Released in 1976, this fifth album from the Eagles would remain their greatest success. Opened by the eponymous hit single, Hotel California marked a turning point in the career of the American group. Bernie Leadon, the most country-orientated band member, jumped ship and Joe Walsh came on board. For his part, Don Henley also seemed to take more control the business. The result was a much more mainstream record than the album’s predecessors with truly enveloping sounds at the peak of their tracks. Everything is XXL here! The production, the solos, the melodies… everything! A masterpiece of classic rock, this is above all a work that crosses decades and makes the crowds go wild. Glenn Frey, Don Felder, Joe Walsh, Randy Meisner and Don Henley would never again find again such impressive complicity and efficiency… Published in November 2017, this 40th anniversary edition offers an original remastered album as well as an energetic Californian live session recorded at The Forum in Inglewood, October 1976. © CM/Qobuz

GRRR Live! captures the December 15, 2012 concert the Rolling Stones held at Newark's Prudential Center as part of their 50 & Counting Tour. GRRR!, the multi-format 50th Anniversary compilation, was barely a month old at the time, hence the title of this belated 2023 release: the Stones were out hawking their hits, so why not name it after a comp few remember a decade later? As the concert was originally designed as a pay-per-view extravaganza, the show is packed with guest stars, ranging from the Stones' old mate Mick Taylor playing on "Midnight Rambler" and New Jersey's own home state hero Bruce Springsteen jamming on "Tumbling Dice" to young guns Black Keys, Lady Gaga, and Gary Clark, Jr. & John Mayer. The set list offers few surprises -- if you don't recognize a song, that's because it's a new tune added to GRRR! -- but the Stones are in fine form, never seeming tired of playing the hits in a fashion that guarantees a splendid time for one and all. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

With five tracks from this album already released as singles, the long-awaited Deceivers by Arch Enemy has finally seen the light of day, five years after the Swedish band’s last ‘full length’ album. Of course, the element of surprise has been somewhat lost as they had already offered the world a taste of what was to come. Nevertheless, it is always better to judge a record as a whole. This logic works in Arch Enemy’s favour: the album succeeds in being quite varied while retaining a coherent thread over its duration. Over the years, Michael Amott (the band’s guitarist and main writer) has learned to transform each of his riffs into an instantly memorable ritornello. However, whilst this easily accessible music might have given the band an outrageously stereotypical sound (some might even dare to say “commercial”), it is counterbalanced by the assertive and aggressive vocals of Alissa White-Gluz. For only her third appearance with the band, she definitely gives the previous vocalists (Angela Gossow and Johan Liiva) a run for their money, forging a space for herself within the quintet. The band have an unmatched capacity for using their time efficiently, with the exception of the dispensable and short instrumental, ‘Mourning Star’. Deceivers has all the right ingredients to become a landmark of the band’s career, joining the ranks alongside Burning Bridges (1999) and Wages Of Sin (2001), both of which boast so many strong tracks. ‘Deceiver, Deceiver’ and ‘The Watcher’ are simply irresistible; fast and injected with a good dose of thrash metal. The same goes for the heavy ‘Poisoned Arrow' and ‘Spreading Black Wings’—watching these live is surely a recipe for breaking your neck. Some albums make an impact from the very first listen, and Deceivers is definitely one of them, cementing Arch Enemy as the European leader of melodic death metal. A real success. © Charlélie Arnaud/Qobuz

The connection between deep soul and country music is fortified thanks to an increasing number of singers like Jaime Wyatt. Wyatt also taps into another country music tradition: life behind bars. Having paid her debt, Wyatt's knowledge of Cash and Haggard gave her debut Felony Blues an undeniable authenticity. Here she's jumped a faster train with the guidance of producer/guitarist Adrian Quesada, who knows from his own band Black Pumas how to build arrangements around a strong voice. Throughout Feel Good Wyatt sings her heart out on a batch of solid originals that she's co-written. Most operate in an effective cross between country confessional and full-on retro soul. Working with Quesada was a sage move. The smooth, low-key production of "Feel Good" feels very much like a Hall & Oates number but surrounds her voice in the right ways. The slow, horn and electric keyboards of "Hold Me One Last Time" borrows atmosphere from the much-loved Stax/Volt canon. With its chorus of female backup singers, it's not a stretch to think of Tammi Terrell singing it. Quesada's cutting electric guitar solo brings it back to the current century. Recorded and mixed at Electric Deluxe Recorders in Austin, Texas, by Quesada and engineer Aaron Glemboski, the sound is clear, uncomplicated and full-bodied. As both a songwriter and a singer, Wyatt is at her best writing about subjects she's lived. In "Fugitive" she ponders, "They'll cut a check and then they'll call it alright /But that restitution is nowhere in sight." Throughout Feel Good, Wyatt's alto voice sends off words with the kind of commitment that says, "I've been there." She digs even further into her past in "Ain't Enough Whiskey" with co-writer Butch Walker singing harmony vocals: "And there ain't enough whiskey to keep me warm at night/ And there ain't enough cocaine to keep me standin' upright." Despite the title, Wyatt makes you believe that her hardships are real. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

Morgan Wallen opens One Thing at a Time with two songs where the narrator cops to drinking too much and not quite remembering what they've said. It's not the only time he alludes to letting the bottle turn him into a different man, an elliptical allusion to the scandal that embroiled the country singer after he was captured on video uttering a racial slur. The incident happened not long after the release of Wallen's Dangerous: The Double Album, and far from knocking his career off track, the scandal helped consolidate his audience; the double-LP turned into the best-selling album of 2021. One Thing at a Time offers more of the same -- a lot more of it. Weighing in at 36 songs, it's six tracks longer than Dangerous: The Double Album, a difference that clocks in at nearly an additional half-hour, bringing it just a few minutes shy of two hours. This untrammeled sprawl means One Thing at a Time offers a little something for everybody: there are sentimental weepers like "Thought You Should Know," a superstar duet thanks to Eric Church's cameo on "Man Made a Bar," party songs, sad songs, songs that lift liberally from classic rock standards ("Everything I Love," which borrows from both Allman Brothers Band's "Midnight Rider" and Marshall Tucker Band's "Can't You See"), songs about beer, songs about whiskey, and songs about wine. On Dangerous: The Double Album, all this radio-ready variety suggested that Wallen wanted to appeal to every audience everywhere, but in the wake of his scandal, this multi-purpose crowd-pleasing suggests an artist who wants to provide the perpetual jukebox within a walled garden.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Filming a concert is no mean feat, though Roger Waters has nailed it. Mostly thanks to Sean Evans, the director behind the images used for The Wall tour in 2014. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Waters paired up with Evans again for his latest tour Us + Them in 2019. In order to select the best performances while maintaining a visual (and sonic) cohesion, the recording took place over four days, during performances at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam in June 2018. Each new studio album is basically an excuse to go on another tour and bring as much of the Pink Floyd repertoire to the stage – something that’s also true for his brother-in-arms David Gilmour. Of course, there are a few tracks from his record Is This the Life We Really Want? released in 2017 (Déjà Vu, The Last Refugee, Picture That), but what the fans really want are the older tracks. Waters knows that of course, performing Wish You Were Here, Another Brick in The Wall, Dogs and Money. It’s a shame that Comfortably Numb is missing, even in the video version, especially since the classic was performed on stage over the four evenings. While the film strives to be even more politically engaged than those in the past (featuring an anti-Trump speech and touching on the Palestine crisis...), the live album only transcribes the musical magic. Most importantly, it spotlights the talented artists surrounding the bassist, with guitarist and singer Jonathan Wilson in the front row, whose physical (and vocal) resemblance to David Gilmour has wowed us all. Prepare to be surprised. © Chief Brody/Qobuz

In many ways, Sinatra at the Sands is the definitive portrait of Frank Sinatra in the '60s. Recorded in April of 1966, At the Sands is the first commercially released live Frank Sinatra album, recorded at a relaxed Las Vegas club show. For these dates at the Sands, Sinatra worked with Count Basie and his orchestra, which was conducted by Quincy Jones. Throughout the show, Sinatra is in fine voice, turning in a particularly affecting version of "Angel Eyes." He is also in fine humor, constantly joking with the audience and the band, as well as delivering an entertaining, if rambling, monologue halfway through the album. Basie and the orchestra are swinging and dynamic, inspiring a textured, dramatic, and thoroughly enjoyable performance from Sinatra. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The second in a series of catalog re-recordings and revisions, Red [Taylor's Version] finds Taylor Swift revisiting her self-styled pop breakthrough Red. Released nine years after the original album, Red [Taylor's Version] does bear a few signs of maturation, notably on the explicitly pop moments, such as "I Knew You Were Trouble," "22," and "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," which seem ever so slightly muted when compared to the 2012 versions. Nevertheless, much of the point of the re-recordings is to get these new versions as close to the original versions as possible so they can be easily licensed and to that end, Swift succeeds admirably. The more interesting part of Red [Taylor's Version] arrives in the second half when Swift records songs left in the vault, including "Better Man" -- a song she gave to Little Big Town, who won a Grammy for Best Country/Duo Group Performance in 2018 for their recording -- and duets with Phoebe Bridgers ("Nothing New"), Chris Stapleton ("I Bet You Think About Me"), and Ed Sheeran ("Run"). The highlight of these is a ten-minute version of "All Too Well," a bitter ballad that was already one of the peaks of Red and is now turned into an epic kiss-off. This, along with excavated songs, are reason enough for Swift to revisit Red and they, not the re-recordings, are the reason to return to Red [Taylor's Version].© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The arrival of this recording of Drone Mass—some seven years after its premiere performance and four years after Jóhann Jóhannsson's death—somewhat blurs the definition of what a "posthumous" release looks like for a contemporary classical composer.  Jóhannsson's work is seldom decoupled from his playing of it, featuring him as the primary performer, but does not perform on this recording though he did at its premiere and several other performances. Additionally, the composition itself was commissioned by the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), who are performing it here (and who also performed it with Jóhannsson), making this release—originally recorded in 2019—a discographically unique one. It is also, more importantly, a musically intriguing one. As with much of Jóhannsson's work—whether for classical ensembles, film scores, or electronic experimentation—the pieces are both tense and elegiac, toying with form and structure to evoke both a well-defined soundscape and a dynamic emotional response. Rather than digging into a postmodern take on chamber music or ambient electronics, here, Jóhannsson is putting to work the vocal skills of a large ensemble (the eight-piece Theatre of Voices) to deliver his hymn-like interpretations of the Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians, writings which were discovered in the Nag Hammadi library in the mid-20th century. Unintelligible to modern ears but deeply evocative nonetheless, the vocal polyphony on display is immersive and haunting. Early on in the recording, the "Triptych in Mass" sets the tone with its absolutely dizzying combination of voices, dissonance, and drone, leaving the listener both breathless and anxious. Other segments—"The Last Foul Wind I Ever Knew" and the two-part "Divine Objects"—are similarly intense. By the time "The Low Drone of Circulating Blood, Diminishes With Time" initiates the closing four-part sequence of the piece, Jóhannsson has shown that he is clearly disinterested in easy beauty or background ambience and is, instead, pursuing a thoughtful, dynamic, and intent music that rewards a listener's focus and engagement. It's a forceful and unforgiving piece that posits an exciting shift in direction from the composer that, sadly, appears to have not gotten any further exploration. Nonetheless, as a document of one of his final works, Drone Mass is an exciting and exhilarating statement. ©Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Donuts was made on a hospital bed and in a home studio, on a stripped-down setup with a stack of vinyl. Released on its maker's 32nd birthday, three days before he passed away, the album has a resonance deeper than anyone could've hoped for or even imagined. Some who were close to Dilla have said that there are hidden messages in the samples, the track titles, and who knows where else. It's impossible not to speculate about some things, like the track titled "Don't Cry," the looped "broken and blue" from a version of "Walk on By," the presence of Eddie Kendricks singing "My people, hold on," or the fact that there are 31 tracks, a possible signal that Dilla survived a little longer than he expected. Then again, for every possible message, there are two or three elements that could've been designed to throw any analysis off its trail. After all, if there's one single image that the disc brings to mind, it's that of Dilla goofing off, having fun with some of his favorite records, and messing with some heads in the process. (And you could probably make the album's title out to be a metaphor for the circle of life, but sometimes a donut is just a donut.) Armed with sources that are either known to novice sample spotters or only the most seasoned diggers -- surprisingly, the former greatly outweighs the latter -- Dilla's also just as likely to leave his samples barely touched as he is to render them unrecognizable. It's fitting that Motown echoes, a predominant theme, are often felt, from the use of Dionne Warwick's Holland-Dozier-Holland-written "You're Gonna Need Me" (on "Stop"), to the shifting waves of percussion plucked from Kendricks' "People... Hold On" (on "People"), to the Stevie-like piano licks within Kool & the Gang's "The Fruitman" ("The Diff'rence"). Most of the tracks fall into the 60-90 second range. It's easy to be overwhelmed, or even put off, by the rapid-fire sequence, but it's astounding how so many of the sketches leave an immediate impression. By the third or fourth listen, what initially came across as a haphazard stream of slapped-together fragments begins to take the shape of a 44-minute suite filled with wistful joy. Like everything else Dilla has ever done, Donuts is not defining; in fact, elements of its approach bare the apparent influence of Jaylib collaborator Madlib. His mode has always been too slippery and restlessly progressive to be equated with any one track or album, but Donuts just might be the one release that best reflects his personality. © Andy Kellman /TiVo

One of the most interesting aspects about the Alan Parsons Project is the band's ability to forge a main theme with each of its songs, while at the same time sounding extremely sharp and polished. Much of this formula is used in Ammonia Avenue, only this time the songs rise above Parsons' overall message due to the sheer beauty of the lyrics partnered with the luster of the instruments. The album touches upon how the lines of communication between people are diminishing, and how we as a society grow more spiritually isolated and antisocial. But aside from the philosophical concepts prevalent in the lyrics, it is the music on this album that comes to the forefront. The enchanting saxophone of Mel Collins on "Don't Answer Me" adds to its lonely atmosphere, while the briskness of Eric Woolfson's wording throughout "Prime Time" makes it one of the Project's best singles. On "You Don't Believe," the seriousness of the lyrics works well with the song's energetic pace. The subtlety of the ballad comes to life on the elegant "Since the Last Goodbye," which focuses on a failed attempt at a relationship. With Ammonia Avenue, the sum of the parts is greater than the whole product, which can't be said for all of the Alan Parsons Project's albums. Vocalists Eric Woolfson, Chris Rainbow, Lenny Zakatek, and Colin Blunstone equally shine, placing their talents above and beyond the album's main idea.© Mike DeGagne /TiVo