Editors' Choice for December 2020

Album cover for 2R0I2P0

2R0I2P0

Relapse Records

On their eighth collaboration, the power trio and industrial noise master offer canny, wildly creative new versions of catalog tracks.

— Thom Jurek

Album cover for 10 Years Gone

10 Years Gone

Sargent House

Recorded live in studio, this incendiary eight-song set of catalog material is a pandemic-dictated celebration of the band's tenth anniversary.

— Thom Jurek

Album cover for El Nour

El Nour

Warner Classics

Utterly distinctive recital exploring the deep Arab traces in European song, and then inflecting Egyptian songs back toward the West.

— James Manheim

Album cover for Tim Melina Theo Bobby

Tim Melina Theo Bobby

Joyful Noise

The farewell album from these long-running art rockers takes their ever-shifting sound in a decidedly more electronic direction.

— Fred Thomas

Album cover for McCartney III

McCartney III

Capitol / EMI

Working once again on his own, McCartney writes for himself, not the charts, winding up with an off-kilter pop album.

— Stephen Thomas Erlewine