Vulture music critic Craig Jenkins is tracking the highlights of this year’s full-length releases across genres. Check back each month for the latest additions. Albums are organized chronologically by release date with the most recent at the top.
Arca, XXXXX
Kick, the last album-shaped endeavor from Venezuelan electronic-music auteur Arca, was a five-part series of releases cordoning off disparate aspects of her sound into more digestible packages. The sometime co-producer or remixer for Björk, Kelela, FKA Twigs, Nine Inch Nails, and, more recently, Madonna, let fans of her blaring reggaeton beats and darkly transportive instrumental music pool around a collection largely devoted to the one idea. Five years later, XXXXX, Arca’s ninth album, tears down the partitions, whizzing through loopy noise passages like the bright, sputtering “Heart,” collapsing into the frenetic “Syncope,” before the plunking “Raver” lurches disconcertingly, like a techno bassline gaining sentience. The proximity of bleak, philosophical party music (the patricidal “Fxck,” the Homeric “Eidolon”) to shrieking sound design (“Futurality,” “Sueño”) and shockingly soothing ambience (“Enraptured,” “Throb”) shows how music can be at once playful and impressively technical. XXXXX is beautiful but blistering, like a phoenix.
Charli XCX, Music, Fashion, Film
As the follow-up to the world-beating Brat — a music and marketing exercise whose international success at no cost to its sense of cool will be studied for years to come — Music, Fashion, Film is a naturally adverse reaction to being perceived at a scale that lifts you into a higher bracket of pop renown. Charli XCX hangs a screeching left turn throughout her eighth album in the interest of escaping the predictability trap of following Brat with more bleating dance-floor bravado. No, we’re making ro-o-o-o-o-ock music, and not the sweet, summery kind. Sputtering fuzz and disorienting effects swarm these scrappily understaffed, never-overthought grunge and Britpop bangers packed with allusions to esoteric materials further out. Intimacy and noisy immediacy grab you first, but wade in for the spins on composer Steve Reich’s 1965 tape masterpiece “It’s Gonna Rain” and Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 psychodrama Persona.
Steve Lacy, Oh Yeah?
The third full-length from singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Steve Lacy catches the “Bad Habit” star meditating on the jangling directness of the viral smash over a series of R&B and rock tunes that treat the hit single like a genre-dissolving eureka moment. On Oh Yeah?, the 28-year-old continues to write definitively about the struggle to become a better person on the road to 30, alternating between crunchy guitar and warm synth accompaniment. Mid-album power-pop nugget “Doom” vents about “life in a freaked-out generation”; the deceptively bubbly “Is It Cool” with SZA greets its superstar guest with heavy thoughts about Lacy losing a model for healthy relationships in his youth with the death of his father. The collection of musings on navigating sex, death, and queerness scratches at a couple of the big overarching questions of the year into which it was released: Is there a right way to be a man? Are we all gonna die?
Syd, Beard
Los Angeles singer-songwriter Syd’s third album, Beard, feels like a culmination of over 15 years of patient growth as the DJ in Odd Future, the lead singer of the Internet, the confident breakout solo star of 2017’s Fin, and the co-producer of Beyoncé’s “Plastic Off the Sofa.” She’s surrounded throughout the new work by R&B royalty like Raphael Saadiq, Rodney Jerkins, James Fauntleroy, and Van Hunt, and getting great stuff out of the veterans. Beard splits the difference between tributes to 20th-century soul balladry (the Prince-ly Fauntleroy duet “Any Time”), nods to the intimate wonkiness of early Internet songs (“Do Better,” “Walls”), and stately trap (“2 Many Days”) and Afrobeats (“Jasmin 17”) exercises. Anchoring this journey between the Stevie Wonder–musing-on-Brazil groove of “My Love” and the Anita Baker airs of “Closet” is the marquee artist, a writer-producer unafraid to explore her own shortcomings in relationships.
Kelela, New Avatar
R&B futurist Kelela cruises into her third studio album, New Avatar, on “Idea 1,” a chugging complaint that human history is jerking pridefully in a direction that does not suit the Earth or its inhabitants, which looms over the lovers’ quarrels that follow it like an organizing philosophy. The social contract is frayed; the work of a woman grows to nurture an ever-more-selfish, entitled dating pool. Her heart is heavy, but her vocals are ephemeral, often flanked by electric guitars drenched in modulation effects, like R&B’s answer to the Deftones covering Sade. The couples’ tiffs and ominous riffs offer an aesthetic counterpoint to the watery solitude of 2023’s exquisite Raven. Kelela’s back to let us know “something is wrong with the seed that we’re sowing,” as “Outta Time” frets, to reassert her worth, to enrich R&B, and to occupy dour alt-metal.
Madonna, Confessions II
For over 40 years, Madonna has staked her pop regency on a closeness to the forever-evolving pulse of dance music, and the quest to plant herself where the future is unfolding has often left the meaty subjects and epochal styles of her past on the sidelines, the better to fit the mold of the music of the present. This year’s Confessions II is the only sequel in a batch of 15 albums since the early ’80s, and its chief concern, like 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor, is reckoning with having been “That Girl” since the Reagan administration. Madonna peruses her own musical and romantic lore throughout the album, balancing camp and candor. She’s a badass from the party scenes your parents and grandparents dreamed of accessing; she’s 67 and looking back on journeys through motherhood and grief. Confessions II contains multitudes but, crucially, does not forget that its core mission is to snake-charm a crowd out of its daytime inhibitions.
Lee “Scratch” Perry and Mouse on Mars, Spatial, No Problem.
Dub pioneer Lee “Scratch” Perry, a mercurial and invigorating presence who could sometimes feel like a mischievous satyr granted the gifts of delay and echo, checked out of this plane in 2021 at 85. Proof he never abandoned the musical wanderlust that led him to work with everyone from Bob Marley to the Beastie Boys arrives in Spatial, No Problem., a team-up with German electronic duo Mouse on Mars recorded two years prior to Perry’s death and billed as his final album. It’s an exhilaratingly unorthodox musical marriage: Mouse on Mars’s frenetic, looping krautrock grooves and Perry’s effects-drenched river of profundities and absurdities complement each other, closing the geographical gap between European and Caribbean ethoses in experimental music. In both scenes, the ever-unfolding groove is king. Whether Spatial surrounds its reggae-toasting host with piles of drums, disorienting electronic beats, or locomotive rock music, Scratch abides as crooner, barker, mystic, meditation coach — whatever the moment requires.
Boards of Canada, Inferno
The fifth full-length from Scottish electronic duo Boards of Canada emerged 13 years after the previous installment — 2013’s Tomorrow’s Harvest — like the periodical cicada of downtempo music. The critical architecture of the creature is unmarred by the passage of time; its return offers a visitation with a world older than the observer. The cornerstone of Boards classics is a blurring retrofuturism achieved via swirling and clashing sample, synth, and guitar textures. Sounding like a score for a lost sci-fi film or a peculiar collection of VHS tapes, Inferno ushers listeners through dank corridors of sweetly ominous noise, cresting with full-bodied exercises in slowly unfolding boom-bap like “You Retreat in Time and Space” and “Naraka” but finding as much beauty in ghostly interstitial passages like “Somewhere Right Now in the Future” and “Acts of Magic.” Inferno is immersive and psychedelic but not necessarily in the relaxing way the words usually convey. Throw it on before bed for a creeping loss of temporal traction and wild dreams.
Elder, Through Zero
Over two decades of refinement, Massachusetts sludge-rock quartet Elder drifted to Berlin and evolved into a progressive-metal utility squad capable of holding court on tours with giants of the field like Blood Incantation and Tool. This spring’s Through Zero touts six compositions covering a vast tonal range that benefits from the years of exploration. Opener “Sigil to Ruin” leads with heavy tones the band spends ten minutes peeling off and then methodically restacking, while “Capture/Release” coolly juggles noodly math-rock and post-Sabbath blues-rock sections. Singer-songwriter and guitarist Nick DiSalvo’s plaintive vocals and snaking riffs can gently suggest thoughtful indie rock or tense up to show off more doom-adjacent roots. The best tracks here, like the sometimes ephemeral but sometimes chugging “Strata,” run the gamut.
Paul McCartney, The Boys of Dungeon Lane
Easily one of the best Paul McCartney solo albums of the 21st century, The Boys of Dungeon Lane offers a detailed primer on the pop-culture and sociopolitical circumstances that set off the British Invasion and Beatlemania in the ’60s. At 84, McCartney remains a studious polymath who excels in intersecting, often synergistic areas of interest: He’s an effusive writer of love songs and a romantic crooner but also a storied rock screamer and versatile multi-instrumentalist. Dungeon Lane makes use of the full tool kit in its trek from the howling, horny “As You Lie There” and the saccharine, strutting “Ripples in a Pond” to the hushed, reflective “Life Can Be Hard” and “Salesman Saint.” Remembering the mettle of his parents and his bandmates drives the Hall of Famer back to the heights of a world-class back catalogue, with the magisterial recorder notes and interlocking vocal harmonies of “Never Know” and the Liverpool love beaming off the bubbly Ringo-and-Paul duet “Home to Us” confirming Sir Paul has another classic in him yet.
Kacey Musgraves, Middle of Nowhere
On the surface, the latest album from Texas troubadour Kacey Musgraves muses about rediscovering a center of gravity after the end of a relationship and acclimating to long-term dry spells interspersed with low-stakes hookups. But there’s a deeper story in this collection of pure country tunes with nods to mariachi and western swing music graced by Willie Nelson and Miranda Lambert features: As much as Musgraves is learning to be at ease with solitude — especially in “Loneliest Girl” and “I Believe in Ghosts” — she’s also schooling everyone in earshot on the roots-music traditions of her home state. Saving Middle of Nowhere from wallowing too thoroughly in the aftermath of a breakup is the sound of the Texas country export who dabbled in disco and reggae on 2018’s Grammy-winning crossover opus Golden Hour confidently surveying hometown trends and embracing of a sense of history and community.
Ella Langley, Dandelion
For whatever suspicion swirled around the speed of her evolution into the sound and image of a crossover superstar, Alabama singer-songwriter Ella Langley proves with Dandelion she deserves a spot on the charts through pained writing and vocals that span emotional heights and depths. Her sophomore studio album strikes gold with a co-producer — Texas country institution Miranda Lambert — who has over 20 years of history dancing on the line dividing country and pop. It doesn’t matter whether you see “Be Her” as a descendent of No Doubt’s breezy mid-tempo pop-rock or a stomping roots-rock exercise; the simmering resentment in the lyrics and delivery feels lived-in. The dour, TikTok-famous chart-topper “Choosin’ Texas” is Dandelion’s calling card, but the batting average is strong enough to yield further heat in the glum “Speaking Terms” and “Broken.”
Sunn O))), Sunn O)))
The self-titled tenth album from Druid-like drone-metal duo Sunn O))) teases out all the glorious and gloomy tonal possibilities of the amplified electric guitar, with vast stretches of rambling distortion looming like cloud cover over multi-instrumentalists Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson’s home base of Seattle. Their Sub Pop debut was inspired by exploring the Pacific Northwest during recording; the apparent rush of wind and water peppering the otherwise uncompromisingly guttural “XXANN,” the cascading riffs of “Butch’s Guns,” and the serene break from the noise in closer “Glory Black” comprise an album that’s not just a reaffirmation of foundations but a conversation with nature.
Mach-Hommy, 5786 AM: Easy Listen
Port-au-Prince and Newark rapper Mach-Hommy’s 25th (or so) full length, 5786 AM: Easy Listen, connects with producer Playa Haze (Michael Christmas, Your Old Droog, Vic Spencer) for a release the rhymer has called his “yacht-rock album.” It is, and it isn’t: The deep-fried guitar riffs of “The Twelfth Pound” and the chipper vocal interspersing of “Jolly Good” conjure the heyday of Michael McDonald, but 5786 AM is far from the easy listen its subtitle claims. The funk and rock sounds fight against ever-encroaching mud and hiss; pretty melodies are offset by punishing bass or rendered disorienting by creative panning in the mix. The rapper is animated by the producer’s quirks and lured into zany turns of phrase by dizzying loops, as in the threatening “Convex to the Origin” and the ominous “Like Fork.” The grit it wears proudly and the looseness of the song structures plant the album in a modern indie-rap tradition, but 5786 AM can also feel like a trip back to the cramped rooms where mid-’90s Wu-Tang and Gravediggaz records were coming to life.
Slayyyter, Wor$t Girl in America
Missouri singer-songwriter Slayyyter’s third album, Wor$t Girl in America, is a triumph on a few counts, the greatest of them being vocal production. She attacks industrial-tinged dance-pop riffs as, by turns, a tuneful pop star, a gifted screamer, and a rowdy club promoter. The instructional “Beat Up Chanel$” distorts the singer so each word lacerates, and the chorus of the rocker “Cannibalism” is heralded by a cluster bomb of screeching, echoing notes. Wor$t Girl embraces dirt and dark thoughts alongside abrasive tones, giving its euphoric hooks weight, as though a wild night out is almost crucial to the artist’s well-being. Ever present are a sense of desperation and an abandon that feel raw and real — “I need your attention,” the self-doubting “What Is It Like, to Be Liked?” moans lonesomely after the shrieking “St. Loser” turns a song about revenge into a word on perseverance. Slayyyter is the people’s pop princess; it really seems as if she lives for the same reckless nights we do, and not just for airplay during them.
heavensouls, westside trapped
Dizzyingly prolific and unpredictable, 20-year-old Houston-based auteur heavensouls gained momentum in the past few years as one half of the Sidepeices, a rapidly evolving project splashing through hyperpop and plunderphonics exercises with Atlanta’s Stickerbush. But March’s westside trapped is a stunning left turn even for an artist whose defining characteristic to date is a penchant for change. A short note on Bandcamp touts a “love letter not only to Nigerian art but the country that birthed, clothed, and bred me,” as westside trapped recasts heavensouls as an Afrobeat bandleader who also thrives in ambient, hardcore, hip-hop, and R&B detours. The patchwork of live instruments and samples is tightly played and sequenced, shifting wildly but always steadily, occasionally giving westside trapped the feel of an unearthed rare-grooves comp but more often a sense of squaring a musician’s tastes with his heritage. The towering “Shed a Tear for Me” evokes the deaths of Eric Garner and George Floyd in a rousing jam typifying this album’s spirit of looking inward and backward through history for strength during adversity.
Yebba, Jean
The sophomore album from vocal powerhouse Yebba is a master class not only in using tone, timbre, and cadence to burrow into the depths of the human condition but also in structuring a gobstopping comeback effort. Five years after the maudlin, soulful debut Dawn, this year’s Jean presents at first as a string of folk songs about reckoning with concepts of home and family, before the technicolor explosion of “Earth, Wind & California” and “Aggressive” leads to equally compelling psych-rock and hip-hop moments. The singer’s delivery is lively in every setting, imbuing even the songs about grief with exhilaratingly rewindable runs.
GENA, The Pleasure Is Yours
Singer-songwriter-producer Liv.e and drummer-producer Karriem Riggins are GENA, and their debut full-length, The Pleasure Is Yours, falls into the same category of zesty R&B Madvillain successors as Anderson .Paak and Knxwledge’s NxWorries. The vocalist’s wide-ranging gifts and moods benefit from the versatile skill set of the sometime-sideman for Erykah Badu and Madlib. A playful spirit of exploration guides this journey through funk, fusion, and wonky indie hip-hop beat-making that is accomplished but never self-serious: Vamping jazzily in “readymade,” Liv.e stops the jam to ask if she’s in the wrong key. The Pleasure Is Yours feels reverent to tradition but also bespoke, pushing Liv.e further in the plush directions her solo catalogue is exploring while arguing that more people should hit Riggins up to work.
Jill Scott, To Whom This May Concern
The first new album in 11 years from elemental Philly-soul legend Jill Scott, To Whom This May Concern serves up one reminder after another that she is one of the greatest singers of this or any time. Boisterous throwback funk jams like “Be Great” and “BPOTY” suggest she’d have had a killer run if she came up concurrent with Stevie Wonder; “Norf Side,” a rap collab with Philly rapper-singer Tierra Whack, recasts Scott as a capable golden-era rhyme phenom; and “Pay U on Tuesday” delivers a snarling jazz-cabaret routine. Scott can bounce psychedelic poetry off Black Hippy’s Ab-Soul (“Ode to Nikki”), embody a howling house-music diva (“Right Here Right Now’), scat on go-go drums (“Liftin’ Me Up”), and deliver inspiring spoken-word missives (“Dope Shit”), all of it with breathtaking aplomb.
Roc Marciano, 656
After noteworthy album-length outings with the Alchemist and DJ Premier in 2024 and 2025, Hempstead indie-rap staple Roc Marciano gets back to his roots with the entirely self-produced 656, a dark expanse of solo jams relying on his ominous, skeletal loops and extravagant turns of phrase. Like the late Brooklyn rapper-producer Ka, Marciano is a grizzled New York minimalist, but where his friend and collaborator cut the figure of an aging yet unchanging sage, Marciano tracks brim with threats, jokes, and designer threads, more like a street fighter than Ka’s samurai aura. Marciano beats are muted in the way museum décor aims to keep eyes fixed on the vibrance of the collection. 656 sees Marciano return to the throne of drumless boom-bap on the wings of “Yves St. Moron,” “Childish Things,” and “Vanity,” which smolder like missives from a Rudy Ray Moore character: “Flirting with some old broad in Dior … I’m a Sauvage.”
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