Post Malone’s new blockbuster arrives a year and a half after the sales-shattering Beerbongs & Bentley, carried by the huge hit Rockstar. The formula is pretty much the same here: a skilful mix of 21st century trap (the kind that was concocted in the dark corners of Atlanta and Chicago before it invaded pop) and melodic alternative rock which draws in festival-goers from all around the world. In short, we find stadium rap with unstoppable riffs and crushing beats, which stretches out wide and sweeps along everything in its path. Post Malone has become one of the biggest popstars of his time, largely because he’s an outstanding performer on his own (even if his famous rapper friends are all present here - from Future to Swae Lee to Young Thug). Each of the songs on Hollywood’s Bleeding are hit-worthy, particularly thanks to the melodic prowess of this Syracuse-born rapper, who was bottle-fed on country and heavy metal, swallowing and spitting out decades of American popular music. Post Malone is supernatural on On the Road, yet challenged by two of the liveliest rappers on the scene, Meek Mill and Lil Baby. He has some fun with 80’s pop-rock weirdness on Allergic. He puts Ozzy Osbourne and Travis Scott in the same studio to see what happens (Take What You Want). He reveals yet another rap club hit with Wow. All with an unbelievable amount of phlegm and cheek. © Damien Besançon/Qobuz

Roughly a year after Avril Lavigne released her eponymous fifth album in 2013, she was diagnosed with Lyme disease. Her illness informs Head Above Water, which arrives six long years after Avril Lavigne -- the longest time separating Lavigne albums by far. Considering that half-decade gap and all the personal turmoil the singer endured, it scans that Head Above Water unveils a different Avril Lavigne, one who proudly bears her scars and is eager to share her journey. Head Above Water has its moments of darkness, but they're not sad, they're stirring. The album is designed to offer solace while also being a rallying call. Inspirational music, in other words, so it's not entirely surprising that its title track was serviced to Christian radio in advance of its release -- a gambit that proved successful, since "Head Above Water" went to number five on the Christian radio chart. Despite this, Head Above Water can't be called Christian music by any measure -- no album with "Dumb Blonde," a cherry bomb stomp of defiance featuring a Nicki Minaj verse could -- but its quieter, contemplative moments, of which there are many, do veer toward the aspirational pop of Rachel Platten, a sign Lavigne is no longer the mall punk of lore. Although the album is weighed heavily by ballads suited for adult contemporary radio, Lavigne fortunately peppers it with moments of levity: "Tell Me It's Over" sways with echoes of a '50s slow dance, "Crush" is so light it floats into the stratosphere, and "Bigger Wow" swells with strings reminiscent of vintage Vanessa Carlton. Such moments provide a needed contrast to the motivational ones while also connecting to Lavigne's bubblegum roots, a move that makes the overall maturation of the album feel earned.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

It’s always been hard to place Kid Cudi on the ever-growing map of American rap. So much the better. Always wanting to surprise, the Cleveland native slips through our fingers yet again, as much as he appears to be deeply influenced by the esthetics developed by his former collaborator Kanye West. Physically absent from this album and its credits, West is a clear influence, proof lying in tracks like “Get Off Me” with Travis Scott, “Cud Life”, “Tortured”, and “Blue Sky”. With the use of autotune and the stripped-down approach to production, it’s hard to not make the comparison. Yet Insano is more than that: it’s a meandering record, with rap at its foundations, but which seems to be incessantly tempted by incursions towards rock, pop, as well as 80s throwbacks. As always with Kid Cudi, the ideas flow into one another seamlessly, never ceasing to surprise, and now comprising the best album he has released in nearly a decade.  © Brice Miclet/Qobuz

Those following Beck Hansen since the dawn of the 90s know that he can play anything. Anything! From rural blues in Son House/Skip James fashion to Prince-like funk, slacker hip hop, Dylan-ian folk and lo-fi electro. If the tinkering ace from California first skyrocketed thanks to a convincing blend of folk and hip hop rhythms (the inevitable hymn Loser from 1993), he will over the years tend towards more classicism with Sea Changes (2002) and Morning Phase (2014). He’s done a complete 180° with Colors. This thirteenth album from Beck certainly isn’t lacking any hues. A vibrant mix of psychedelia à la Beatles, 80s pop, contemporary dancefloor, and funk crossed with hip hop, the stylistic kaleidoscope is complete! The wide variations are incidentally so far apart that they will probably rattle some newcomers. © CM/Qobuz

Serial moving target Bruce Hornsby indulges his love of underwater worlds in a collaboration with yMusic, a six-member classical/pop chamber group animated by an equally adventurous spirit. The pianist from the Tidewater region of Virginia has in recent years added more classical players and flexibilities to his music. yMusic was featured throughout Hornsby's Absolute Zero in 2019 and BrhyM collects the work of an even earlier alliance between the pair: impromptu encores performed at the 2016 Eaux Claires festival in Wisconsin.  These short, frisky evocations of water in its many forms flow with the exuberance of its subject. "Platypus Wow" features strings and horns mimicking the waddling motion of the titular animal.   In the Moby Dick-inspired "The Wild Whaling Life," clarinet and strings combine to create whale sounds and a playful piping rhythm that pulses behind Hornsby's chunky lyrics ("A mystical, mystic ocean at my fee/ I slot a barrel stave when singing a/ Mordant stave of psalmody/ Psalmody, singing to the sea") which are willfully intricate and oblique throughout but never fully annoying. Hornsby opens "Phase Change" lamenting, "Sitting, sitting at the bar as my beer glass starts to cry" before spinning out a fantasy about water in its various states.  "I wiped a tear off my cheek, sympathetic with the glass/ Feelings are much more than a liquid from a cooling glass/ The tears I hear are hormone-driven water from some ducts/ It happens all the time when a happy couple self-destructs," he continues. This collaboration soars in the touching melody of "Foreign Sounds," the unlikely saga of a baby clownfish who, at the mercy of pollution, "may be doomed to wander the sea alone." The song hints at larger issues, broadening into what Hornsby calls a "a true ballad for the blighted, the heartsick, and the stranded." The single "Deep Blue" easily slides into another facet of his art: spare but genuine bass, drum and keys funk.  Reflexively ambidextrous and ever yearning for the new, Hornsby's unpredictable journey strides forward. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

It's hard to believe that the Kills could sound even darker, tighter, and more stripped-down than they did on Keep on Your Mean Side, but somehow they managed it: No Wow is one of the most highly concentrated rock albums in a long, long time. In fact, its tight focus and barely relenting intensity make Keep on Your Mean Side's more traditional ebb and flow feel downright slack. The band's throbbing guitars, to-the-point rhythms, and sexy, dangerous lyrics have been simmered and tempered down to their barest essences, so much so that No Wow often feels like a stark, stylized caricature of rock. Less is usually more for the Kills, though, and they sound more powerful, more confident, and more distinctive here than they did on their debut. "No Wow" itself is a fantastic opener, a powerful statement of intent and of curdled but still compelling love (or lust), the likes of which hasn't been heard since Rid of Me's title track. From there, the album doesn't let up until the sweetly narcotized "I Hate the Way You Love, Pt. 2." Most of No Wow feels like monochromatic variations on the same sounds and themes -- monochromatic, but not monotonous. Wisely, the Kills have chosen to let their drum machine sound like a drum machine, giving songs like "Love Is a Deserter" a skeletal clatter for a backbone, and others, such as "The Good Ones" and "Sweet Cloud," a piston-like thrust. The magnificently taut "Dead Road 7" adds shades of menacing, mysterious country/blues storytelling to the band's songwriting, a direction they should pursue more. At times, No Wow can feel a little too compressed and high-contrast for its own good -- the album downplays the poppier moments that balanced Keep on Your Mean Side's onslaughts. However, since there are so few soft, slow songs here, they're thrown into even sharper relief. "Rodeo Town" is one of the loveliest, and grittiest, ballads that the band has written, and "Ticket Man" ends the album on a hypnotic, reflective note. And though Hotel's vocals are also downplayed (and missed), it has to be said that VV does a compelling job of handling the lioness' share of the singing. A tight, mean set of songs, No Wow feels like a fight going on in a closet -- there's no room for punches to swing, but all of the shoving and grappling makes just as big an impact. © Heather Phares /TiVo

Nigerian Afrobeats star Wizkid hit a career high with his 2020 LP, Made in Lagos, a critical and commercial smash which charted around the world and earned him a rare gold certification in the U.S. Released two years later, More Love, Less Ego builds on the singer's momentum with 13 new tracks that double down on his signature mix of sunny, low-key beats and romantic odes. The album's title speaks for itself, though he reiterates his amorous affirmations at various points, particularly on "Everyday," a track that begins with a spoken manifesto on love's transformative power. As on previous Wizkid releases, a curated cast of collaborators is scattered across the record including Ayra Starr, Shenseea, Naira Marley, and Don Toliver. A significant cross-section of More Love, Less Ego is spent between the sheets with the songs like "Slip N Slide," "Deep," and the woozy "Plenty Loving," among its steamiest cuts. Musically, the album lives in a sensuous R&B/Afrobeats netherworld of midtempo rhythms set against a lush backdrop where programmed synths mingle with the more organic sounds of saxophones, hand drums, and chiming guitars. Featuring production from P2J, Kel-P, Sammy Soso, and others, it's an able follow-up to its breakout predecessor.© Timothy Monger /TiVo

With Final Straw, Snow Patrol mainman Gary Lightbody seems to take all the inspiration he's gathered from the superstar collaborators in his Reindeer Section project and bundle it into a series of earnest bombastic rock ballads. Producer Garrett Lee deserves credit up-front for expanding the band's sound even further from the lush symphonic grandeur of When It's All Over We Still Have to Clear Up. Here, Lightbody and his cohorts traverse the same anthemic territory as Idlewild, with guitars cranked to the max. But where his friend Roddy Woomble of Idlewild soars all over the map vocally, Lightbody prefers the immediate and somewhat indifferent vocal style of another friend, Aidan Moffat of Arab Strap. Indeed, much of Final Straw feels like a middle ground between these two bands, if not for the violins, xylophones, and percussion Lee layers into the mix. Thanks to extra ornamentation, "Gleaming Auction" steps into the swirling realm of Rollerskate Skinny, as wobbly dynamics add interest to punishing guitars. If one gets the sense that Lightbody is shuffling through influences, ranging from all of the above-mentioned bands to Radiohead, Coldplay ("Somewhere a Clock Is Ticking" seems to be a more rocking cousin to Coldplay's "Clocks"), and even Pink Floyd (on the unmistakably Dark Side of the Moon-influenced "Same"), his mastery of mood and adherence to harmonies make for a consistently coherent and compelling 40 minutes. Highlights include the throbbing cacophony that is "Wow" and "Spitting Games," which seems like a cascading Wall of Sound feedback-free descendant of My Bloody Valentine. Final Straw is another strong slab of emotion and invigorating energy from a solid band that mixes its influences into an always heady sonic libation.© Tim DiGravina /TiVo

With Final Straw, Snow Patrol mainman Gary Lightbody seems to take all the inspiration he's gathered from the superstar collaborators in his Reindeer Section project and bundle it into a series of earnest bombastic rock ballads. Producer Garrett Lee deserves credit up-front for expanding the band's sound even further from the lush symphonic grandeur of When It's All Over We Still Have to Clear Up. Here, Lightbody and his cohorts traverse the same anthemic territory as Idlewild, with guitars cranked to the max. But where his friend Roddy Woomble of Idlewild soars all over the map vocally, Lightbody prefers the immediate and somewhat indifferent vocal style of another friend, Aidan Moffat of Arab Strap. Indeed, much of Final Straw feels like a middle ground between these two bands, if not for the violins, xylophones, and percussion Lee layers into the mix. Thanks to extra ornamentation, "Gleaming Auction" steps into the swirling realm of Rollerskate Skinny, as wobbly dynamics add interest to punishing guitars. If one gets the sense that Lightbody is shuffling through influences, ranging from all of the above-mentioned bands to Radiohead, Coldplay ("Somewhere a Clock Is Ticking" seems to be a more rocking cousin to Coldplay's "Clocks"), and even Pink Floyd (on the unmistakably Dark Side of the Moon-influenced "Same"), his mastery of mood and adherence to harmonies make for a consistently coherent and compelling 40 minutes. Highlights include the throbbing cacophony that is "Wow" and "Spitting Games," which seems like a cascading Wall of Sound feedback-free descendant of My Bloody Valentine. Final Straw is another strong slab of emotion and invigorating energy from a solid band that mixes its influences into an always heady sonic libation.© Tim DiGravina /TiVo

By the time of 1994's Mars Audiac Quintet, Stereolab had already highlighted the rock and experimental sides of its music; now the band concentrated on perfecting its space-age pop. Sweetly bouncy songs like "Ping Pong" and "L' Enfer des Formes" streamline the band's sound without sacrificing its essence; track for track, this may be the group's most accessible, tightly written album. The groove-driven "Outer Accelerator," "Wow and Flutter," and "Transona Five" (which sounds strangely like Canned Heat's "Goin' Up the Country") reaffirm Stereolab's Krautrock roots, but the band's sweet synth melodies and vocal arrangements give it a pop patina. Even extended pieces like "Anamorphose" and "Nihilist Assault Group" -- which could have appeared on Transient Random Noise-Bursts With Announcements if they had a rawer production -- are more sensual and voluptuous than edgy and challenging. It's equally apparent on layered, complex songs such as "New Orthophony" and "The Stars Our Destination," as well as spare, minimal tracks like "Des Etoiles Electroniques," that the members of Stereolab focused their experimental energies on production tricks, vocal interplay, and increasingly electronic-based arrangements. The charming final track "Fiery Yellow" takes the band's fondness for lounge pop and experimentation to the limit; a delicate, marimba-driven piece featuring the High Llamas' Sean O'Hagan, it sounds like the kind of music Esquivel or Martin Denny would be proud to make in the '90s. While it's not as overtly innovative as some of Stereolab's earlier albums, Mars Audiac Quintet is an enjoyable, accessible forerunner to the intricate, cerebral direction the group's music would take in the mid- and late '90s. © Heather Phares /TiVo