Backed by a live orchestra and Noah Conrad playing nearly everything else, Ashe plays every woman a man has dreamed up and makes a scene big enough to get the real one seen. Our review: shatterthestandards.com/p/al…

Raised in a church choir, Khal!l turns its oldest reassurances on a woman he hasn’t told everything to, then carries them back to God, where they finally hold. Our review: shatterthestandards.com/p/al…

Raised around her father’s sound system and her grandfather’s mento band, McDoom builds hushed folk songs on the dub engineer's gift for clearing space, and her debut is gorgeous and sure of itself. Our review: shatterthestandards.com/p/al…

An East London rapper takes his dry, low-key voice into garage and two-step clubs and finds the dancefloor is the best room in the city for being alone with his own head. Our review: shatterthestandards.com/p/al…

Amy Winehouse borrowed a girl-group sound from the early 1960s and filled it with the pubs, brand names, and bad nights of 2006 London, and it kept her songs from ever turning into a costume. Our Milestones review: shatterthestandards.com/p/mi…

A Crumlin singer brings her family and her Dublin postcode onto the house floor, turning a hometown’s pride into dance music built for the people who claimed her first. Our review: shatterthestandards.com/p/al…

Terrell Grice keeps the come-ons and the waiting for his own voice and lends the heartbreak and the prayers to his guests, building a frank, generous R&B record. Our review: shatterthestandards.com/p/al…

Adding seven new songs, Tierra Whack stacks puns on North Philadelphia street names and designer labels until the wordplay works as a demand for the respect she is owed and a place to keep her grief. Our commentary: shatterthestandards.com/p/bi…

Decades of answering to no label have left GDP free and mostly alone. Cross Off Matthew puts his own vanishing act under the same hard light he aims at the country. Our review: shatterthestandards.com/p/al…

Between a wedding oath and a late-night text, Vedo makes an excellent R&B album about what a man owes the woman he keeps. Our review: shatterthestandards.com/p/al…

On their latest album, Ishmael Butler writes himself into legend as a one-of-a-kind and puts that legend on the court against the people who would beat it, where his writing turns funny and exact. Our review: shatterthestandards.com/p/al…

Building her beats under songs about rent and a friend in withdrawal, Laila! sings youth's oldest farewell line as someone who fought to grow up, and her comedy and her grief get the same close care. Our review: shatterthestandards.com/p/al…

Alone after City Girls, Yung Miami hands the rest to her elders, a line of paying men, and her own body, and the letters she writes to that body and to JT, into a writer with something to lose. Our review: shatterthestandards.com/p/al…

On a duo album thick with punchlines, Anderson .Paak and Cordae run the money brag straight into divorce, custody, and a karma bill. And about being gone and the father’s apology for it as one story. Our review: shatterthestandards.com/p/al…

As new albums and singles get constantly flooded into our radar, look no further than skimming through the release week of October 23rd. We know it can be a task, so let’s help you cut through. #NewMusicDrops: shatterthestandards.com/p/ne…

Che Noir opens with a sermon about organized people and then follows her fasting, saving, and self-made routine back to the Black women in Buffalo who drilled it into her. Our review: shatterthestandards.com/p/al…

Michael Kiwanuka opens on Chick Corea telling musicians to trust their own ears, then calls in choirs, string sections, and a band of co-writers to get that private ear out into the room. Our review: shatterthestandards.com/p/al…

Over Pharrell’s horns, strings, and church organ, John Legend prays over the women in the club, then turns the prayer on himself through a divorce and a fire, and the turn makes Muse a grown record. Our review: shatterthestandards.com/p/al…