Shipping News discovered – and displayed – they could do something bigger than blistering post-hardcore; they learned how to make math-rock with genuine heartbeats and feeling – no small task.

Furtwängler gets the most out of Beethoven’s longueurs and delayed recapitulations, drawing out the orchestra more and more until the Ode to Joy release absolutely explodes and it sounds like the concert hall is shaking from the noise.

The U.S. 12” version of ‘Cause Cheap Is How I Feel was backed with two extraordinary tracks available nowhere else: a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Dead Flowers” and a Margo/Michael Timmins arrangement of the folk ballad “Captain Kidd.”

No matter how beautiful the songs are, the shit-eating grins of their creators are always leering out of the mix.

Blackstar isn’t just a death mask, or a puzzle box – even as it is those things, too – but a final assertion of identity, reminding us that behind the songs was a man, after all, one we never really knew.

You might wonder what chord progressions more suited for college-rock chestnuts like “I Melt With You” than for ambient music are doing on an album like this. Then, while your brain is busy doing other things, these pieces grow vines and roots and turn into something much wilder and more ancient than Modern English.

Prolific electronic producer Leyland Kirby says goodbye to the long-running Caretaker moniker with a six-album exploration of the power of memory, through the lens of someone afflicted with dementia.

The Next Day was clearing the table for Bowie, an album that got him working again after a decade away and one that tangled with his long legacy and his more traditional rock sound of recent years.

There's no revelation in Low Cut Connie's pursuit of the margins. The group's more likely to provide acknowledgment and then just jump in.

Given the hiatus that would follow this record – and, now, Bowie’s death – it’s hard not to look for portentous phrasings.