Audioxide

TBD

A pleasant, consistent, and enjoyable listen. Here’s hoping Nas and Hit Boy build on their clear chemistry with a follow-up.

Turning its back not only on the college path, but tropes of gangster rap as well, The College Dropout dares to be different in weird, supremely catchy ways.

American hip-hop melded with house, techno, trap, and UK garage is an interesting approach, but as an artistic expression it’s frustratingly restrained.

Albums what we liked in 2016.

Real friends, true love, and mushroom clouds.

Metallica roll back the years with a tight, rollicking ride, wiping the smug looks off our faces in the process.

22, A Million feels like a nondescript blur. It doesn’t deal in structure, but in loose clusters of peculiar sounds and imperceptible words. It’s a pretentious mess.

M.I.A.’s fifth and final album is an unfortunate affair. Comprised of lazy lyrics, half-arsed sampling, and grating production, AIM completely misses the mark.

Blond flirts with indulgence but just about manages to stay grounded. It’s an account of slight thoughts, vague ideas, and delicate musings.

Comprised mostly of dabbles and snippets from the formative months of To Pimp a Butterfly, this album embraces its patchwork nature and in doing so manages to sound more complete than many ‘real’ records do.

Uneven, sporadic, and totally erratic; an unfinished version of a potentially great album. Enjoyment and frustration abound in equal measure.