After a two-year standoff with Interscope, Azealia Banks triumphs with her self-released debut. She nods to club kids of all ages by infusing elements of jazz, deep house and U.K. garage into tracks like “Desperado” and “Chasing Time.” Her most impressive fusion, “Gimme a Chance,” starts with the bubblegum of…… Source: RollingStone Link: Broke With […]

Following a 2012 release with the bafflingly Ferry-less Bryan Ferry Orchestra, the duke of avant-fop returns with this lavish set. Opener “Loop De Li” alone credits six guitarists, including Nile Rodgers, Johnny Marr and Neil Hubbard, the latter a vet of Roxy Music’s Avalon, a set this LP recalls in…… Source: RollingStone Link: Avonmore

TV on the Radio’s fifth studio album is the sound of healing – but first, it’s the sound of a band going over its wounds, and boy, do they run deep. On opener “Quartz,” singer Tunde Adebimpe cries, “How much do I love you?/How hard must we try?” over intense…… Source: RollingStone Link: Seeds

Opening on glacial chords that echo Brian Eno’s ambient work, the latest by U.K. electronic magician Andy Stott cooks down the abstract beauty of his 2012 LP Luxury Problems to a new minimalism. Which isn’t to say it’s sleepy, or comforting. On “Violence,” sidekick Alison Skidmore intones “clap your hands”…… Source: RollingStone Link: Faith in […]

Over the past 20 years, Wilco have gone from plain-spoken alt-country to the pinnacle of experimental folk and art rock. Hear how that happened on this four-disc rarities set, which is often so raw it feels less like opening the vault than rooting around under Jeff Tweedy’s bed. Hyper-low-fi demos…… Source: RollingStone Link: Alpha Mike […]

One Direction have now been the biggest pop band in the world for three full years. Such longevity doesn’t exactly make them the Allman Brothers – but it’s pretty impressive for a bunch of singing-contest runners-up joined together in Simon Cowell’s laboratory. If any of these guys harbor secret dreams…… Source: RollingStone Link: Four

Primordial are arguably Ireland’s greatest metal export, and on their eighth album, the five Dubliners raise the torch once more for a set of stirring odes to lost glories and spilled blood. Alan Averill is a vocal powerhouse, soaring atop melodic black/folk metal compositions that channel doom and gloom as…… Source: RollingStone Link: Where Greater […]

In 2006, Antony Hegarty toured Europe with 13 women, some of them transgender, onstage beside him. Their presence can be felt throughout this live album, lending tracks like “For Today I Am a Boy” a more immediate resonance. “One Dove” and “Daylight and the Sun,” gorgeous on record, soar even…… Source: RollingStone Link: Turning

Nine years ago, when Nick Jonas recorded his first solo album, he was a little-known preteen Christian pop singer covering Steve Winwood. (He was also going by Nicholas at the time.) Since then, he has gained and lost both a purity ring and a boy band – and this sexy…… Source: RollingStone Link: Nick Jonas