Audioxide

After six long, resolutely joyless years we passed another album review milestone. To celebrate here’s a look at some sweet, sweet data.

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

El-P and Mike are on the frontline now. Here the duo stand up to be counted for what they really are: rappers, producers, activists, husbands, citizens.

Thundercat rides the album like a surfer hanging ten on the world’s smallest, smoothest, slowest wave. It’s drifting with style, an uneventful good time.

A distinctive project that showcases exactly what Jay Electronica is all about. With a little help from a friend, of course.

The end of the 2010s is upon us, which means we are bound by obscure 16th century law to rank our favourite albums of the decade.

It’s like Frankenstein in a dinner jacket. Gothic synth rock sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it sounds delicious when The Cure does it.

Ventura is super consistent hip hop experience, but we can’t help but wonder what might have been achieved with the safety wheels off.

Things Fall Apart is a fluid, continuous listen: understated to the point of being an excellent backdrop, which is both a blessing and a curse.

Midnight Marauders’ tracklist is an exhibition of seemingly boundless creativity, each track distinct, original, and memorable.

An audacious project, FM! sounds like a cartoonish snippet of overblown California radio, with all the pomp and sunshine and shadow that entails.

Reviews make a lot more sense when they can be put into context. After passing 150 albums reviewed we thought it was high time to look at the statistics.

It has its lulls, but when Straight Outta Compton blows hot it feels unstoppable. N.W.A modelled a spirit of expression impossible to ignore.

As enjoyable, sometimes euphoric, as Dirty Computer is, it’s far from perfect. Some of the trap-tinged beats will likely sound redundant in a few years.

Dylan Seeger is a musician and designer living in New York, as is tradition. We talk Claye, the pressures of recording solo, and (sound) circumcision.

It's the end of the year, and that means it's time for fond remembrances of the best bits. From hip-hop to folk to R&B to rock, here lies our favourite albums of 2017.

It's year's end, and that means it's time for fond remembrances. From lovesick shoegazing to rock epics, here lies our favourite singles of 2017.

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

Kendrick explores a multitude of personal predicaments, but it's difficult to stay focused on what the record is actually trying to convey. It feels incomplete.

Thundercat doesn’t want to exhaust an idea, getting in and out of a song as soon as possible, but that doesn't keep the album from being exhausting.

Albums what we liked in 2016.

Real friends, true love, and mushroom clouds.

The record certainly has that classic Tribe vibe, but it lacks the key finishing touches for it to be favourably compared to the material of the early ’90s.

An extremely smooth ride with no turbulence or unnecessary distractions, full to the brim with colourful instrumentals and warm, comforting Solange vocals.

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.

What a year it's been. Hip hop kings, hip hop princes, UK rock upstarts, and lots more. Here are our fav albums of 2015.

From Kendrick Lamar to Joanna Newsom, 2015 had its fair share of beautiful tracks. Here are our picks of the year.

All this started as three friends talking about music, and it remains just that - a shared exploration, which we now want to share with you.

A polished, lumbering beast of an album. Not so much concerned with peaks and troughs as with a steady, charismatic drone of all things Compton.

If Good Kid, M.A.A.D City introduced Kendrick Lamar to the masses, To Pimp A Butterfly cements his place in the hip hop hall of fame. This is an instant classic.