Gold Complex is a mere five tracks long, which the band hopes will be enough to tide fans over while they record their debut. Almost all of the songs are show-ready, though, which makes them perfect for your laid-back house parties and live performances. (And word on the street is that the band’s got a killer show.)

You don’t need to look any further than “Backbone”, the band’s opening track. There’s a great moment just about three minutes into the track: a sax solo fires up in the middle of a track, and for a split second, you think it’s the vocalist gearing up for another verse. The solo’s surprising every time, and never unwelcome.

The blend of soul and pop continues on “O.G.”, which has a couple terrific bass lines. “Cities & Lovers” and “Katrine” slow things down a bit towards the end. These slow-burn tracks harken back to some of the biggest names in old-school soul and R&B. “Katrine” has my favourite solo moment on the record. It’s a simple scale-stepping solo at first, but the way the instruments all bounce off each other is delightful.

The music works because the band is able to pull off the blend so perfectly. Gold Complex (the EP) is a perfect blend of soul and pop that’s both completely impressive and utterly inoffensive — which makes it a great introduction to the genre for those of us who have a time approaching it. It also shows great potential for the band.

If the EP has any downside, it’s that it’s nearly too polished. Gold Complex could benefit from letting their music get a little rough around the edges. As it is, lovers of soul music might find the EP pandering. But if the band stripped away any of the polish, I don’t know if they’d have the same audience.

So let me just say it, and get the elephant out of the room: Gold Complex is soul music for white people. But the band is so good at it that it’s hard to fault them for it.

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The changes in the band’s sound are evident from the first track. “Crumbling Light Posts”, which is a three-part theme throughout the record, is the strongest sign that the band has changed. The songs have more emotional, visceral depth and sincerity. They’re also the best songs the band has ever written.

The album is filled with catchy tracks. “Flow with It (You Got Me Feeling)” is one of the band’s catchiest songs, and “All I Ever Wonder” is already one of their most popular tracks.

But these tracks have more depth than before. “I can’t tell what side I’m on / I can’t tell what’s right or wrong,” the band sings on “All I Ever Wonder”. On the Tom Petty-inspired “Sanctify”, he sings “I want to feel something real.”

These songs are no doubt inspired by life on the road. They’re dazed and confused, but they’re emotionally stirring. They’re exhausted, but not exhausting. They’re questioning the realities the band thought they knew before they saw more of the world.

It’s worth restating how great these songs are, even if they do feel more “aware”. Tracks like “Brain Matter” deviate from the band’s traditional soul inspiration, sounding almost like Arcade Fire tracks. And when they get back to their roots on tracks like “Sanctify”, “Burning Rome”, or “Tears in the Diamond”, the band is stronger than they’ve ever been. These songs all feature decadent performances.

Half the City felt like a live record. It felt like an album that captured all the visceral energy of a band known for its live performances. But Sea of Noise is different. The band doubles down on writing earnest, sincere, mature music. It’s not as energetic, but it’s more convincingly emotional — without feeling contrived.

The strange result of all this is that Sea of Noise becomes the intimate counterpoint to Half the City. We got to know St. Paul & The Broken Bones on Half the City, but on Sea of Noise, they open up. They share their deepest secrets.

Sea of Noise proves that St. Paul & The Broken Bones have something to say, and a more varied toolkit than any of us expected. It’s a sign they’ll be around a while longer.

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And all of it is deserved.

Izzy’s stage name is interesting to me. It reminds me of the sensual French pop that was sweeping New York City in the 1960s: full-bodied French singers taking jazz by storm with their mix of classic ability and full-throated sexuality. I don’t know if that’s the image that Izzy Bizu wants to conjure up, and I don’t presume to think it is, but it fits.

First things first: Izzy has a phenomenal voice. Reminiscent of Amy Winehouse, with hints of Adelle, Izzy’s voice hits the rafters with ease. Fitting with my theory on her stage name is her jazz-inspired singing style: it’s playful and sometimes inspirational. It fills a room. But she brings this jazzy style to big pop tracks.

Most of the tracks on this record have a lot of radio potential. “White Tiger”, “Skinny”, and “Diamond” are all excellent — and those are only the first three tracks. None of these songs are particularly thoughtful — “Skinny” is about the body size that Izzy looks for in men — but they’re loads of fun.

Interestingly, A Moment of Madness was supposed to be released in June, but got delayed. This is a summer record if I’ve ever heard one. (Just in time for an “Indian Summer”, right?)

That being said, many of the tracks towards the end of the record feel more traditionally jazz-inspired. “Hello Crazy” feels like a live track. “What Makes You Happy” is an Adelle-like slow burner that thrives off its jazz connections. “Mad Behaviour” features a big, radio-ready chorus, but can’t escape its own lethargy.

My point is, there are two Izzy Bizu’s here: one is a pop-ready, crazed machine of a singer. The other is a quiet and introspective jazz singer. I don’t know which one I’m supposed to be rooting for. Both are excellent.

All of this is to say that A Moment of Madness is too long. It feels like two records. At seventeen tracks, this isn’t a “moment” of madness (if it’s madness at all). It’s fifty-nine minutes of occasional sobriety.

That’s not an insult. I quiet enjoyed both records here. But there are two albums. If you want my advice, take A Moment of Madness and split it in two. Alone, these conflicting sides of Izzy Bizu are both more powerful.

“Mad Behaviour” is a better song when it’s not listened to in the context of “Give Me Love”. Again, both are excellent, but they’re so different.

As odd as it sounds, because of its personality crisis, this is a record we should treasure. There’s no doubt we’ll be hearing more from Izzy Bizu. But in the future, her records will be shorter and more focused. This sort of sprawl is exactly the kind of music Izzy should be making while she fine-tunes her musical identity. If A Moment of Madness is mad at all, it’s only because Izzy doesn’t know who she’s going to be yet. That makes A Moment of Madness exactly the sort of debut it should be.

In an era of perfection, where artists are polished to a shine, the polished production on A Moment of Madness can’t hide the joy of Izzy’s slow self-discovery. For all of the record’s complications and multiple personalities, I love that.

It would be a shame if you missed the debut from one of music’s biggest future stars. A Moment of Madness is to Izzy Bizu as 19 is to Adelle. Don’t skip it.

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It’s not solely because of the album’s quality, either: Brown Girl is a captivating personal and political statement that strikes the same notes as Beyoncé’s records. “Welcome to the Jungle”, the album’s first track, feels as much like a personal track as it does a personal one about navigating racial platitudes.

The title track is a career-maker, a song that works as both a single and a protest song. “I’m not just a brown girl in the rain. I’m a girl that likes to sing,” Aaradhna croons over the chorus. It’s a powerful message: Aaradhna uses it to deny and redefine the colour of her skin, her genre, and her measures of success (on a song that will no doubt garner radio play and more serious “best R&B track” nominations later this year).

In many senses, that track is going to come to define Aaradhna’s success and her career this year — and perhaps next. It’s worthy of every bit of praise it’s going to receive.

When she’s not blending political and personal so deftly, Aaradhna’s writing big pop hits like “Empty Hall” or the tender “Talk Sweet to Me”. She’s capable of jumping genres from one songs to the next, and she does it convincingly — without ever feeling like the songs don’t belong together.

Most of these tracks — the non-protest tracks, if you will — deal with heartbreak and the death of a relationship. I particularly love “Under the Blue Moon”, which is a playful blend of many blues and jazz elements with R&B overtones. “Drunken Heart, Smokey Mind” is similarly about unrequited love, but after the fact.

I particularly like the opening lyrics to “I Don’t Know”, the album closer: “I thought that if I gave this world my heart it would show. Still I don’t know, still I don’t know.” The sadness here is palpable.

But what I love about these songs of heartbreak is that they could as much be about protest as they are about love. It could be the sound of a heartbroken woman of colour: a woman who loves the world and is shocked by the way it doesn’t love her back.

As separate themes, heartbreak and protest are not conducive to one another, but Brown Girl feels like the rare time that all the elements come together like magic. It’s a pop record that isn’t focused on dance tunes; instead, Brown Girl feels like the record we need to hear right now — and not the one we wanted.

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It’s a level of thinking that’s clearly part of the thinking throughout Kiwanuka’s sophomore album. I think the great majority of people are going to be talking about “Black Man in a White World,” the album’s second track, because it’s both a good single and a reflection of Kiwanuka’s personal politics. It’s an impeccable song, but to focus exclusively on it would be doing the musician a great disservice. It implies he’s only grown lyrically.

But the truth is, Kiwanuka has grown a great deal from his debut to where he is today: as a singer, as a songwriter, and as a performer. There are elements of “Black Man in a White World” that are well above and beyond most of what soul performers are doing today — the choral arrangements, in particular, are excellent. And that’s all without mentioning Danger Mouse’s superb production.

But the rest of the record is astounding in other ways. Kiwanuka’s use of atmospheric elements is impressive. His vocal performance is indelible, buttery smooth, and transfixing. On “Place I Belong,” his voice soars above the instruments. Both the instruments and his voice sound like traditional roots rock. On “One More Night,” his performance makes a traditional blues line feel like something new.

The title track is perhaps the best track on the record, though: Kiwanuka combines everything he’s good at in one track: there’s a rolling bass line and that carries the song. His vocal lines are strong throughout, and his performance is tender. The atmosphere builds throughout with subtle use of a strings section, and excellent backing vocal performers who carry the beat. The bridge has such momentum to it that it elevates the song to another level — and the guitar solo is so evocative that it might make you weep.

And I should mention that the guitar solos throughout the record — and there are many — are each emotionally relevant, tasteful pieces that truly add to the songs in question. Somebody said years ago that guitar solos should be written for the song, not the other way around (and I neither agree nor disagree), but Kiwanuka is one of the few artists who really seems to have taken that advice to heart. The solos throughout are all excellent.

This is real soul music. It’s immense. It’s emotional. It’s incredibly satisfying. But at the same time it wouldn’t sound out of place in a film soundtrack. For some odd reason, it reminds me of The Lion King — perhaps because it evokes some of Elton John’s finest moments as well. Kiwanuka would be excellent in musicals.

Most importantly, though, is that when Kiwanuka sings, “You can’t break me down, you can’t take me down, you can’t break down,” I believe him. It’s an endearing performance, one that is stronger than the sum of its parts.

There are some performers who identify by their name when they should, perhaps, include the name of their backing band. (Brad Paisley comes to mind as one example, on occasion.) But with Michael Kiwanuka, it feels like he’s truly carrying the band with him. They follow his lead. His performance is excellent, his songwriting is without compare in the genre, and his storytelling ability is second to none.

Love & Hate is the maturation of Michael Kiwanuka’s sound and abilities. If you don’t know him, now’s the time to get to know him. If you like his debut, you’re going to love this.

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The amount of all these influences is a debut album that refuses to allow the band to be labeled as anything other than effective rock and roll. Get Gone is filled with one stomping rock track after the other, a vivacious and vicious set of tracks that refuses to conform to expectations.

The anthems, in particular, are quite impressive: short, punk-y bursts of energy that are occasionally punctuated by guitar solos that aren’t indulgent so much as amplify the tune.

The best tracks are the deep cuts: AJ Hayne letting loose on Kingdom Come is one of the album’s biggest treats, and the guitar solo is one of the album’s best. It’s not a single, but it would be a ton of fun live. It’s unusual, imaginative riff is a great introduction to the Seratones sound: unpredictable roots-rock that’s unafraid to shy away from its own genre in effort to diversity its sound.

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Part of that might be because the band is so large: with ten members, The Suffers aren’t short on creative potential or ability. But there’s a whole lot more to them than just creativity: they sound like they stepped out of the era of Al Green, Earth, Win & Fire, The Temptations, and Aretha Franklin. But according to a brief interview with NPR, they’ve also been steeped in everything from Latino ska and hip hop to country and R&B.

That could explain why The Suffers don’t seem attuned solely to soul music as a genre, but great music as a whole. There’s a sense of restraint throughout the album: vocalist Kam Franklin doesn’t hold back, but knows when to hold off for the sake of the song, for the sake of the art.

Franklin might be the band’s strongest asset. She’s a powerhouse performer, an incredible singer, but she’s also the biggest reason they don’t sound like a copycat band or a cover group. Her sense of restraint keeps them from coming off as completely old-school. It’s not exclusively about holding off on the big chorus reprise, but it’s also about holding off on some of the genre’s most typical conventions. While the music is big and loud — and nearly punk-like in its celebration of the power in its own performance — Franklin avoids walking the same path and becoming as melodramatic as Aretha Franklin often did.

For a debut record, The Suffers is stunningly self-realized, and the band seems incredibly self-aware. That sort of vibe is what separates them from the rest: it’s something that allows The Suffers to carry soul music into a sense of its own modernity without losing what made it so special before. This Houston band is all soul, all the time, but the power of this record lies in its performance.

The Suffers will make for quite a live show.

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Not unlike her first EP, this is a brief set of tracks, but the two are clearly linked. The album art is incredibly similar, and the two work well side by side.

With Act II, Kane gets to express her influences in even more obvious way. The gospel influences are turned way up. Kane’s pop influences are more obvious too — her recording time with Prince undoubtedly had an impact — but she blends it with R&B and soul in a fantastic way that sounds nearly British thanks to its infusion of pop sensibilities.

That being said, Kane doesn’t sound like a British pop singer. She sounds purely Chicago: well aware of her roots, and not afraid to sound like her inspiration. (From that perspective, Nina Simone would be proud of this record.)

On Dead Or Alive, Eryn leads a listen-and-repeat bridge with her audience, and her ability to command a tremendous stage presence is obvious. She gets the small crowd positively riled, which is fantastic. It’s tremendously revealing of her potential.

But it’s also, in some ways, the weakest moment out of both her EPs because it reveals her recording limitations right now. I love what she’s doing with her music, but she’s writing songs that are almost too mature for the size of her existing audience. She’s writing stadium-sized tracks, but she doesn’t have the career momentum to properly capture them in the studio as of yet. While I have no doubt that Dead Or Alive would be an incredible song to witness live, on record, it loses its impact.

I don’t know if it matters, though, because this big moment happens on the album’s final track and it leaves you wanting more. The sheer presence of her voice is compelling, and gets you excited for her starry future. That future can’t come fast enough.

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At their heart, The O’My’s are a soul band, but they’ve infused it with hip hop, jazz, blues, classic rock, and more. Chicago Style, as a record, is more diverse than most artist’s careers. You can tell just from the band lineup, which includes a trumpeter and a sax player, and their guest list — which includes Chance the Rapper — that The O’My’s aren’t interested in pigeon-holing themselves.

At their best, The O’My’s sounds like a dirtier Alabama Shakes. Compare The Wonder Years (the first track) to Girl It’s Been Fun (the second track). There’s a wider variety of influences than Alabama Shakes’ music, but they share a similar soul. There’s a falsetto in The O’My’s music that doesn’t sound too dissimilar to Brittany Howard’s vocal range, and both bands share a fascination with 70s-era psychedelic rock.

At the same time, The O’My’s are very much in their own realm: their music really does sound like Chicago, making the album title very apt. Its a laid-back fusion of the modern hip hop that Chicago has become known for and the old-school R&B that it was known for back in the day.

There’s a revival happening right now in Chicago with its music scene, and I’d love to see The O’My’s becoming the leaders of that movement. When you hear their music, you’ll just know: they get it.

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All that being said, it seems like he’s largely been forgotten. I didn’t see him on anybody’s end-of-year best-of lists. And to be clear, that’s insane: he put out one of the best throwback R&B records of the past ten years with Coming Home, and deserves nothing less than all the success coming to him.

Coming Home excels because it’s a rare modern romance: it’s sweet and sugary without ever dipping into excess, unlike many of Bridge’s contemporaries. Coming Home isn’t about chasing tail; it’s about chasing love. It’s about being lovesick and forlorn about it. It’s also about being in love.

It’s also a total ear worm. Better Man and River espouse everything great about Leon Bridges: they hit that perfect mesh of when blues and gospel collided in the 1960s and created early R&B. And the songs get stuck in your head for days.

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