The creative resiliency that Slowdive has shown since their 2014 reunion has been remarkable. While immediate post-reunion festival gigs appropriately focused on the band's now-legendary '90s material, their 2017 self-titled album was ill-content to explicitly revisit past glories. Instead, the Slowdive album very much updated the immersive sonics and abstract weirdness of the band's initial three-album arc into something that sounded remarkably fresh while still appealing to their original Gen X fans. Six years later, with everything is alive, Slowdive continues to impress, atomizing their sound even further into adventurous new directions. Of course, some of the material here is atmospheric and ethereal in a very literal sense; a cut like "Prayer Remembered" is built upon sonic scaffolding that is dense to the ears but with very little explicit melody or rhythm. More broadly, the band continues to morph "shoegaze" into a lushly arranged version of synth-pop. Burbly synths get nearly as much attention in the mix as the dense guitars, and the half-speed groove that underpins most of the material sometimes makes it feel like what you'd listen to in your hypersleep pod while traveling the galaxy. And while nothing here approaches the icy post-rock of Pygmalion, many of the cuts on everything is alive evoke a similar sense of expansiveness, most notably on "andalucia plays," which somehow splits the difference between the sleepy-eyed psychedelia of the band's earliest EPs, the gentle acoustics of Mojave 3, and the spare nothingness of Pygmalion. That expansiveness, however, should not be mistaken for emptiness, and on more direct numbers like "alife" and album closer "the slab," Slowdive pushes past the stylistic limitations of the genre they helped pioneer. These cuts revel in an insistent energy that manifests in back-and-forth vocals, driving rhythm tracks high in the mix, and a refusal to be used as sonic wallpaper. While there have always been numbers like this scattered throughout Slowdive's catalog, on everything, they signal a clear movement toward more accessible (if no less daring) material. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

In 1993, PJ Harvey told Melody Maker she didn't get why fans were besotted with her dark, often dangerous sounding lyrics. "It seems silly to me, 'cos they're not poetry, they're not meant to be read," she said. Ironically, the musician's 10th studio album is essentially the audio version of "Olam," a folklore poem Harvey published in 2022. Harvey based the epic in a magical-realist version of Dorset, the craggy English coast that looks sleepy but is the site of centuries of rebellions, uprisings and battles. With producers and longtime collaborators Flood and John Parish, she brings it all to sonically sylvan life. It's the story of nine-year-old Ira-Abel Rawles, growing up on a farm—as Harvey did—in the village of Underwhelem, next to woods protected by the all-seeing eyeball of a lamb named Orlam. The 12 songs represent the calendar cycle of the poem, tracking the last year of Ira-Abel's innocence in a world of old-school pubs, sheep and perversion. While the poem is written in the Dorset dialect, the songs are a mix of Dorset and English, with Harvey often singing from the point of view of the girl. "I think the album is about searching, looking—the intensity of first love, and seeking meaning, Harvey has said. "...The feeling I get from the record is one of love—it's tinged with sadness and loss, but it's loving." Love comes, as it can in childhood, in nonsensical places. There's Orlam, of course, the spirit of her beloved lost lamb, as well as Wyman-Elvis, the ghost of a soldier who represents a sort of Christ-like figure but also The King—as in, Presley. "Are you Elvis? Are you God? Jesus sent to win my trust?" Harvey sings on "Lwonesome Tonight," ethereal as she brings him gifts of Pepsi and "peanut-and-banana sandwiches." Paddington actor Ben Whishaw seemingly embodies Wyman-Elvis on "A Child's Question, August," a dark yet reassuring presence as he joins in for the fairy-tale chorus: "Help me dunnick, drush and dove/ 'Love Me Tender,' tender love." Harvey sounds like a breathy chanteuse on chill opener "Prayer at the Gate," and slightly chaotic on "Autumn Term." "Seen an I" is a capella before the song takes on a Doors moodiness and Harvey finally slips into her more familiar voice. The title track, meanwhile, is most like a classic PJ Harvey song: nervy, on the edge, fueled by the natural power of her voice. That vocal cue is done with intention. "In the lyric everyone is waiting for the savior to reappear—everyone and everything anticipates the arrival of this figure of love and transformation," Harvey has said of the song. "There is a sense of sexual longing and awakening and of moving from one realm into another —from child to adult, from life to death and the eternal." Evocative, shadowy and sometimes sinister, much like Harvey's best work, this catalog entry nonetheless comes with an asterisk: Not for everyone. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Corinne Bailey Rae's fourth album draws deep inspiration from the archives of Stony Island Arts Bank, a gallery and community center on Chicago's South Side that houses art and artifacts regarding the Black experience in America—everything from the vinyl collection of legendary house music DJ Frankie Knuckles to "negrobilia" used to perpetuate offensive stereotypes. Among the objects she gravitated toward was the writing of Harriet Jacobs, whose 1861 autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, recalled a harrowing existence: Born into slavery in North Carolina, she escaped her owner's sexual abuse by pretending to run away and instead hiding for seven years in a crawl space in her free grandmother's house that was so small she couldn't stand up but which allowed her to occasionally watch her children and sew by the light from a tiny borehole. "I stitchеd myself into your heart/ I thread my needlе by sister North Star/ And I missed your quiet hands/ Their tiny weight," Bailey Rae sings on the lush, gorgeous "Peach Velvet Sky." She's accompanied only by piano, alternating between twinkling hope and the ominous allusion of heavy left-hand notes. "New York Transit Queen" is a thrilling surprise—the title chanted over handclaps before punk frenzy hits like a 5 train barreling into the station at full speed. It's a story of beauty and fierceness and triumph, gleaned from a photo of 1950s Miss New York Transit pageant winner Audrey Smaltz, who grew up to be a contributing editor at Vogue and manage fashion shows for big-name designers. "Erasure," meanwhile, is an aggressive garage-rock nugget, a fuzzed out Bailey Rae hollering, "They Typex'ed all the Black kids out of the picture/ So when they pictured that scene, they wouldn't be seen/ Baby girl in the front row, with the cornrows/ Smiling at the band/ They made a cartoon of you." It's about as far as you can imagine from the easy-listening charm of "Put Your Records On," and it's invigorating. She plays with psychedelic soul on sensual "Earthlines," which channels something adventurous but also a little dangerous, robotically promising over wild bloops and bleeps, "Don't you know, Earthlings/ You can start again." On "A Spell, A Prayer," Bailey Rae's caramel voice travels from a soft, soothing coo to a sort of banshee wail, the song's initial plainspoke rhythm matching her on its quest to a wilder place of jazz skronk and rock noise. Cantering "Red Horse" is Big Sky-expansive, and "He Will Follow You With His Eyes" summons an island breeze as Bailey Rae sings of "the promise of the potion that I buy … My black hair kinking/ My black skin gleaming." And the title track is joyous, glimmering and energetic with sax blare, like some soul sunbeam. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Slippery When Wet wasn't just a breakthrough album for Bon Jovi; it was a breakthrough for hair metal in general, marking the point where the genre officially entered the mainstream. Released in 1986, it presented a streamlined combination of pop, hard rock, and metal that appealed to everyone -- especially girls, whom traditional heavy metal often ignored. Slippery When Wet was more indebted to pop than metal, though, and the band made no attempt to hide its commercial ambition, even hiring an outside songwriter to co-write two of the album's biggest singles. The trick paid off as Slippery When Wet became the best-selling album of 1987, beating out contenders like Appetite for Destruction, The Joshua Tree, and Michael Jackson's Bad. Part of the album's success could be attributed to Desmond Child, a behind-the-scenes songwriter who went on to write hits for Aerosmith, Michael Bolton, and Ricky Martin. With Child's help, Bon Jovi penned a pair of songs that would eventually define their career -- “Living on a Prayer” and “You Give Love a Bad Name” -- two teenage anthems that mixed Springsteen's blue-collar narratives with straightforward, guitar-driven hooks. The band's characters may have been down on their luck -- they worked dead-end jobs, pined for dangerous women, and occasionally rode steel horses -- but Bon Jovi never presented a problem that couldn’t be cured by a good chorus, every one of which seemed to celebrate a glass-half-full mentality. Elsewhere, the group turned to nostalgia, using songs like “Never Say Goodbye” and “Wild in the Streets” to re-create (or fabricate) an untamed, sex-filled youth that undoubtedly appealed to the band’s teen audience. Bon Jovi wasn't nearly as hard-edged as Mötley Crüe or technically proficient as Van Halen, but the guys smartly played to their strengths, shunning the extremes for an accessible, middle-of-the-road approach that wound up appealing to more fans than most of their peers. “It’s alright if you have a good time,” Jon Bon Jovi sang on Slippery When Wet’s first track, “Let It Rock,” and those words essentially served as a mantra for the entire hair metal genre, whose carefree, party-heavy attitude became the soundtrack for the rest of the ‘80s.© Andrew Leahey /TiVo

Fans of Slowhand will be delighted to learn that the documentary written and produced by Stephen "Scooter" Weintraub and broadcast on American television in 1995 (which includes an interview carried out by Martin Scorsese in which Eric Clapton professes his love for the blues and the great artists of the genre) has been rereleased, along with its soundtrack Nothing But The Blues. Here, we see the British guitarist take to the stage at the Fillmore in San Francisco during the autumn of 1994. He performs his 12th studio album From the Cradle, a pure blues masterpiece that he released in September that same year, following the success of Unplugged (1992). As is often the case with Eric Clapton, the live version differs greatly from the version recorded at Olympic Studios in London, though this was also recorded live. This album also includes a number of unreleased tracks: Blues All Day Long by Jimmy Rogers and Malted Milk by Robert Johnson, as well as the blues classics Every Day I Have The Blues and Forty-Four. The audio tracks from the live performances from the 8th and 9th of November 1994 were previously leaked without permission, so this album is a much more official digital release. Plus, it’s in high definition! © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

Gogo Penguin is an experience, almost a challenge. We know the fascination of Chris Illingworth, the pianist of the trio from Manchester, for robotics and the concepts of transhumanism and human upgrading. The music he’s been creating since 2012 with bass player Nick Blacka and drummer Rob Turner manages to merge machine and human like no one else. A classic formation, a jazz education, an electronic consumption and, in the end, this GoGo Penguin sound, incomparably fluid and superbly recorded by producer and sound engineer Joe Reiser, the true fourth member of the band. With A Humdrum Star, the palpable tension between acoustic sonorities and electronic ones is magnified even more. The melodic fabrics are also further refined. The legacies of this or that illustrious elder can also show up from time to time (Brian Eno, Philip Glass, E.S.T., Roni Size, St Germain, Amon Tobin, Massive Attack, Bill Evans, John Cage…), GoGo Penguin still manages to take all the credit and keep their own identity. Finally, the atmospheric feelings cherished by the three Englishmen are never a smokescreen hiding shaky skills. Quite the contrary, in fact. Illingworth, Blacka and Turner could easily cause an unnecessary sensation, but they prefer to focus on the compositions, their improvisation phases and most of all the blurring of stylistic boundaries… Starting with softwares like Ableton and Logic and ending up with such musical intimacy demonstrates how far GoGo Penguin has come in only a few years. The future is theirs, now more than ever. © MD/Qobuz

The arc of creative genius is predictable. In popular music, the simple answer is no one writes great songs forever. Success tends to dull raging emotions and satiate once endless hunger. In popular music few outside the Beatles can claim a run of success like that of Bruce Springsteen. From 1973's Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. to 1987's Tunnel of Love, The Boss wrote album after album's worth of truly great songs. His muse returned on 1995's acoustic The Ghost of Tom Joad and 2002's 9/11 influenced triumph The Rising but has been sporadic ever since. Always a searcher, Springsteen has now been re-energized as a songwriter by the twin calamities of loss and mortality. Letter To You, his 20th album, bears the impact not only of Clarence Clemons' passing but also the recent revelation that he is now the last man alive from his first band, The Castiles. The man who once launched himself off PA towers with wild abandon, proclaiming his stone desire, has become a 71-year-old who's finally played the ace card he's had all along: a return to the studio with the E Street Band. Recorded live with the band at his Stone Hill Studio near his New Jersey home, Letter To You—unlike marathon Springsteen sessions from the past—was tracked in a mere five days. The sound is not the crisp digital world of his solo projects but the full-bodied band sound chock-full of guitar chords, organs, glockenspiels, harmonicas, Roy Bittan's piano and the welcome pounding of the mighty Max Weinberg. Clarence's nephew Jake Clemons provides ghostly echoes of his uncle's horn. After opening with the acoustic solo number "One Minute You're Here" with the singer laying his penny down on the tracks, the E Street vibe floods in on the title track. The acoustic piano-led "House of a Thousand Guitars," speaks for "good souls near and far," while "Rainmaker" hints at politics where "folks need to believe in something so bad." Three old songs written in the '70s anchor the album. "Janey Needs a Shooter," written for Darkness on the Edge of Town and later loosely covered by Warren Zevon, has long been one of the strongest Bruce outtakes. He reaches back further, all the way to Greetings, for "If I Was the Priest," and "Song for Orphans." Both are solid and Dylanesque, filled with the dense often jabberwocky wordplay of his long-ago debut. Once exhilarating signs that a great talent was rising, these songs now indicate that after exploring many artistic sideroads, that same virtuoso has taken a step forward by returning to his roots. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

The sixth full-length effort from the veteran alt-rockers, It's the End of the World, But It's a Beautiful Day sees the Jared and Shannon Leto-led ensemble deliver an assured set of prog-, pop-, and electronic-leaning songs that play to all the band's strengths. Inspired by the sounds of '70s and '80s electronic music, the album is the group's first effort, apart from their debut, to not feature guitarist Tomo Miličević, who left the fold in 2018. The 11-song set includes the streaming hits "Stuck," "Life Is Beautiful," and "Get Up Kid."© TiVo

Murder Ballads brought Nick Cave's morbidity to near-parodic levels, which makes the disarmingly frank and introspective songs of The Boatman's Call all the more startling. A song cycle equally inspired by Cave's failed romantic affairs and religious doubts, The Boatman's Call captures him at his most honest and despairing -- while he retains a fascination for gothic, Biblical imagery, it has little of the grand theatricality and self-conscious poetics that made his albums emotionally distant in the past. This time, there's no posturing, either from Cave or the Bad Seeds. The music is direct, yet it has many textures, from blues to jazz, which offer a revealing and sympathetic bed for Cave's best, most affecting songs. The Boatman's Call is one of his finest albums and arguably the masterpiece he has been promising throughout his career.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Just as nature blossoms to life during springtime, so do Florence + the Machine with their triumphant fifth album, Dance Fever. This vernal revival is patient to reveal its full scope, but once these songs settle in, it's a transformative journey that's spiritually on par with 2009's Lungs and 2015's How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful in emotional depth and uplifting power. At first glance of the title (and eyeing producers Jack Antonoff, Glass Animals' Dave Bayley, and Kid Harpoon), fans might expect a disco-kissed, dancefloor romp, but Dance Fever is more pure and pastoral in its interpretation of the titular movement: a primal act of ecstasy that takes inspiration from the choreomania phenomenon, where groups of people burst into dance frenzies to the point of exhaustion or injury. With that in mind, Florence Welch and company invite listeners to their sacred ceremony to find healing, empowerment, and catharsis through song and physical response ("Heaven Is Here" could conjure an entire army of spirits). The most immediate expressions come with "Free" and "My Love." The former track is an urgent, synths-and-guitar pop thrill that sounds like Antonoff's band Bleachers taking on an early-aughts Bloc Party or Strokes number, while the latter is one of the band's best singles, the closest this album comes to nailing the expected level of mainstream "dance" energy with its shimmering production, heaving beat, and festival-sized chorus. "Choreomania" percolates to life with Welch's confessional spoken word delivery and a sparse, skittering beat, slowly building to an explosive, euphoric end packed with strings, pounding percussion, and joyous cries of "I just keep spinning and I dance myself to death." "Cassandra" is similarly rapturous, swelling with church organs and Welch's trilling vocals that recalls the dramatics of Ceremonials. The shiver-inducing "Daffodil" follows a similar route, a showstopping highlight that sways and stomps with cinematic might, clattering to a close with a cacophony of drums and heaving breaths. Meanwhile, the bold "King," the threatening harps-and-horns "Girls Against God," and the seething "Dream Girl Evil" empower with some of the strongest lyrics and personal insight on the album. While this effort may not be Welch's surprise transformation into a full-on pop diva, Dance Fever is a generous offering to the goddesses of dance and restorative energy.© Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo

Like 1999's Voice in the Night, The Water Is Wide features Charles Lloyd in the company of one of his dearest friends, drummer Billy Higgins, who would pass away less than a year after the album's release. Guitarist John Abercrombie also remains on board, but Lloyd extends the group's generational span by recruiting two younger players: pianist Brad Mehldau and bassist Larry Grenadier. The album begins with a straightforward, elegant reading of Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia." Lloyd goes on to lead his ensemble through two lesser-known Ellington pieces, "Black Butterfly" and "Heaven"; Strayhorn's "Lotus Blossom"; two original ballads, "Figure In Blue" and "Lady Day"; and Cecil McBee's "Song of Her," a track from Lloyd's 1968 classic, Forest Flower. It's a glorious amalgam of sound: the leader's unique, glissando-laden phraseology, Mehldau's harmonic nuances, unerring rhythmic backbone from Grenadier and the majestic Higgins -- and only occasionally, pointed and eloquent guitarism from Abercrombie. The session ascends to an even higher level with the inclusion of two spirituals, "The Water Is Wide" and "There Is a Balm in Gilead." The latter features just Lloyd and Higgins, starkly setting the melody against a hypnotic drum chant. In addition, Lloyd's closing "Prayer," written for Higgins during a life-threatening episode back in 1996, features just the composer, Abercrombie, and guest bassist Darek Oles. (Oddly, Oles' credit is relegated to the fine print.) These tracks, most of all, resonate with personal meaning and profundity.© David R. Adler /TiVo

His album Traveller was one of the best country discs of 2015. Over the years, Chris Stapleton has written for the the whole of Nashville (but not only Nashville!), signing hit after hit for Kenny Chesney, George Strait, Adele, Luke Bryan, Tim McGraw and Brad Paisley, and co-writing with Vince Gill, Peter Frampton and Sheryl Crow. The native of Kentucky no longer has much to prove in terms of his songwriting ability… However, getting behind the mic was a different matter: his first solo album which he has record at the age of 37 had to be up to scratch. And it was. Sure, between 2008 and 2010 Stapleton had been at the helm of the SteelDrivers, a decent bluegrass group, but this time it was time for him to write his own record - under his name and no one else's… Traveller proved that Chris Stapleton possessed a truly gifted voice. From the ballads to the considerably more up-tempo tracks, he suited his songs from head to toe, sometimes even adding a touch of southern soul… Two years down the line, the songwriter is back with a superb follow-up: a contemporary country work that preserves tradition while remaining firmly in the present. After a flawless first volume in May 2017 (From A Room: Volume 1), the second volume has been released this December (From A Room: Volume 2)! Recorded in the lair of the famous RCA Studio A in Nashville where Elvis, Waylon Jennings and other legends hung out last century, this record brings out a more rootsy side from its author. Stapleton still sings divinely well, bawling like a wounded wolf when necessary, playing the southern soul lover if needs be, and rolling out small touches of sticky blues. In short, the bearded-man from Lexington slaloms perfectly between the very personal and the more commercial, and at the end of his winding road he has arrived at a record that is every bit as good as volume 1. © MD/Qobuz

The late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson was well known for film scores in which he got considerable emotional mileage out of repetitive, almost minimalistic gestures. The suites from Sicario (by filmmaker Denis Villeneuve) and The Theory of Everything (about Stephen Hawking) heard here were both nominated for Academy Awards in their full versions, and the latter took a Golden Globe for Best Original Score. A Prayer to the Dynamo, however, is something else again, an independent orchestral work. Physical and online versions of the album apparently differ in their track sequencing, with this work coming first only in the physical albums. This is preferable, for it is quite an arresting and distinctive work. The title refers to a disused power station in Iceland where the composer recorded concrete sounds, incorporating them into the score as samples. This is one of few pieces Jóhannsson wrote independently of a cinematic context, and it is receiving its world premiere recording here (it was performed by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, which commissioned it). The language is not distinct from that of the film scores, but the samples lend the music a mysterious and somewhat futurist sound. The "prayer" element of the title is entirely apropos. Conductor Daniel Bjarnason and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra offer the clean, somewhat mechanical sound the music requires, and it is well recorded in Reykjavik's Harpa Concert Hall. Strongly recommended to those interested in the potentialities of new film music, and really anyone will find this an interesting listen. The album made classical best-seller charts in the autumn of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo

Florence + The Machine's 5th album sees frontwoman, Florence Welch, question her relationship with her art and to femininity. "You need to go to war to find material to sing / I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king" she sings in King, the opening track built around an incredible musical crescendo. This album takes modern-day life and wraps it up in a medieval fairy-tale aesthetic, with the British singer extending the theme of feminism to such a point that she almost seems to celebrate freedom in the broadest sense. This celebration is accompanied by the kind of dance that can lead to death by exhaustion (Free). The track Choreomania seems to be a reference to tarantism, a psychological illness that causes an extreme impulse to dance that was rampant in the Middle Ages. Co-produced by herself and Jack Antonoff (Lana Del Rey), the combination of contemporary themes and vibrant music make Dance Fever a fantastic listen. However, Florence Welch isn’t always fighting on the front line, she can also reveal real vulnerability and softness (for example, in the ballads Girls Against God and The Bomb). She’s equally happy to venture her way into wild and bewitching lands in Prayer Factory and Heaven Is Here (a track bursting with crazy musical ideas). Kate Bush is a clear influence throughout this release, which unexpectedly concludes with a tribute to Elvis Presley, one of Florence Welch’s idols (Morning Elvis). ©Nicolas Magenham/Qobuz

The title Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones is slightly misleading, suggesting that Madonna topped the pop charts 50 times. The 50 Number Ones in the title of Finally Enough Love refer to the hits Madonna placed at the top of Billboard's dance charts, a chart she called home even longer than the pop charts themselves. The last time Madonna placed in the Billboard Top Ten was in 2012, when "Give Me All Your Luvin" peaked at ten, but she remained a dominant presence on the Dance charts into the 2020s, when "I Don't Search I Find" -- a single that lends this compilation its title phrase -- reached number one in 2020. Truth be told, Madonna had more than 50 dance chart-toppers -- "Causing a Commotion" is notable among the absences -- but it's difficult to find fault with a compilation this generous, particularly when it offers such revelations as well. Positioning Madonna as a dance artist helps emphasize her innovations while suggesting she remained a vital part of dance culture for decades. Viewing her through this prism naturally downplays her pop sensibilities and gift for sultry ballads, yet it still comes as a shock that the '80s hits are wrapped up in nine songs, while the '90s are concluded at the collection's 22nd track with "Beautiful Stranger." This means well over half of the collection is devoted to the 21st century, a period when Madonna was a superstar yet only occasionally in center stage. Effectively, this is the photo negative of Celebration, the 2009 album that contains all the pop radio staples: where that largely played for comfort, this is percolating and alive, with even the biggest hits being offered in alternate single or video edits or different mixes. The result is a compilation that pushes Madonna's artistry to the forefront, as it shows a musician who continually engages with fashions, trends, and innovations. Certainly, this doesn't tell the entirety of Madonna's story, but it's a crucial chapter to document and, fortunately, it's done so quite thoroughly here.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo