Less overtly adventurous than its predecessor, Empyrean Isles, Maiden Voyage nevertheless finds Herbie Hancock at a creative peak. In fact, it's arguably his finest record of the '60s, reaching a perfect balance between accessible, lyrical jazz and chance-taking hard bop. By this point, the pianist had been with Miles Davis for two years, and it's clear that Miles' subdued yet challenging modal experiments had been fully integrated by Hancock. Not only that, but through Davis, Hancock became part of the exceptional rhythm section of bassist Ron Carter and drummer Tony Williams, who are both featured on Maiden Voyage, along with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and tenor saxophonist George Coleman. The quintet plays a selection of five Hancock originals, many of which are simply superb showcases for the group's provocative, unpredictable solos, tonal textures, and harmonies. While the quintet takes risks, the music is lovely and accessible, thanks to Hancock's understated, melodic compositions and the tasteful group interplay. All of the elements blend together to make Maiden Voyage a shimmering, beautiful album that captures Hancock at his finest as a leader, soloist, and composer.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Joni Mitchell's ongoing Archives series has been an overwhelming success and the third volume somehow manages to outdo its predecessors. Where Volume 1 gave a raw, warts-and-all look at a developing talent wrestling with her creative identity and Volume 2 showed that talent operating at an astonishingly high level, Volume 3 documents Mitchell's transition from a truly gifted artist pushing the boundaries of the rock-culture zeitgeist into a mad genius staking her own sonic territories. This set, probably more than any other that has been or will be part of this series, is dynamic and revelatory, like pulling back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz and finding an actual wizard doing real wizardry. While Vol. 3 falls short of giving blow-by-blow documentation of the incredible studio-as-an-instrument work Mitchell did to transform For the Roses, Court and Spark, and—most triumphantly—The Hissing of Summer Lawns from jazz-inflected pop-folk records into towering artistic statements (most of the songs here are presented in either spare embryonic versions or funky, recalibrated live takes, with little middle ground). This volume repeatedly demonstrates Mitchell's unerring gift for songwriting that is singular and superlative, as well as her willingness to build sonic scaffolding for those songs that is as complementary as it is challenging. The results are often just as impactful in their simplest renditions (a live acoustic version of "This Flight Tonight" loses the electric filigree and multi-tracked harmony vocals but still can stop traffic), and there are real revelations in the early and alternate versions of these well-known album tracks. In fact, most of these early versions would have made excellent album tracks. "See You Sometime" especially benefits from a loose, swinging airiness that's replaced with a denser arrangement on For the Roses, a streamlined, acoustic demo of "Raised on Robbery" is missing the full-band energy of the final version, but employs some wild background vocals that give the number an entirely different vibe, and a demo of "Help Me"—just Mitchell and a guitar—is breathtaking in its elegance. Despite the strengths of these more straight-ahead versions, Mitchell was clearly going to be dissatisfied with releasing them in forms that were merely "really good," when—with more work in the studio and the multi-track editing suite—they would be transformed into work that was "truly great."  © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Crashing head-long through a wall of corroded metal and glass shards, Bring Me the Horizon redefines their heavy sound once again with the potent EP POST HUMAN: SURVIVAL HORROR. The first of a proposed series of shorter non-LP efforts, this set is a pure assault of physical, riotous aggression designed specifically for the existential dread and global turmoil of 2020. Recorded while the band was stuck in quarantine lockdown, the anxiety and uncertainty course through these nine tracks in a manner that both amplifies paranoia and comforts with cathartic release. On the thrashing opener "Dear Diary," frontman Oli Sykes screams, "God is a shithead/And we're his rejects," while Matt Nicholls' jackhammer drums pummel and Lee Malia's guitars tear through Jordan Fish's cacophony. The trap-sludge "Parasite Eve" is a cinematic epic, unveiling a neon dystopia where war and strife reign, while the stomping "Ludens" -- first heard on the Death Stranding video game soundtrack -- pleads for a new leader to help carry the world out of the darkness. "Teardrops" tackles addiction and hopelessness in one of the album's standout moments, channeling the hybrid sound of Linkin Park (later they pay additional homage to the genre-blurring outfit with "Itch for the Cure," a direct nod to the American sextet's "Cure for the Itch"). An inspired roster of guests elevate SURVIVAL HORROR even further. English upstart Yungblud joins the band for the electro-industrial collision "Obey," a deranged dose of nihilism that lambasts systemic corruption, while Japanese outfit Babymetal join the apocalypse party for the unhinged industrial tempest "Kingslayer," which pairs Su-Metal's innocent lullaby vocals with Sykes' guttural cries of "Get the f*ck up!/Wake the f*ck up!" The most impressive collaboration -- "One Day the Only Butterflies Left Will Be in Your Chest as You March Towards Your Death" -- arrives at the close of the album, as Evanescence's Amy Lee duets with Sykes on a mournful heartbreaker that leaves no hope in sight. Despite the graphic descriptions of death, it's a beautiful moment of respite after an unbroken stretch of turbulence and hostility. Longtime fans displeased with their late-era pop shift should be appeased with the increase in crushing breakdowns and more dirty vocals than on mainstream breakthroughs That's the Spirit and Amo. Indeed, SURVIVAL HORROR is one of the band's best distillations of their extremes, providing just enough brutality without sacrificing their evolving vision of how melodic and experimental a metal band can be.© Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo

A relentlessly bleak cornerstone of mid-'90s hip-hop, the Queens duo's second album has all the foreboding atmosphere and thematic sweep of an epic crime drama.© TiVo

Of all the great transitional albums in rock history, Joni Mitchell's For the Roses is one of the greatest. Coming after the spare, diaristic Blue—on which Mitchell both perfected and abandoned her evolution from the coffeehouse folk scene —and pointing the direction to the more jazz-flecked and kaleidoscopic sounds of Court and Spark, Roses found her going from strength to strength lyrically, while opening a pandora's box of musical possibilities in these songs' structures and instrumentation. The album starts familiarly enough, with the piano-and-vocals simplicity of "Banquet," which initially presents as an impressionistic number but quickly reveals itself to be a biting class critique far more cynical and angry than anything Mitchell had previously recorded. If that wasn't enough of a clue that Roses was going to be a very different Joni Mitchell album, "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire" makes it clear that this was an artist intent on radically reshaping her sound. The song couples bleak lyrics about addiction and codependency with a lush arrangement that leans as heavily on well-deployed horn lines as it does on a full-bodied acoustic guitar attack accentuated by subtle studio effects. It's a complex sonic construction that is remarkably airy and light-filled, providing an unsettling contrast to its dark lyrics. Despite its rather dour opening, Roses has considerable tonal variety; after all it's also home to "You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio" one of Mitchell's most beloved accidents, written as an offhanded half-joke reply to her label's insistence that she get a song on the radio. Naturally, it wound up being a hit, but also sneakily subverts the "songs about radios get played on the radio" trope by being lined with "Wall of Joni" multi-tracked vocals, no discernable chorus, and a questionable take on whether radios are actually cool or not. There are also several other numbers that align closely with the singer-songwriter vibes of Blue, most notably the beautiful piano-and-vocals approach of "Lesson in Survival," but for the most part, Roses is an album that finds Mitchell pushing forward. "Let the Wind Carry Me" is profoundly intense lyrically ("Sometimes I get that feeling that I wanna settle and raise a child with somebody/ But it passes"), and wildly dynamic musically, with odd timings, quirky phrasings, and ethereal saxophone lines intertwined with gut-punch vocal harmonies. "Car on a Hill" would revisit some of the musical themes here just a few months later, but this number is far more challenging than its Court and Spark descendant. Likewise, "Blonde in the Bleachers"—a pure homage to the sanctifying (and suffocating) power of rock stardom—is perched upon such a jazzy foundation that it wouldn't have been out of place on The Hissing of Summer Lawns three years later. This "in-between-ness" has often found For the Roses left out of conversations extolling the virtues of the records it came before and after, but that very aspect is what makes it such a remarkably unique and utterly essential album in Mitchell's catalog. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Download not available
Curtain Call 2 is one of those titles like Final Destination 2: an absurd name for a sequel but the brand has already been established, so what are you gonna do? In Eminem's case, he released Curtain Call: The Hits as part of his purported retirement in the mid-2000s. Inactivity didn't suit Em, so he returned in 2009 with Relapse, a record that kicked off a particularly prolific decade and a half. Curtain Call 2 chronicles the releases since Relapse, featuring most -- but not all -- of his charting singles, along with a handful of album tracks, non-LP cuts, and three new numbers: "From the D 2 the LBC," which features Snoop Dogg; "The King and I, " a contribution to Baz Luhrmann's Elvis soundtrack featuring CeeLo Green; and "Is This Love ('09)," which showcases 50 Cent. At over two and a half hours, Curtain Call 2 is generous to a fault, playing like an endless streaming playlist instead of a curated compilation, yet it does feature many highlights from Eminem's mid-career records, including "Crack a Bottle," "Not Afraid," "Love the Way You Lie," "Berzerk," "The Monster," "Lucky You," and "Godzilla."© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

One of the cornerstones of the New York hardcore movement, The Infamous is Mobb Deep's masterpiece, a relentlessly bleak song cycle that's been hailed by hardcore rap fans as one of the most realistic gangsta albums ever recorded. Given Mobb Deep's youthful age and art-school background, it's highly unlikely that The Infamous is drawn strictly from real-life experience, yet it's utterly convincing, because it has all the foreboding atmosphere and thematic sweep of an epic crime drama. That's partly because of the cinematic vision behind the duo's detailed narratives, but it's also a tribute to how well the raw, grimy production evokes the world that Mobb Deep is depicting. The group produced the vast majority of the album itself, with help on a few tracks from the Abstract (better known as Q-Tip), and establishes a spare, throbbing, no-frills style indebted to the Wu-Tang Clan. This is hard, underground hip-hop that demands to be met on its own terms, with few melodic hooks to draw the listener in. Similarly, there's little pleasure or relief offered in the picture of the streets Mobb Deep paints here: They inhabit a war zone where crime and paranoia hang constantly in the air. Gangs are bound together by a code of fierce loyalty, relying wholly on one another for survival in a hopeless environment. Hostile forces -- cops, rivals, neighborhood snitches -- are potentially everywhere, and one slip around the wrong person can mean prison or death. There's hardly any mention of women, and the violence is grim, serious business, never hedonistic. Pretty much everything on the album contributes to this picture, but standouts among the consistency include "Survival of the Fittest," "Eye for a Eye," "Temperature's Rising," "Cradle to the Grave," and the classic "Shook Ones, Pt. 2." The product of an uncommon artistic vision, The Infamous stands as an all-time gangsta/hardcore classic.© Steve Huey /TiVo

Wasteland is the seventh studio album from Polish progressive rock outfit Riverside and their first as a trio after the passing of guitarist Piotr Grudzinski. Recorded at the end of 2017, the album sees the trio expanding on their original prog rock sound with help from the likes of Maciej Meller, Mateusz Owczarek, and Michał Jelonek.© Rich Wilson /TiVo

Carried by the juggernauts “God’s Plan” and “Nice For What”, Drake is releasing his fifth album, Scorpion. Coming off of his uneven Views and his eclectic playlist More Life, the Toronto artist offers a complete panel of 25 tracks spread over two sides like an old vinyl or a dusty tape. Drake is trying to explore all the angles of his musical personality, with a first ensemble focused on rap, and the other edging towards pop. In “Scorpion”, Drake is also trying to encompass his entire dynasty, and invited his two long-time role models to the party: Jay-Z for a red-hot verse and Michael Jackson on a ghostly melody. Darker and sharper in the first part, Drake reaches later on a few radiant moments like “Blue Tint” and “Ratchet Happy Birthday”. But for the first time in many years, the worldwide musical emperor appears to falter on his throne and offers a glimpse into a few fragile moments. Following Pusha T’s repeated attacks, Drake recognises his paternity maybe sooner than he initially intended. And while he often claims to be “Emotionless”, Aubrey Graham here proves he can’t always be in control. He appears urgent on the “Nonstop” borrowed from Blocboy JB, nostalgic on the soulful “8 out of 10” and annoyed on the catchy “Sandra’s Rose”, produced by DJ Premier. Bit by bit, he’s always trying to prove his legitimacy, justifying his success, his accomplishments. Scorpion marks a turning point in his discography, a transition with a few flashes and short-winded moments that scratch the surface of the artist’s personality. Throughout the album, Drake doesn’t directly address his critics, but provides a lot of information about his position and state of mind. Slick but tormented. The best Canadian mix. © Aurélien Chapuis/Qobuz

Containing what is considered Marley's most defiant and politically charged statement to date, Survival concerns itself with the expressed solidarity of not only Africa, but of humanity at large. The album was controversial right down to the jacket, which contains a crude schematic of the stowage compartment of a typical transatlantic slave ship. Survival is intended as a wake-up call for everyman to resist and fight oppression in all of its insidious forms. From Tyrone Downie's opening synthesizer strains on "So Much Trouble in the World" to the keyboard accents emerging throughout "Zimbabwe," the sounds of Survival are notably modern. The overwhelming influence of contemporary African music is also cited with the incorporation of brass, á la Fela Kuti and his horn-driven Africa '70. While "Top Rankin'," "Ride Natty Ride," and "Wake Up and Live" are the most obvious to benefit from this influence, there are other and often more subtle inspirations scattered throughout. Survival could rightly be considered a concept album. Marley had rarely been so pointed and persistent in his content. The days of the musical parable are more or less replaced by direct and confrontational lyrics. From the subversive "Zimbabwe" -- which affirms the calls for the revolution and ultimate liberation of the South African country -- to the somewhat more introspective and optimistic "Africa Unite," the message of this album is clearly a call to arms for those wanting to abolish the subjugation and tyranny of not only Africans, but all humankind. Likewise, Survival reinforces the image of Marley as a folk hero to those suffering from oppression.© Lindsay Planer /TiVo

Launching a late-era surprise attack with the towering The Art of Survival, Bush haven't sounded so vital and hungry since their 1990s heyday. The polar opposite of 2017's Black and White Rainbows, Survival builds upon 2020's course-correcting The Kingdom and leaves it in the dust. Their best post-hiatus offering to date, the aggressive set finds frontman Gavin Rossdale and bandmates Chris Traynor, Corey Britz, and Nik Hughes firing on full throttle with what might end up being Bush's heaviest album ever. That passion stems from the all-too-real inspiration behind much of the lyrical content. Staring down climate disaster, the corrosion of women's rights, widespread intolerance, and impending societal collapse, Rossdale channels his frustration and anxiety with the state of the planet with a heavy dose of anger. The cacophonous single "More Than Machines" rails against government control of women's bodies and the willful destruction of the planet, while the churning "Shark Bite" finds Rossdale lapsing into hopelessness with cries of "the earth is a madhouse, the planet so screwed." Amongst the rage, he injects a few touches of optimism for good measure. On the lurching "Heavy Is the Ocean," he declares, "We crack, but we don't break," as the band stomps through old-school sludge, later fighting for hope through the stoner-rock riffs and spacey production of "Human Sand." Noticeably, Rossdale's voice is starting to show signs of wear and tear, pushed to the limits on songs like "Kiss Me I'm Dead," but those cracks in his usual polished delivery make The Art of Survival even more urgent and relatable. Every track here is a highlight, careening from near-metal moments such as "Identity" to the programmed beats of midtempo breathers like "Creatures of the Fire" -- which could have been on The Science of Things -- and "1000 Years," an atmospheric slow burn that closes the album to gorgeous effect. Revitalized, Bush is reborn with The Art of Survival, an essential late-catalog installment that re-energizes their sound with fresh tricks and newfound purpose.© Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo