The 20 Best Albums of 2015

We’ve seen some incredible records hit the deck in the last dozen months, and the smells of pumpkin cheesecake in the air & family members transforming into maniacally rabid Christmas shoppers can only mean one thing: it’s time for our annual Best Albums of The Year list.

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The stylistic variety couldn’t possibly be wider in this year’s selections, but the sonic potency is at an all-time high in the genre kaleidoscope, from high-concept jazz-rap excellence to stomp-rock propheteering, all the way through hepcat ragtime ripped right out of the twenties and sexual-chocolate R&B eroticism. Rock may not have had a dominant showing this year, but what it lacked in volume it certainly made up for in potency. For the full breakdown, dig into the 20 Best Albums of 2015:

An honorable hat-tip to Deafheaven and JD McPherson as well, whose new albums you should definitely check out.

Best Albums of 2015

20. Sleaford Mods - Key Markets

Underneath the jeering, angry needles of Key Markets, through its evocatively thuggish exterior, we find that Sleaford Mods have backloaded a cunning sophistication in a record so captivating and enchantingly snotty one can’t help but want to pick a fight with the nearest asshole. Between telling eucalyptus trees to fuck off, championing organic drones and virtual soapboxes and promising to puke on offenders, we’re hooked on the shitkicking punk-blood flavor of Sleaford Mods’ latest.
19. Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit

Courtney Barnett's studio debut showcases a wild imagination, a biting sense of humor and a captivating mastery of her own folk-rocking spectrum. “Put me on a pedestal and I’ll only disappoint you,” she hollers. “Tell me I’m exceptional, I promise to exploit you.” A magnificent first showing from a woman we can't wait to see onstage again.
18. CHURCHES - Every Open Eye

The Scottish trio, led by singer and lyricist Lauren Mayberry, have capitalized on their indie-darling status with a cohesive 11 track album that adds confidence and color to their saccharine palette. Mayberry is noticeably more fearless here, with more pointed sociopolitical lyricism amidst a downright danceable backdrop.
17. Lamb of God - VII: Sturm und Drang

On their latest album Lamb Of God shift gears and - gasp! - actually evolve their sound to reflect their current experience. Clean vocals, guest singers and LOG's trademark ferocity delivers everything you could ask for in a Lamb of God album.
16. Songhoy Blues - Music In Exile

Songhoy Blues’ debut is a masterpiece of magnetic blues, transcending language barriers in blending American guitar with Malian groove. Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs lends his guitar talents here, as a richly nuanced sonic tapestry dabbles in ancient traditions and current sound architecture. They

owe a musical debt to Ali Farka Toure (whose songs they started out covering), but have a defined sound entirely their own - which we can’t wait to hear more of.
15. Jason Isbell - Something More Than Free

Isbell’s poignant Southern captivation on Something More Than Free is a new level of triumph for the country-flirting songwriter. Stories from hilarious to heartbreaking roll through a calm, confident record, his fifth release and first in which you can hear the man finally believing in his own momentum.
14. Eagles of Death Metal - Zipper Down

The inimitable firecracker that is Jesse Hughes returns to collaborate with his friend Josh Homme after a seven-year stretch, resulting in a deliciously sexy fourth Eagles of Death Metal record. Tighter, sexier and sonically lubed to fit in the most prohibiting holes, Zipper Down is not for the pretentious listener. The sound stays within orbit of the DNA from the Stones' "Brown Sugar," but a world of new tricks and splits comes pouring out of that zipper. Come for the funk-fun of “Complexity,” stay for their weird-ass cover of the Duran Duran classic “Save a Prayer” and keep an eye on that Hughes dude when he's talking to your girlfriend.
13. Pokey Lafarge - Something In The Water

Stepping right out of a DeLorean, LaFarge is an incredible anomaly who transcends the cheap poseur aesthetic for a downright magical throwback to barbershop and ragtime roots of the twenties. Trumpet blasts, confident charisma and clean, sharp guitar licks bring the hepcat jazz age screaming back to life.
12. Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell

Sufjan Stevens is gaining ground in his relentless quest to break our hearts in torturously addictive ways, whether through pensive piano-key ballads or fragile guitar lines under poetically lush lyricism. Trading mystique and myth for technological obsession, wringing dissonant meaning from empty sex and heartache, Carrie and Lowell leaves everything on the table, through beautifully revelatory lyricism and nakedly poignant expression. A gorgeous album to give the lacrimal glands a workout.
11. Jamie xx - In Colour

Five years in the making, Jamie xx’s debut album is a spectrum-spanning enchantment, ranging from ballads to dancefloor bangers. A synth-dripping rearticulation of dance music through ambitious experimentation is nothing short of mesmerizing, from pristine production to gloriously nuanced songwriting.
10. D'Angelo - Black Messiah

D’Angelo is on fire, as if he’d spent every moment of the last 15 years hoarding every bit of soul and R&B passion he could find, only to unleash it all on Black Messiah. Sociopolitical strife, planetary crisis and, of course, sweet naked sensuality mix through powerful production and incredible arrangements in an exhilaratingly present album. A slow burner featuring Palladino, ?uestlove, Q-Tip and more, this is the sex album of the year.
9. Kamasi Washington - The Epic

This is a jazz album for the jazz reluctants, penetrated through a captivating psychedelia. Through 3 discs and nearly 3 hours of incredibly ambitious sound Kamasi claims his place in the new LA family, along with Thundercat and Flying Lotus. A tremendous release.
8. Dr. Dre - Compton

The end of an era is upon us, and the brilliance of the goodbye sets a gorgeous new jewel in Dre's hip hop crown (read our review). It’s clear from every second of the recordings to the promotional framework that Dre’s intent is to wax nostalgia on a tricked future ride, and it works damn well in all its complicated bells & whistles.

Wild ambition is met with a familiar soul and astoundingly airtight accomplishment on Andre Young’s most politically aware and ambitious album yet. Hats off to a veteran champion slugging back to the top with nearly flawless design, and walking the best walk an icon OG ever could: he's dedicating all profits from Compton to an arts center in the beleaguered town.
7. Puscifer - Money Shot

Maynard James Keenan’s most prolific music project of the past decade delivers an enchantingly evolved and balanced palette on Money Shot, due in part to more collaborative songwriting and a more involved presence of vocalist Carina Round. The goofball novelty of Puscifer’s origins is still in there, but in the new balance of establishment it’s a collection of threads in a tapestry as opposed to a primary color. The yin and yang of masculine and feminine energy interweave a pulsing eroticism that curls itself around the mind like one of Keenan’s many grapevines. And when a song like “The Remedy” grabs hold, and you’re drawn into a line like, "You speak like someone who has never been smacked in the fucking mouth… That's okay, we have the remedy,” a downright intimidating command of energy and spirit puts the hips - and the mind - in motion.
6. The Dead Weather - Dodge and Burn

To hell with those meat & potatoes jams that hit you over the head with one thick primary-color persona. This is the music you put on for the midnight drive to kill the villain, headed for a road house haunt on the outskirts of a future-grit murder zone. No quarter is offered from the Moog analog delay get-go with “I Feel Love (Every Million Miles),” a Lazaretto flare through a funked-Zeppelin riff. Across Dodge and Burn’s forty-two minutes of fuzz-pulse bass, psych-wild keys, foundational jazz-staccato beats and vocal strut-ferocity, the popped leather collar never once veers away from authentic attitude.
Alison Mosshart’s seduction has no innocence left within it - she’s a focused and feral muse gone wild, a switchblade threat and a whiskey-bottle fist at the front of the coolest goddamn gang in Rock. “Let Me Through” is your deepest evidence, a mod-squad cool raiding the greaser closet, checking yourself out in the Wanted poster behind a cigarette.
Dodge and Burn is finely crafted insanity, a retro-threaded storm of punk-blooded greatness, without apology or allegiance to anyone but their own. You leave the record wanting to be in the gang, an accessory to whatever crimes may come. And that’s just what they want. Read our full review.
5. Action Bronson - Mr. Wonderful

Action Bronson’s latest album is not unlike icon assassinations and perfect-scenario lost virginities, a cinematic blaze of Scorsese glory too perfect to be real. Each song feels like a home-game overtime triumph, each track building to the grandest of finales: a sensational track called “Easy Rider”.

This is why he topped our SXSW bill this year. Picture this if you will: as Bronson's set concludes, just as on Mr. Wonderful, "Easy Rider" is greeted with arena-level roars in the club. The man led the crowd in the repeated closing line: “Ride the Harley into the sunset” as the track's motorcycle sounds blasted through the PA. When the chant-along hit full unison, Bronson tossed the mic over his shoulder in a hilariously obnoxious arc, and with right hand raised in a throttling motion stepped offstage and into the crowd. A trail of blunt smoke followed the double-wide superstar locomotive as he moved to and through the exit with what seemed like the whole venue in tow. He rolled round the corner and up the block, leading a throng of fans in a victory lap down 5th ave to the roaring chant of "Bronson! Bronson!"

That’s the feeling Mr. Wonderful leaves you with.
4. Doomtree - All Hands

The beloved Minneapolis hip-hop collective Doomtree has delivered an impeccably powerful return, which we celebrated with a headlining set at Crave's SXSW show this year.

The title nods to the nautical rally cry, "All hands on deck," and the album stands as the most collaborative and cohesive project the crew has yet produced. The production from Cecil Otter, Lazerbeak, Paper Tiger, and P.O.S twists through 13 booming tracks, building the raw and epic soundscapes that the group has become well known for, while adding more of-the-moment musical elements and techniques for a genre-spanning effect. This is the sound of old friends fine-tuning their craft, both together and individually, for over a decade, and it shows.

Lyrically, All Hands sounds hungry as all hell. The three-year gap between Doomtree albums has given each of the five emcees substantial time to grow as solo artists, and the group's return finds everyone tour-tested with plenty to prove. Sims, P.O.S, Mike Mictlan, Dessa, and Cecil Otter drive home razor-sharp cadences, hard-hitting punchlines, and monstrous choruses, passing the spotlight back and forth until the house lights come up.
3. Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear

“My ambition, aside from making an indulgent, soulful, and epic sound worthy of the subject matter, was to address the sensuality of fear," Tillman explained in an open letter about the album (read our review), "the terrifying force of love, the unutterable pleasures of true intimacy, and the destruction of emotional and intellectual prisons in my own voice.”

He has undoubtedly succeeded. Since meeting his future wife Emma in 2011, Joshua Tillman - better known as Father John Misty - has transformed from a beacon of coy narcissism to a gracefully mordant romantic. I Love You, Honeybear is, quite literally, a collection of songs detailing Tillman’s love for this woman, and the road of excess, indulgence and raunch that lead him to her. It's a nakedly open documentation on love, true love, its myriad consequence on the spirit, and feels entirely as much. Brimming with orchestral strings and oddities like the occasional mariachi band, ragtime jazz combos, electronic drum solos and beyond (“I’m pretty sure there’s a sitar in there somewhere,“ Tillman muses), the album embraces a lush atmosphere that’s dauntingly, classically romantic.
2. Clutch - Psychic Warfare

Clutch, Maryland’s finest stomp-rock prophets have returned with twelve tracks of pure piston-pumping juggernaut uppercuts of devastatingly clever excellence. No fat, no hesitation, just finely-tuned muscle and cerebrally hilarious acrobatics.

Two decades deep into a Zappa-meets-Sabbath-on-acid spin that's earned them a reputation as one of the most technically proficient and comically quick-witted bands on the circuit, Clutch deliver some of the finest tracks of their career including the comically conspiratorial opener “X-Ray Visions,” the man-slut consequence of “A Quick Death in Texas,” “Sucker For The Witch” and the album’s highlight curveball, the “House of The Rising Sun” cousin “Our Lady of Electric Light”.
1. Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly

To Pimp a Butterfly is a jazz-soaked masterpiece - a highly ambitious, angry, indulgent, romantic blast of self-critique and declaration inside a molotov cocktail. A dense flourish of racial narratives, throwback soul and confident funk, this concept album posing as a sociopolitical barometer is far better than we hoped for - and our hopes were damn high.