unwavering determination in tracks like ‘Selfish Soul’ and ’Home Maker’. Sudan Archives’ musical prowess allows her to employ dozens of different elements without ever seeming to lose herself in her intentions. For example, ’Freakalizer’ mixes 808 rhythms with a repetitive piano and measured autotune without omitting the choral aspect that affords Natural Brown Prom Queen its cohesive sound. The American likes to switch up the tempos, as heard on ‘NBPQ (Topless)’, where she explores a radical sound before letting her melodic flights of fancy take off in the outro. She also blends 80s pop inspirations on ’Milk Me’ without ever falling into the trap of creating a mere cover or clichéd sound, always remaining faithful to her aesthetic and to the audacity of her label, Stones Throw Records. This second album seems to announce her arrival at the artistic destination that had been mapped out five years ago. A real milestone within her career. © Brice Miclet/Qobuz

As the Swedish composer's third collaboration with director Ryan Coogler and actor Michael B. Jordan, Ludwig Göransson's original score for Marvel's Black Panther was also his most adventurous and cross-cultural to date. Pushed by Coogler to utilize as much traditional African music as possible, Göransson traveled to the International Library of African Music in Grahamstown, South Africa, where he collected hundreds of sounds that would find their way into the score (such as the tambin flute that was central to Killmonger's recurring theme). Göransson also recruited Senagalese singer Baaba Maal, whose haunting vocals appear throughout the album, most prominently on the grand anthem "Wakanda" and the moving "A King's Sunset." Throughout, tribal chants, a crew of percussionists, and a 40-person Xhosa choir collided with American hip-hop trap beats and Western string orchestration, supporting the multicultural sound of the fictional kingdom of Wakanda, especially on standout moments like "Killmonger's Challenge" and "United Nations/End Titles." Motifs from the triumphant score also found their way onto the Kendrick Lamar-curated soundtrack, like on the Jay Rock single, "King's Dead," which shared vocal samples with the exhilarating "Casino Brawl." In the same week that the soundtrack topped the charts, the score also landed in the Top 100.© Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo

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How Can It Be is the debut album by Louisiana-based CCM singer Lauren Daigle. After appearing on future labelmate Jason Gray's 2012 single "Nothing Is Wasted," Daigle signed with Centricity Music, which released an EP in late 2014 based around her soaring, piano-led worship ballad "How Can It Be." When the single hit the Billboard Christian charts at number 16, seven more songs were added, fleshing out the EP into Daigle's 2015 full-length debut album. Her powerful, smoky voice has drawn comparisons to Adele, and the album's soulful production offers plenty of punch and pop hooks. Daigle co-wrote much of the album and is joined on the song "Power to Redeem" by Tennessee-based duo All Sons & Daughters.© Timothy Monger /TiVo

Los Angeles-based ska-punk band The Interrupters will release their sophomore album, Say It Out Loud, on June 24 via Hellcat Records. Say It Out Loud is undeniably fun and urgent in message. And backing their modernized 2-Tone-tinged, guitar-fueled, melody-heavy sound are lyrics that confront everything from social control and self-empowerment to domestic violence and the media circus surrounding the next presidential election.

True to The Interrupters’ unabandoned passion and personal-meets-political dynamic, the first song shared from the album is “By My Side,” a fist-pumping, tender tribute to outcast solidarity.

Since the release of their 2014 self-titled debut, The Interrupters have split their time between touring with the likes of The English Beat and Bad Religion and cranking out new material that shows off their irrepressible sensibility. So when the time came to record their sophomore album Say It Out Loud, the four-piece hit the studio with Rancid’s Tim Armstrong and fired off 14 new songs that both capture their frenetic energy and reveal a whole new level of boldness in their songwriting.

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Loyal to the Game, the ninth 2Pac album released by his enterprising mother-turned-executive producer, Afeni Shakur, is one of the more unique entries in the martyred rap legend's extensive catalog. Produced entirely by Eminem, it carries on with the approach the man otherwise known as Marshall Mathers took with his production contributions to the preceding year's Tupac: Resurrection. Eminem had produced a few songs on that soundtrack, most notably the landmark 2Pac-Biggie duet "Runnin' (Dying to Live)," and his work here on Loyal to the Game isn't too much of a departure from the style of that song. In the wake of the song's popularity, Afeni gave Eminem some old tapes, and he went to work, stripping them of their productions, giving them his own trademark backing (characterized by his style of punchy, syncopated, unfunky beatmaking), incorporating some guest raps for secondary verses, and polishing them off with various sorts of hooks. Eminem's efforts here work, yet aren't ideal. On the one hand, there's no questioning Em's integrity. He pens some reverent liner notes, explaining his position (or justifying it, depending on your viewpoint), and Afeni also pens some touching liners, likewise explaining why Eminem of all people gets the green light to produce this album in its entirety. And Em doesn't take his job here lightly. His beats hit hard and are well crafted, most similar to his more hardcore self-productions like "Mosh" or "Lose Yourself." His hooks are also well crafted: he takes the hook himself on "Soldier Like Me"; brings in 50 Cent and Nate Dogg for "Loyal to the Game" and "Thugs Get Lonely Too," respectively; samples Elton John ("Indian Sunset"), Curtis Mayfield ("If There's a Hell Below"), and Dido ("Do You Have a Little Time") for other songs; and lets 2Pac handle his own hooks elsewhere. On the other, more cynical hand, Eminem simply isn't a good fit, and the four bonus tracks here testify to what could have been. Produced by Scott Storch, Red Spyda, Raphael Saadiq, and DJ Quik, these bonus track "remixes" are clearly the highlights of the album (and quite fantastic highlights at that, perhaps alone reason enough to pick up this album). These guys produce beats much more fitting to 2Pac's rhyme style. Sure, Eminem is a great producer, but he produces these 2Pac tracks as if he were producing himself, and 2Pac is a much different breed of rapper than Slim Shady, especially in terms of cadence and delivery. This is all the more evident because the source tapes of these tracks date back to the early '90s, when 2Pac was at his funkiest and least hardcore. (While the dates aren't provided in the credits, the original producers are credited: Randy "Stretch" Walker, DJ Daryl, Live Squad, and Deon Evans, all of whom worked with Pac during his early years, namely the early '90s, just as he was leaving Digital Underground and getting his career off the ground. Various time-specific references within Pac's lyrics are further evidence of this, such as passing references to the L.A. riots.) How much Loyal to the Game ultimately appeals to you will likely depend on how much you like Eminem. After all, this is as much his album as 2Pac's -- a labor of love, no doubt. If you're fond of his lock-step beatmaking and big hooks, you'll find much to like here, for Pac's rhymes are undoubtedly fascinating in any context, even at this early stage of his career. But if you're not down with Marshall Mathers, you'll probably want to pass this one by, though the four bonus tracks alone might make this a worthwhile venture regardless.© Jason Birchmeier /TiVo

Dropkick Murphys are a band closely tied to their roots in Boston, proud products of a working-class neighborhood where kids suffered through Catholic school, grew up to be regulars in the local bar, and watched their friends do the exact same thing. Life isn't always easy, and it's in these moments of hardship that many of the tracks on The Meanest of Times find their muse. The record is a dark, passionate, and rousing collection of songs that fit in nicely with the Murphys' unfailing back catalog of gritty beer-soaked punk rock anthems. But even in its consistency with everything else the Beantown crew has ever released, The Meanest of Times stands tall as the band's tightest and most developed set of songs yet. With such ease, the Murphys combine eyes-wide observation, rough defiance, and emotion rubbed raw into heartfelt songs like the explosive opening duo of "Famous for Nothing" and "God Willing," where elegiac bagpipes coexist with searing guitars and delicate mandolins supplement aggressive drum rolls. Traditional songs also get model Murphy makeovers; "Spancil Hill" gets Boston-ized into the mournful "Fairmount Hill," while "Lannigan's Ball" takes a nice shot of punk rock adrenaline to turn it into the clamorous romp of "(F)lannigan's Ball," complete with guest vocals from the Pogues' Spider Stacy and the Dubliners' Ronnie Drew. Elsewhere -- in varying degrees of unrestrained energy and sore-throat shout-singing -- the crew relates tales of families broken and friends lost, the sad realities only proving further that above all else, it's being true to yourself and the ones you love that is most important. But it's not all just heartfelt sappiness; this is the Dropkick Murphys, so be assured the emotion is still packed into about 45 minutes of beer-sloshing riotous punk rock glory.© Corey Apar /TiVo