The album is raw and honest, poignant and emotional, open and intimate. The album chronicles the early years of Tillman’s marriage, as well as his struggles with being American in the current economic and current climate.

It’s tender-hearted while being closed-off, loving until it’s suddenly dispassionate, tender until it becomes cynical — which is often how marriage feels, if you’re not married already and curious. Chateau Lobby #4 an ode to losing virginity and falling in love, while Nothing Good Ever Happens at the Goddamn Thirsty Crow and The Ideal Husband revel in their sarcasm and negativity. Bored In the USA is so openly cynical and depressing that it requires a canned laugh track to make it palatable, as if discussing being broke and miserable is something so horribly unfamiliar that we can’t laugh at our own knowledge of the subject without somebody to encourage us to do so.

But it’s also illuminating that, for Father John Misty, much of this is intimate and uncomfortable territory. The music in I Love You, Honeybear often serves as little more than a backing track for his Sufjan Stevens-like focus on lyricism, and Ideal Husband and Bored are both perfect examples. Misty sets the former to rock guitars to make the fears he has of being a horrible father less distracting. He sets Bored In the USA to a laugh track because it makes the uncomfortable feel comfortable, but it’s really more for him than it is for us.

And that makes sense: Holy Shit was written on his wedding day, and we get to come along for the ride as he exposes his deepest fears and joys to us. It’s not an easy thing for any artist to do: being human is messy, and not unlike I Love You, Honeybear, contradictory. Even though uses Father John Misty as a sort of alter-ego to make exploring these themes somewhat safer, Honeybear is an incredibly brave record.

It all pays off: we have a contender for best album of the year with this record, and its success on vinyl doesn’t surprise even a little bit. I Went to the Store One Day might be the last track on the record, but by the time Misty tells you the story of how his relationship with his wife started — and how it will end — you’ll be weeping. I Love You, Honeybear is a new standard in musical story-telling.

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HOLYCHILD are a duo from L.A. made up of Nistico and Louie Diller, and on first listen, it’s no surprise that they’re from L.A. They sound like they belong in the Mean Girls sound track in front of Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift, and they have the aggressive, Trent Reznor-inspired bass kick to prove it.

The Shape of Brat Pop to Come is filled with moments that feel lifted from many of their contemporaries, but it never feels clichéd or comfortable. Thanks to Nistico’s lyrics, it’s actually the opposite: the band feels like they’re on the precipice of what’s acceptable in pop culture, as they mock it for all it’s worth and scream about its insensibilities.

On Nasty Girls, Nistico sings “Hey! Hey! Give it up! We don’t matter anyway! Boys like nasty girls! Take him on a holiday!” That sexual passivity, placed against aggressive pop synths, veers towards uncomfortable, but it’s clear that HOLYCHILD has a point. Maybe it’s thanks to HOLYCHILD’s background in L.A., but the band is aware of misogynists and ready to give each of them the finger.

None of this is new; a lot of pop bands have come up with this message before. Few of them, though, do it with the consistent songwriting ability that HOLYCHILD brings to the table. Despite the theme being consistently in-your-face, perhaps to the point of making some conservatives feel uncomfortable, The Shape of Brat Pop to Come is almost always catchy, with rarely a missed beat.

The lyrics have the benefit of giving a band with an extraordinary amount of polish an ability to sound raw. The Shape of Brat Pop to Come is an interesting record that proves there are some voices left in pop music with interesting things to say. If HOLYCHILD can continue on their current career path, their future will be interesting indeed.

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The title references space, and the albums does have a track about that, but it also refers to electronic music itself. As Jaar loops over the tracks, it’s hard not to lose yourself in it as a backing track. Is Jaar’s music only noise? Are electronic beeps and bops only meant to be noise? It feels like Jaar is playfully asking us the question.

In lieu of dance tracks, which he was known for as a college student before this LP dropped, Space Is Only Noise feels like an ambient thumper of a record that defies every possible convention. Jaar doesn’t want you to dance, but he also doesn’t want you to notice what he’s doing either. Because if he can do it quietly, without you really noticing his subversive technique, then he’s won.

It’s easy to put Space Is Only Noise on a loop and muse over it, but I wouldn’t recommend this as a driving record, and it’s certainly not anything you can dance to. Nicolas Jaar’s debut is the sort of record you put on good headphones for and lose yourself in.

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Their final record is complicated by the departure of their bassist, and the suicide of frontman Luke Jenner’s mother. (In fact, much of the record is clearly about her passing.) Perhaps as a result of the increasing messiness of the personal lives of the band members, In the Grace of Your Love is much more precise than their previous work.

Producer Phillipe Zdar greatly helped with getting that level of precision on record. He agreed to come on board shortly after finishing production work on Phoenix’s masterpiece, Wolfgang Amadeus. His skill as a producer is evident, and from stories told later, it seems he got every bit of emotion out of the band for the record. The finished result is an amazing ride from start to end.

While it’s a departure from their other work, In the Grace of Your Love is a special record that captures a particularly delicate moment in the life of both its band members and the band itself.

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Illadelph Halflife is often labelled R&B, which is strange: it’s as R&B a record as To Pimp a Butterfly is a jazz record. While it features prominent R&B musicians, and a lot of jazz players too, Illadelph has more stone-cold rap on it than most rappers dare play with today. Although the rap group experiments with all sorts of other genres, they remain consistently interested in hip hop as a craft.

The Roots also never shone brighter as a conscious hip hop group, with songs that rebel against stereotypical gangster ways and encourage responsibility. Instead of focusing on the braggadocio or their street cred, The Roots make a name for themselves on Illadelph Halife by separating their behaviour from that of their peers. It all amounted for a watershed moment in 1990s hip hop, particularly in an era where it felt like every week a new gangsta rap record was dropping.

Historically, Illadelph Halflife was The Roots’ breakthrough record that got them the claim to fame they were looking for. Today, it sounds a little rough aroung the edges — but that’s just the dated production values. Give this a whirl and it’s old-school vibes will have you bobbing your head like it’s the 1990s all over again.

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