The veteran Dutch symphonic metallers seventh studio effort and first outing for German Philips/Phonogram imprint Vertigo Records, Resist arrives after a period of internal strife for powerhouse vocalist Sharon den Adel. In the wake of a heavy bout of touring following 2014's chart-topping Hydra, Adel grappled with creative burnout, the death of her father, and the stress of child-rearing while spending the majority of her days on a tour bus, leading her to question whether or not Within Temptation had run its course. Luckily, she was able to parse that emotional discord via her streamlined 2018 solo debut My Indigo and rekindle her relationship with her muse. Moving even farther into the mainstream, Resist takes those pop proclivities and tosses in a sizable amount of classic WT heft, resulting in the group's slickest and most commercial-sounding outing to date. Fans who bemoaned the band's shift to radio-friendly fare on 2011's The Unforgiving will find their prayers have gone unanswered; the majority of the ten-track set eschews the ornate symphonic metal of past efforts for a more beats-driven and electronics-forward approach that, despite its penchant for Evanescence-esque melodrama, yields its fair share of exquisite gothic bangers like "The Reckoning" and "Raise Your Banner." (The former features a guest spot from Papa Roach's Jacoby Shaddix, and the latter a vocal turn by In Flames' Anders Friden.) In shifting gears to stoke their creative flames, Within Temptation have created an immersive -- if not wholly original-sounding -- set of songs that play to both their strengths and weaknesses.© James Christopher Monger /TiVo

The Hurting would have been a daring debut for a pop-oriented band in any era, but it was an unexpected success in England in 1983, mostly by virtue of its makers' ability to package an unpleasant subject -- the psychologically wretched family histories of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith -- in an attractive and sellable musical format. Not that there weren't a few predecessors, most obviously John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band album -- which was also, not coincidentally, inspired by the work of primal scream pioneer Arthur Janov. (But Lennon had the advantage of being an ex-Beatle when that meant the equivalent to having a box next to God's in the great arena of life, where Tears for Fears were just starting out.) Decades later, "Pale Shelter," "Ideas as Opiates," "Memories Fade," "Suffer the Children," "Watch Me Bleed," "Change," and "Start of the Breakdown" are powerful pieces of music, beautifully executed in an almost minimalist style. "Memories Fade" offers emotional resonances reminiscent of "Working Class Hero," while "Pale Shelter" functions on a wholly different level, an exquisite sonic painting sweeping the listener up in layers of pulsing synthesizers, acoustic guitar arpeggios, and sheets of electronic sound (and anticipating the sonic texture, if not the precise sound of their international breakthrough pop hit "Everybody Wants to Rule the World"). The work is sometimes uncomfortably personal, but musically compelling enough to bring it back across the decades.© Bruce Eder /TiVo

Best known for its multi-platinum TOTO IV, which earned the group six Grammies, Toto returned after a four-year absence with an album well worth the wait. MINDFIELDS reunited the band with original lead vocalist Bobby Kimball, at a point at which the band hoped to recapture some of its earlier magic.Long regarded as some of rock's best session men and songwriters, Toto's veteran players are at their best on this album. "Cruel" is an upbeat, swingin' jazzy number. "Caught in the Balance" is a fast rocker featuring the guitar work of ace Steve Lukather, who also handles lead vocals on the ballad "Last Love." Kimball digs deep on the bluesy "High Price of Hate." The band turns it down a notch on the wonderful ballad "Melanie" and takes a country rock route on "No Love," which features Clint Black on harmonica. Accessible arrangements, a tight horn section, and polished harmonies are all part of the Toto sound, which MINDFIELDS improves and expands to great measure.© TiVo

Perhaps frustrated by the lack of commercial success Imperial Bedroom encountered, Elvis Costello enlisted British hitmakers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley to produce its follow-up, Punch the Clock. The difference between the two records is immediately noticeable. Punch the Clock has a slick, glossy surface, complete with layered synthesizers, horns, studio effects, and the backup vocals of Afrodiziak. The approach isn't necessarily a misguided one, since Costello is as much a pop musician as he is a singer/songwriter and many of the best moments on the record -- "Everyday I Write the Book," "Let Them All Talk" -- work well as shiny pop singles. However, the problem with Punch the Clock is that Costello is entering a fallow songwriting period; it is his least consistent set of original songs to date. The best moments, the antiwar ballad "Shipbuilding" and the eerie pseudo-rap "Pills and Soap," are as articulate and effective as any of his past work, but frequently Costello falls short of meeting his standards, particularly when he's trying to write a song in the style of his older songs. Nevertheless, the sheen of the Langer and Winstanley production makes Punch the Clock a pleasurable listen. Costello's uneven writing means that only portions of the album are memorable.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

All it took was the complete closure of clubs around the world to get Carl Cox back into producing. The British DJ, probably one of the biggest stars to get behind the decks in the last thirty years, got locked up by Covid like everyone else. In his home in Melbourne, Australia, he dug out all his audio equipment and got it back in working order. Now, here he is, reigniting his passion with these relentless beats. ‘I'm just making music that I believe is based on how music was made in the first place, you know, all that early drum ’n' bass, jungle, jump-up Metalheadz stuff was just purely based on punk… we need more of that at the moment, everyone just seems to be making records to get on the Beatport Top 10’, he says.On Electronic Generations, Carl Cox treats us to fifteen ultra-raw tracks that are hardly touched up at all. The album harks back to his days as a resident DJ at the mega-club Space in Ibiza, when he was the guy who knew everything there was to know about techno and the clubbing scene. There are no calibrated intros to be found here, just plenty of scarcely processed sounds. It’s an unexpected album from Carl Cox. Perhaps he also wanted to show that he was capable of making techno that wasn’t mainstream but still packed a real punch—quite frankly, he’s done a good job on that front. On ‘Line Lock’, there are rudimentary and brutish kicks, freestyle hi-hats and a bludgeoning bass. He’s also dug up his TB-303 (‘acid’) machine, which you can hear on ‘World Gone Mad’; aptly used by Fatboy Slim on ‘Speed Trials on Acid’. Carl then joins forces with Detroit techno pioneer Juan Atkins on the incredible ‘Deep Space X’ (complete with cosmic synth and heavy kick), which is sure to be heard on every dancefloor over the coming years. Carl Cox has made a real comeback with this album. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

The most remarkable thing about Richard Kelly's directorial debut, Donnie Darko, is its sheer tenacity. After suffering the fatal blow of a post-September 11 release date, the ominous film, which features the destruction of a sleepy suburban household by a falling jet engine, was pulled from theaters. Its subsequent release on video garnered a rabid fan base that elevated the movie to cult status, spawning hundreds of websites devoted to untangling its spidery threads of time-travel logic and spiritual chicanery. Rookie composer Michael Andrews, whose only previous work was for television's Freaks and Geeks, captures the underlying dread and unsettling beauty of the film by remaining reverent to it. Clocking in at just over 30 minutes, the heart of the piece is a pulsing, hypnotic waltz that transports you to the alternate-reality Middlesex, VA where the film takes place. His use of period (1980s) synths and a voxophone, tastefully punctuated by sparse choral arrangements, evoke a Danny Elfman score leached of bombast and quivering in its naked form. Like Air's soundtrack to The Virgin Suicides, Andrews' songs create such a specific sense of place that an entirely different film would emerge in their absence, robbing the consumer of its dizzying afterglow -- the soft, walking pianos on "The Artifact and Living" and "Rosie Darko" tiptoe through your subconscious for weeks. Due to the sparse, six-million-dollar budget of the movie, the producers had to decide whether or not to include celluloid-only tracks like "Killing Moon" by Echo & the Bunnymen and "Under the Milky Way" by the Church or pay for the special effects. They wisely opted for the latter, threw in an extra quarter and allowed Andrews and singer-songwriter Gary Jules to construct the heartbreaking re-working of Tears for Fears' 1983 hit "Mad World," that delivers the last play on Donnie Darko's haunting, apocalyptic jukebox.© TiVo

Cellist Maya Beiser, a member of the avant-garde group Bang on a Can, makes no statement about the symbol "x" in the title of her album Maya Beiser x Philip Glass. Is it Maya Beiser "times" Philip Glass? It could well be, for in this collection of Glass pieces transcribed for a single cello and then multitracked, she does indeed multiply the music rather than just transferring it to a new medium. In general, the pieces go from being "minimalist" to something denser, for they give the cellist a lot to do, even with the aid of multitracking. Further, Beiser's approach adds variety, for the multitracking behaves differently in each work. In the early Music in Similar Motion, a pure minimalist work (and one written in open score), it restores something close to Glass' basic textures, but in the orchestral selections from Naqoyqatsi, it has a life of its own, selecting and abstracting from a larger score. Beiser has collaborated directly with Glass in the past, and although there's no direct indication of this, one may suppose that he enjoys the project. Islandia Music's engineering, from a space at the Hudson Opera House in upstate New York, is a major contributor to the album's success; the multiple resonances of the music come into sharp relief. A fresh and absorbing approach to the music of Philip Glass. © James Manheim /TiVo

Throughout the '80s, you'd be hard-pressed to find an American heavy metal band which sounded more British than Armored Saint. While most of their contemporaries seemed preoccupied with the fast-growing thrash metal movement, here was a group of committed purists who were simply updating traditional metal at its best for the '80s generation. By the same token, the band was never able to benefit from the perks of being associated with a "scene" per se, which might explain their relative obscurity despite consistently issuing such quality material. But, for the record, with the exception of 1990's also stellar Symbol of Salvation, never was the group's bombastic style better represented than on their 1984 debut March of the Saint, which is so straightforward a metal record, it's almost hard to describe. An orchestrated guitar theme introduces the memorable title track, and further highlights such as "Can U Deliver," "Madhouse," and the astonishing "Take a Turn" are as commendable for their maturity and power as they are for their sense of economy. The dual-guitar team of Dave Prichard and Phil Sandoval is simply incredible considering their young ages (too bad they would soon fall out), dueling it out for solo after amazing solo throughout the disk. The album's second half isn't quite as strong as the first, but March of the Saint still qualifies as an overlooked classic of American metal.© Eduardo Rivadavia /TiVo

The Hurting would have been a daring debut for a pop-oriented band in any era, but it was an unexpected success in England in 1983, mostly by virtue of its makers' ability to package an unpleasant subject -- the psychologically wretched family histories of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith -- in an attractive and sellable musical format. Not that there weren't a few predecessors, most obviously John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band album -- which was also, not coincidentally, inspired by the work of primal scream pioneer Arthur Janov. (But Lennon had the advantage of being an ex-Beatle when that meant the equivalent to having a box next to God's in the great arena of life, where Tears for Fears were just starting out.) Decades later, "Pale Shelter," "Ideas as Opiates," "Memories Fade," "Suffer the Children," "Watch Me Bleed," "Change," and "Start of the Breakdown" are powerful pieces of music, beautifully executed in an almost minimalist style. "Memories Fade" offers emotional resonances reminiscent of "Working Class Hero," while "Pale Shelter" functions on a wholly different level, an exquisite sonic painting sweeping the listener up in layers of pulsing synthesizers, acoustic guitar arpeggios, and sheets of electronic sound (and anticipating the sonic texture, if not the precise sound of their international breakthrough pop hit "Everybody Wants to Rule the World"). The work is sometimes uncomfortably personal, but musically compelling enough to bring it back across the decades.© Bruce Eder /TiVo

The Hurting would have been a daring debut for a pop-oriented band in any era, but it was an unexpected success in England in 1983, mostly by virtue of its makers' ability to package an unpleasant subject -- the psychologically wretched family histories of Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith -- in an attractive and sellable musical format. Not that there weren't a few predecessors, most obviously John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band album -- which was also, not coincidentally, inspired by the work of primal scream pioneer Arthur Janov. (But Lennon had the advantage of being an ex-Beatle when that meant the equivalent to having a box next to God's in the great arena of life, where Tears for Fears were just starting out.) Decades later, "Pale Shelter," "Ideas as Opiates," "Memories Fade," "Suffer the Children," "Watch Me Bleed," "Change," and "Start of the Breakdown" are powerful pieces of music, beautifully executed in an almost minimalist style. "Memories Fade" offers emotional resonances reminiscent of "Working Class Hero," while "Pale Shelter" functions on a wholly different level, an exquisite sonic painting sweeping the listener up in layers of pulsing synthesizers, acoustic guitar arpeggios, and sheets of electronic sound (and anticipating the sonic texture, if not the precise sound of their international breakthrough pop hit "Everybody Wants to Rule the World"). The work is sometimes uncomfortably personal, but musically compelling enough to bring it back across the decades.© Bruce Eder /TiVo

This LP features a fine sampling of the type of material that Lena Horne performed in the 1950s. Backed by an orchestra arranged and conducted by her husband Lennie Hayton, Horne digs into such tunes as "Mad About the Boy," "Stormy Weather," "Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home," and "Just One of Those Things." The music swings but is middle-of-the-road pop rather than jazz. However, Lena Horne is heard throughout in top form, and this set is easily recommended to her fans.© Scott Yanow /TiVo

Five years after their rightfully revered debut, So...How's Your Girl?, brainiac producers Prince Paul and Dan the Automator return with Handsome Boy Modeling School's a-little-too-smug sophomore release, White People. Like the title, a good third of the album feels too forced. Another third is fair, but the remainder is stunning -- mostly song-based and mostly nonirreverent. Tim Meadows' "The Ladies Man" character and a bunch of narration from Modeling School Central keeps the Handsome Boy concept going, but it's a concept that could carry one album, not two (also of note: "The Ladies Man"'s appearances are often tacked right onto the end of tracks, making the album more difficult to whittle down to a concise mixtape). Minus Del tha Funkee Homosapien and Casual, the rappers on White People sound too aware of their surroundings, too mannered. The mega-talented Pharrell Williams' contribution to "Class System" could have been carried off by anyone, so that leaves it up to people from the pop and rock realm to really bring it to the table. They do, with solid songs that could exist outside of Handsome Boy's heavy-with-concept world. Expect Jamie Cullum and John Oates' pop-solid "Biggest Mistake" to show up on a Christina Aguilera album sometime soon, while Cat Power's track is so well formed you have to wonder what the reaction will be when a Handsome Boy fan encounters one of her indie, skeletal, and spent early albums. Sounding like Paul Simon for the hoody generation, Jack Johnson's "Breakdown" is a surprising success, but just as surprising is that the genre-hopping, always risk-taking Mike Patton can't find the spark. Bringing reminders of a better track on a better album, "Rock & Roll (Could Never Hip Hop Like This), Pt. 2" is the album's problem in one song. Jumping from one style to another, the song never digs in like How's Your Girl's "Part 1," since ambition overtakes reason and cleverness overtakes everything. There's a killer EP worth of tracks strewn among the album and more than a few signs that Dan and Paul still got it. Stuck trying to re-create the daring excitement, Handsome Boy Modeling School turn in an album that's half as interesting as their debut, and half as interesting as their guest list. © David Jeffries /TiVo

If Gary Jules' debut album was a superb collection of songs (a few of them dating back to his late teenage years), Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets is a stunning, focused follow-up. Reflective and melancholy, dusk-colored and dreamlike, it finds supreme repose through songs of somber experience. Composed in the concentrated two-year span after being unceremoniously dropped from A&M and recorded essentially on his own, the album is a wellspring of songcraft that charts a course through tangled emotions. Jules' voice betrays many things -- hurt, disappointment, and uncertainty, but also, importantly, recognition -- and the songs find a range of moods, from the joyous, late-night-with-loose-change-in-my-pockets ode "DTLA" to the breathtaking resignation of "No Poetry" and "Something Else." On the surface, little seems to have changed about the music. It is still a fragile but lush wish: the cymbals whisper, and acoustic guitars pick out the delicate melodies while waiting for the occasional, flirtatious reply of soft electric runs. But in every way, Jules has grown as an artist. Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets plays out like a song cycle. It documents Jules' convoluted relationship with Los Angeles, an adopted home that retains an unrelenting hold over the songwriter, and the music is imbued with the city's spirit. You could even say that Hollywood acts as a character of sorts on the album, both a protagonist and antagonist, sometimes standing at the center of songs, sometimes fading into soft focus behind Jules' stories, but always, in some way, casting a shadow. The album moves through vaguely cynical expressions of dejection, toward acceptance, before finally inhabiting a humble, restive place, a personal journey that culminates in "Umbilical Town," on which Jules lingers in the past for a few brief moments before letting go of it all. And in the stark ghostliness of Tears for Fears' "Mad World," hauntingly rearranged as a piano ballad, he comes up with a performance that more than matches the work of Cat Stevens in terms of solemn, profound beauty, isolation, and depth of searching. Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets takes on a shimmering glow. Gracious and redemptive, it is a rapt, quiescent masterwork. © Stanton Swihart /TiVo