5. Bon Iver-Bon Iver
The man who was infamous for fleeing into the forest to compose his debut album returns with a piece that is richer, more complex, and overall better than the first, making for an exciting and lush run.
4. Rome--Danger Mouse/Daniele Luppi/Jack White/Norah Jones
There's no way that an album produced by Danger Mouse, featuring Jack White and Norah Jones, inspired by classic spaghetti westerns, and performed by the original orchestra from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly could be bad. It's no surprise, then, that the album turned out to be massively entertaining.
3. House of Balloons--The Weeknd
Endlessly brooding, the album feels like a bottomless pit of a dark night of all the world's vices. It's an album you don't want to listen to with anyone else in the room. It's also as inventive as any R & B album in many years, and it interestingly gave way to a creative surge in my own writing.
2. Strange Mercy--St. Vincent
Yes, I have listened to it all legally and it is incredible. Definitely the best of St. Vincent's albums, her newest is a bit more aggressive in its orchestration, but it makes it feel even darker and more daring, and continues the tone of her first single "Cruel" and of her overall theme: a Disney movie gone nightmarishly wrong.
1. Kaputt--Destroyer
Very few albums feature complexity that is as rich as this. Every note, harmonious or discordant, feels premeditated and part of a grand masterpiece. And it is--Kaputt is Bejar's masterpiece, and with a newly acquired undercurrent of jazz, the album is infinitely catchy and relaxing, like something you'd listen to on a Saturday night as you watch out the window.
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