Drummer Gary Powell and bassist John Hassall provide the Libertines necessary structure and foundation, but it is the wonderfully rococo decorations of terror twins Carl Barât and Pete Doherty that give the band its bloody emotion: the charming devil rascality that lives up to the name. Their first album in nine years finds the foursome cleaner (presumably, in multiple meanings of the word) and tighter than the deliciously dangerous-sounding records that helped define post-Britpop in the aughts, yet it still feels like a natural progression. Single "Run Run Run" is pretty classic Libertines: romantic garage rock, pulled off with an imperious dishevelment that could ignite a dancefloor. Barât delivers the nihilism with a chip on his shoulder, crooning, "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to/ Light the fuse, sing the blues, I can die if I want to/ Tonight we're gonna bring tomorrow's happiness." Sunny "Mustangs" finds the band borrowing from Lou Reed and glam; cowbell, Doherty's falsetto back-up and what sounds like a full choir on the bridge add up to excellent chaos: "Sister Mary shivers—whooo!" Both tracks easily belong on a future Best Of. Doherty steps up with a slightly breathless delivery for the garage-meets-sea-chanty "I Have a Friend"—making room for Barât to unleash a fiery bit of guitar work—and "Merry Old England." The latter is a surprising adventure, packing in Latin percussion and '70s neo-soul, as well as melodramatic strings and fog-moody piano; it's the kind of epic they could not have pulled off in the bad old days. Strings and piano grandiosity also elevate the haunted ballad "Man with the Melody," while "Oh Shit" is bright and bouncy blue-collar pop-punk that sounds like a party in the studio. The same goes for "Be Young"—which marries a pub-singalong chorus, a searing guitar solo and even a Two-Tone breakdown; is it any wonder the whole thing ends in a coughing fit? Murder ballad "Night of the Hunter" injects a romantic Balkan feel into a Gallagher Bros. style melody, switching between a Greek Chorus narrator ("A-C-A-B/ Tattooed on your knuckles/ Does the world know what it means?") and the weary antagonist ("I was calling to tell you, baby/ They're taking me away for a while/ Ah, you can't blame me, it's this world that's made me"). Unvarnished "Baron's Claw" hints at Weimar cabaret mystery with drunken horn and tinkling piano. In the messy past, there was always a danger that things could just fall apart for the Libertines; now, there's a joy in hearing them keep it together. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Fans of the 2015 album Meliora will remember the 2018 release of Prequelle, which saw the Swedish band take a 180-degree turn with incredible, soaring lyrics, massive choruses, synths and layered violins. This record reflects the character of Papa Nihil and the group’s “new” singer, Cardinal Copia (renamed Papa Emeritus IV for Impera). With Klas Åhlund returning to the band’s production, Ghost is back with a massive sound that highlights the guitars and bass. The album begins with Kaisarion, featuring guitars so heavy they’d make George Lynch proud. It’s clear right from the off that this will be a real treat. Tobias Forge’s unusual vocals and phrasing almost hark back to the Iron Maiden from the good old days. It feels like a real revival. Spillways offers a welcome detour to the 80’s sound of Prequelle, whilst nodding towards the AOR greats. Watcher in the Sky is the real gem of the record, worthy of comparison to Ozzy's biggest solo albums. It makes for incredible listening. The second part of the album might challenge listeners not already familiar with the band. This is particularly true for the track Twenties. This song is twisted (yet not short of appeal) and is an unexpected cross between a Disney soundtrack and a dictator’s speech. There’s even reggaeton accents chucked in, because why not? Darkness at the Heart of My Love is a metal ballad with ultrapop undertones and “Sheeran-esque” accents. Respite on the Spitalfields seems to sum up Ghost’s career: just, poignant and impactful. Unstoppable and generous, this album is sophisticated in its execution. Impera just goes to show that Ghost is always a step ahead of its audience and the music industry in general. This is a must-have, and probably one of the best releases of this year. © Maxime Archambaud/Qobuz

Tom Waits collaborated with director Robert Wilson and librettist William Burroughs on the musical stage work The Black Rider in 1990. A variation on the Faust legend, the 19th century German story allowed Waits to indulge his affection for the music of Kurt Weill and address one of his favorite topics of recent years, the devil. Waits had proven an excellent collaborator when he worked with director Francis Ford Coppola on One from the Heart, making that score an integral part of the film. Here, the collaboration and the established story line served to focus Waits' often fragmented attention, lending coherence and consistency. He then had three years to adapt the score into a record album in which he did most of the singing and writing (though Burroughs contributed, singing one song and writing lyrics to three), and he used the time to come up with his best recording in a decade, a varied set of songs that work whether or not you know the show. (Seven of the 20 tracks were instrumentals.) Waits used the word "crude" to describe his working method several times in the liner notes, and a crude performing and recording style continued to appeal to him. But the kind of chaos that can sometimes result from that style was reined in by the bands he assembled in Germany and Los Angeles to record the score, so that the recordings were lively without being off-puttingly primitive. © William Ruhlmann /TiVo

Following the 40th anniversary of Simple Minds' New Gold Dream in 2022, the group headed to the 12th century Paisley Abbey to pay tribute to the record. The one-off recording captures the band performing the album in full.© Rich Wilson /TiVo

Anna Calvi can trumpet that the shy and sick child has become a sexual lioness; the score of her third album is in no way radical in its form. Still, her transformation is rather powerful as she described on social media when she came out as queer.In 2011, she released a stunning first eponymous album, where she revealed herself as much more than yet another PJ Harvey… Gifted with a mysterious organ a-la Siouxsie, armed with a 50s-sounding guitar in the vein of Duane Eddy and productions worthy of improbable Morricone/Badalamenti soundtracks, the British artist released One Breath two years later, an astounding second album, slightly evolving her singular art. Calvi leaned on dreamlike curves bordering on gothic, but also dared explore dirty and powerful sounds. With complete mastery over the writing, interpretation, arrangements and singing, she reasserted how much of a well-rounded artist she was. Something she does once again with Hunter and its very symbolic title. Supported by Nick Launay for the production (Nick Cave), Adrian Utley from Portishead on the keyboards and the Bad Seeds’ Martyn Casey on the bass, she strings together ten stunning tracks and reaches sublime heights by refining them to the extreme like on her ghostly ballad Away. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones is the fifth score that John Williams has written for George Lucas' Star Wars series and, by this point, he knows the lay of the land. Not just that, but his themes for the series -- from the main title to the march of the Storm Troopers -- are embedded in the consciousness of any filmgoer, so he could be excused for coasting and delivering simply what is expected of him on this score, given that it arrives five films into the series. But, The Phantom Menace changed that for the entire franchise by not quite living up to expectations. Visually, it was a knockout, but by many standards, it was a flat origin story, highlighted by some great flights of fancy. Judged on its own, however, Williams' score was quite impressive, particularly because it introduced a legitimate new masterwork in "The Duel of Fates" section. Given this, he didn't have much to prove with Attack of the Clones, but he still outdoes himself here (hopefully mirroring the reported rejuvenation of the series with this film), producing a thrilling atmospheric score that is so effective, it feels as if you're watching the film unfold before your eyes, even if you've never seen it before. Williams doesn't broaden his palette the way he did with Phantom Menace, where he spent a lot of time with African drums, but instead consolidates the strengths of the series, occasionally adding an unexpected twist -- such as the squalling electric guitar on "Zam the Assassin and the Chase through Coruscant" -- while developing another seemingly classic theme with its "Love Theme" (perhaps sappy, but effective all the same). This is enough, since it's an exciting, dramatic score that telegraphs the rush of the full film as effectively as watching the film. [Spoiler Warning! Although the track listing doesn't go to the extreme of Episode I, which actually gave away Qui-Gon's death with a track title, the tracks of this album do give away the structure of the film through its titles, even if no explicit twists are revealed.]© TiVo

Albert King recorded a lot in the early '60s, including some classic sides, but they never quite hit the mark. They never gained a large audience, nor did they really capture the ferocity of his single-string leads. Then he signed with Stax in 1966 and recorded a number of sessions with the house band, Booker T. & the MG's, and everything just clicked. The MG's gave King supple Southern support, providing an excellent contrast to his tightly wound lead guitar, allowing to him to unleash a torrent of blistering guitar runs that were profoundly influential, not just in blues, but in rock & roll (witness Eric Clapton's unabashed copping of King throughout Cream's Disraeli Gears). Initially, these sessions were just released as singles, but they were soon compiled as King's Stax debut, Born Under a Bad Sign. Certainly, the concentration of singles gives the album a consistency -- these were songs devised to get attention -- but, years later, it's astounding how strong this catalog of songs is: "Born Under a Bad Sign," "Crosscut Saw," "Oh Pretty Woman," "The Hunter," "Personal Manager," and "Laundromat Blues" form the very foundation of Albert King's musical identity and legacy. Few blues albums are this on a cut-by-cut level; the songs are exceptional and the performances are rich, from King's dynamic playing to the Southern funk of the MG's. It was immediately influential at the time and, over the years, it has only grown in stature as one of the very greatest electric blues albums of all time.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Mystery burns at the heart of Portishead, lurking deep within their music and their very image. From the outset they seemed like an apparition, as if their elegant debut, Dummy, simply materialized out of the ether in 1994, as their stately blend of looped rhythms, '60s soundtrack samples, and doomed chanteuse vocals had only a tenuous connection to such Bristol compatriots as Massive Attack and Tricky. Soon enough, Portishead's unique sound was exploited by others, heard in swank clubs and high-end dinner parties on both sides of the Atlantic, a development that the trio of Geoff Barrow, Beth Gibbons, and Adrian Utley bristled at instinctively, recoiling into the darker corners of their sound on their eponymous 1997 sophomore album before fading back into the ether leaving no indication when they were coming back, if ever. They returned 11 years later, seemingly suddenly, with Third, supporting the album with candid interviews that lifted the veil from their personality, yet the mystery remained deeper than ever within their gorgeous, unsettling music. That strain of uneasiness is a new wrinkle within Portishead, as in the '90s they favored a warm, enveloping melancholy, a rich sound that could be co-opted and turned into simple fashion, as it was by band after band in the heyday of the swinging '90s. So many groups grabbed ahold of Portishead's coattails that it's easy to forget that in 1994 there was no other band that sounded quite like Portishead -- not even Massive Attack and Tricky, who shared many surface sounds but not a sensibility -- and that is just as true in 2008, years after trip-hop has turned into history. Their cold, stark uniqueness isn't due to a continuing reliance on the cinematic textures of Dummy, although there are echoes of that here on the slow-crawling album openers "Silence" and "Hunter," songs just familiar enough to act as reminders of how Portishead are special, yet just different enough to serve notice that the trio is engaged with the present, even if they've happily turned into isolated recluses, working at a pace utterly divorced from the clattering nonsense of the digital world. Third is resolutely not an album to be sampled in 30-second bites or to be heard on shuffle; a quick scan through the tracks will not give a sense of what it's all about. It demands attention, requiring effort on the part of the listener, as this defies any conventions on what constitutes art pop apart from one key tenet, one that is often attempted yet rarely achieved: it offers music that is genuinely, startlingly original. Surprises are inextricably intertwined throughout Portishead. There are jarring juxtapositions and transitions, as how the barbershop doo wop of "Deep Water" sits between those twin towers of tension of "We Carry On" and "Machine Gun," the former riding an unbearably relentless two-chord drone while the latter collapses on the backs of warring drum machines. Echoes of Krautrock and electronica can be heard on these two tracks, but that very description suggests that Third is conventionally experimental, spitting out the same hipster references that have been recycled since 1994, if not longer. These influences are surely present, but they're deployed unexpectedly, as are such Portishead signatures as tremulous string samples and Utley's trembling guitar. Out of these familiar fragments from the past, Portishead have created authentically new music that defies almost every convention in its writing and arrangement. As thrilling as it is to hear the past and present collide when "Plastic" is torn asunder by cascading waves of noise, Third doesn't linger in these clattering corners, as such cacophony is countered by the crawling jazz of "Hunter" and the sad, delicate folk of "The Rip," but a marvelous thing about the album is that there's no balance. There is a flow, but Portishead purposely keep things unsettled, to the extent that the tonal shifts still surprise after several listens.Such messiness is crucial to Portishead, as there's nothing tidy about the group or its music. Experimental rock is often derided as being cerebral -- and this is surely enjoyable on that level, for as many times as Third can be heard it offers no answers, only questions, questions that grow more fascinating each time they're asked -- but what sets Portishead apart is that they make thrillingly human music. That's not solely due to Gibbons' haunting voice, which may offer an entryway into this gloom but not its only glimpse of soul, as the perfectionism of Barrow and Utley have resulted in an album where nothing sounds canned or processed, the opposite of any modern record where every sound is tweaked so it sounds unnatural. Third feels more modern than any of those computer-corrected tracks as the group's very sensibility mirrors the 21st century, where the past is always present. Then, of course, there's that rich, fathomless darkness that Third offers, something that mirrors the troubled days of the new century but is also true to that shimmering, seductive melancholy of Dummy. Here, the sad sounds aren't quite so soothing, but that human element of Portishead gives them a sense of comfort, just as it intensifies their sense of mystery, for it is the flaws -- often quite intentional -- that give this an unknowable soul and make Third utterly riveting and endlessly absorbing.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

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

Albert King recorded a lot in the early '60s, including some classic sides, but they never quite hit the mark. They never gained a large audience, nor did they really capture the ferocity of his single-string leads. Then he signed with Stax in 1966 and recorded a number of sessions with the house band, Booker T. & the MG's, and everything just clicked. The MG's gave King supple Southern support, providing an excellent contrast to his tightly wound lead guitar, allowing to him to unleash a torrent of blistering guitar runs that were profoundly influential, not just in blues, but in rock & roll (witness Eric Clapton's unabashed copping of King throughout Cream's Disraeli Gears). Initially, these sessions were just released as singles, but they were soon compiled as King's Stax debut, Born Under a Bad Sign. Certainly, the concentration of singles gives the album a consistency -- these were songs devised to get attention -- but, years later, it's astounding how strong this catalog of songs is: "Born Under a Bad Sign," "Crosscut Saw," "Oh Pretty Woman," "The Hunter," "Personal Manager," and "Laundromat Blues" form the very foundation of Albert King's musical identity and legacy. Few blues albums are this on a cut-by-cut level; the songs are exceptional and the performances are rich, from King's dynamic playing to the Southern funk of the MG's. It was immediately influential at the time and, over the years, it has only grown in stature as one of the very greatest electric blues albums of all time.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Recorded live at the Orpheum Theatre, Los Angeles on their 2018 tour, Live in the City of Angels captures Simple Minds at their best. Featured are numerous tracks from their back catalog including fan favorites "Don’t You (Forget About Me)," "Sanctify Yourself," and "Alive and Kicking."© Rich Wilson /TiVo

Danzig debuts with a record of simple, pounding, bluesy metal featuring lead singer Glenn Danzig's trademark Elvis-meets-Jim Morrison bellow and outlandishly dark, evil lyrics. There isn't a great deal of musical variety or complexity here, but the band powers its way through such signature tunes as "Twist of Cain," "Am I Demon," and the (future) hit "Mother" with a primal energy. Plus, Danzig's tongue-in-cheek posturing as the ultimate unholier-than-thou heavy metal frontman gives the record a definite appeal, even if one is not inclined to view his theatrics as dangerous or threatening.© Steve Huey /TiVo

While Def Leppard had obviously wanted to write big-sounding anthems on their previous records, Pyromania was where the band's vision coalesced and gelled into something more. More than ever before, the band's songs on Pyromania are driven by catchy, shiny melodic hooks instead of heavy guitar riffs, although the latter do pop up once in a while. But it wasn't just this newly intensified focus on melody and consistent songwriting (and heavy MTV exposure) that made Pyromania a massive success -- and the catalyst for the '80s pop-metal movement. Robert John "Mutt" Lange's buffed-to-a-sheen production -- polished drum and guitar sounds, multi-tracked layers of vocal harmonies, a general sanding of any and all musical rough edges, and a perfectionistic attention to detail -- set the style for much of the melodic hard rock that followed. It wasn't a raw or spontaneous sound, but the performances were still energetic and committed. Leppard's quest for huge, transcendent hard rock perfection on Pyromania was surprisingly successful; their reach never exceeded their grasp, which makes the album an enduring (and massively influential) classic.© Steve Huey /TiVo

Since their days as Double Virgo and associates of U.K. avant garde presence Dean Blunt, post-punk London trio bar italia have believed in anonymity as a founding principal. Their lyrics, for example, are a secret. This pretentious obscurity has given them the reflexive magnetism attached to anyone not promoting themselves in a world inundated by oversharing. With a firm grasp on how to make a spontaneous form of distorted guitar pop, their fervid air of mystery has made them darlings of the cultural underground. Yet now that their shoegaze, swirly folk/psychedelica is on a widely distributed label, they're in a quandary. How do Nina Cristante, Sam Fenton and Jezmi Tarik Fehmi, all of whom sing, often trading lead vocals several times within the same song, remain clandestine now that they've abandoned the lo-fi life for well-recorded albums and world tours? This threesome is now indulging in better arrangements, more coherent songs and infinitely more clarity and insight into their oh-so-deep vision. While it's dispelling the obscurity, the musical results are intriguing. "Real house wibes (desperate house vibes)" falls into a bittersweet minor key groove not unlike Nirvana minus the volume.  Opening with menacing guitar chords and rhythmic kick drum thumps, the slow, atmospheric "Shoo" is guided by Cristante's voice over acoustic guitar strumming and electric guitar squalling.   Cristante's vocals also lead "twist," which is a straight, nearly conventional guitar rock number.  Slowly coming out of the shadows, bar italia may be heeding the prophetic words in album opener "my little tony": "Your pretentious ways/ Make me die a little/ Don't you see/ You've lost your touch." © Robert Baird/Qobuz