Alicia Keys, Beach House, and 13 more albums we can’t wait to hear in December

Maybe it was some lunar thing, maybe it was the fact that last year felt like four, or maybe it was just the world trying to return to some semblance of normal, but 2021 went by awfully fast. Here we are, already at December, and some of us are still trying to catch up on films from March. (Man, was awesome, though, wasn’t it?) But before we ring in the new year, there are still a number of exciting titles on the horizon to help us celebrate the holidays (or, in some cases, help us forget the holidays are anywhere in sight). From longtime icons like Alicia Keys to indie royalty like Beach House—with some long-awaited albums, like Conway The Machine’s Shady Records debut, to boot—the final month of this year holds the potential for greatness. So take a look, take a listen, and with luck, you’ll find a new and late-breaking addition to your list of best albums of the year.Note to desktop users: If you’d like to read this in a scrolling format, simply narrow your browser window.

Former Vampire Weekend-er Rostam’s gorgeous sophomore album enthralls with intimate lyrics and thoughtfully layered compositions that reward multiple listens, which makes it the perfect candidate for the remix treatment, exploring new textures within his well-drawn musical world. Part 1 dropped last month, providing a tantalizing tease, and Part 2 will complete the cycle, featuring contributions from Japanese Wallpaper, Ben Bohmer, Roth Bart Baron, and—perhaps most exciting—prolific PC Music producer Easyfun. [Cameron Scheetz]

Arca received a Latin Grammy nomination for “Best Alternative Music Album” for , which is oddly appropriate, given just about everything the Venezuelan artist and musician does stands in proud opposition to whatever you can still consider “mainstream.” Now, the next two parts of the electronic avant-pop composer are dropping simultaneously: ii seems to contain 12 tracks that flit across genres like butterflies, while Arca has said that iii will be “the most incendiary entry… violently euphoric and aggressively psychedelic.” Consider us intrigued. [Alex McLevy]

In the years since reuniting in 2013, space-rock outfit Failure has maintained a steady output, releasing solid albums every couple of years and touring regularly. The band has continued to hone its swooning, soaring guitar crunch and stately rhythms, and Wild Type Droid sounds like it will venture even further afield in its sonic scope. But the fundamental intensity of slowcore alt-rock remains (fans of The Secret Machines, take note), and the band’s heady fusion of OG grunge distortion and powerful shoegaze arrangements seems in no danger of lessening its potency. [Alex McLevy]

Unlike recent albums Articulation or , Rival Consoles’ (a.k.a. avant-ambient techno musician Ryan Lee West) newest album Overflow was conceived as the score to a modern dance production of the same name, which West then worked into a stand-alone record—one “criticizing the current state of technology,” as the press release puts it. As usual, that’s a tall order, even for an electronic musician who uses static, fuzz, and synths the way others use the human voice. But if West has proven anything, it’s that he tends to rise to the challenge. [Alex McLevy]

Cancel The World may only be the second album from Chicago’s jagged punk quartet Touched By Ghoul, but it already sounds like some long-lost ferocious ’90s punk cult hit, like the unholy love child of Bratmobile and The Lunachicks. Whereas its 2016 debut Murder Circus was a little all over the map in terms of punk and art-rock influences, here the band has drilled down on a winning combination of angular, off-kilter grooves and sing-song melodicism, all delivered with guitars as raucous as ever. There are elements of Melkbelly’s time-signature fuckery and Gang Of Four-like riffing, but the band has come into its own, with a record that starts strong, and only gets better from there. [Alex McLevy]

Plenty have described Baltimore dream-pop duo Beach House’s lush musical arrangements as cinematic, but literary? In November, the band announced its 8th album, Once Twice Melody, to be released in four distinct “chapters” through February 2022. Chapter One captured that storybook quality with sweeping ballads fit for a baroque fairytale, each guided by Victoria LeGrand’s typically enchanting vocals. Will this story’s grand arc begin to take shape in Chapter Two, or will it offer more of the same? [Cameron Scheetz]

After a short break to focus on things like joining The Voice and hosting the Grammys, Alicia Keys came back in 2020 with her seventh studio album, Alicia. She’s now following that up a year later with a record titled—what else?—KEYS. The musician may not be as firmly ensconced in the musical zeitgeist as she once was, but the new record sounds interesting: a “side A” composed of what she terms “laidback piano vibes,” and a “side B” (produced entirely by Kendrick Lamar collaborator Mike Will Made it) promising uptempo beats and “level up” sounds. More than 20 years into a historic career, she’s pretty much earned the right to do whatever the hell she wants. [Alex McLevy]

It’s been a long time coming. Outkast’s Big Boy and Organized Noize’s Sleepy Brown have been collaborating since even before Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik was a glint in LaFace Records’ eye. And on their first proper record as a duo, the artists have stayed true to their roots, recording The Big Sleepover wholly at Stankonia Studios, and bringing in folks like Killer Mike and Big Rube to participate. Early singles like “The Big Sleep Is Over” have been promising, but really, these two don’t need to promise anything. Not when they’ve delivered so consistently over the years. [Alex McLevy]

The 11 tracks of spare, twangy Americana that made up 2020’s Love Is The King receive the live treatment on Jeff Tweedy’s new deluxe release. It combines the original album, recorded during lockdown with minimal arrangements and family members as backing contributors, with a new live reworking of all the songs, as reimagined by a full band, lending a lush new sound to the songs. For those who missed the record during the pandemic’s peak, here’s a chance to catch up—and for those already engaged with this music, here’s arguably an even more compelling version. (Plus, a moving cover of Neil Young’s “Old Country Waltz.”) [Alex McLevy]

Few pandemic-era releases made as massive an impact as the posthumous album from Chicago’s Juice WRLD, Legends Never Die. Released last summer, it debuted at number one on the Billboard charts and went on to become arguably the most successful posthumous releases in decades, with five singles in the top 10 simultaneously—a feat previously only achieved by The Beatles and Drake. And the rapper left behind an even deeper catalogue of tracks, more of which will see the light of day on Fighting Demons. [Alex McLevy]

, Moses Sumney’s towering two-part album, was one of the . So this live album, recorded in the pastoral remove of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, is an instant must-hear: Composed of 14 songs—spread out between Grae and his debut record, Aromanticism—Sumney describes it in appropriately isolated terms, with “the trees as our audience, the grasshoppers our background singers.” Anyone who has seen him live knows the power of his music when performed live, the ways he explores and follows his muse in unexpected ways. It’s about time everyone else got to hear that, too. [Alex McLevy]

More than 50(!) years after Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s first record together, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, came out, the musician and band again join forces for Barn, whose title doubles as the recording site: a restored 19th-century barn located deep in the Rockies. And as lead single “The Song Of The Seasons” immediately establishes, the rolling Americana and signature tenor are all there, once more backed by his able bandmates. An accompanying film will provide a more in-depth look, but, as always with Young, the music is the draw. [Alex McLevy]

On Interior, Teen Daze’s Jamison Isaak crafts an “ode to electric futures glimpsed in ecstatic heights,” as the press release states. The first single, “Swimming,” boasts a mix of ambient synth pop, with a subtle bass and plinking synths. Overall, it’s understated and sleek. The second single, “2 AM (Real Live) (feat. Cecile Believe),” dives into more staple features of French house music, with the incorporation of disco and funk elements, including a heavier, groovy bass presence. Envisioned for booming clubs and futuristic dance floors, Isaak seeks to create music that “teenagers in Akira might be listening to.” [Gabrielle Sanchez]

The seemingly endlessly prolific Conway The Machine is back with another album, little more than half a year after releasing . But this one has been a long time coming: It’s his much-teased, long-delayed Shady Records debut, God Don’t Make Mistakes. Single “Piano Love,” produced by The Alchemist, should be a good indication of what we can expect from the New York rapper’s latest—though part of what keeps Conway so exciting as an artist, through release after release, is just how happy he is to throw a wrench into the works of what’s expected. [Alex McLevy]

One-fourth of a bold new double album from the famed Smiths guitarist, solo artist, and occasional Modest Mouse bandmate, the Fever Dreams Pt. 2 EP looks to continue Johnny Marr’s impressive run of solo releases that began in 2011 (if you don’t count his one release with The Healers from 2003) with . Marr is refining his sonic palette, as well: single “Sensory Street” has a throbbing ‘80s electro-soul vibe, while “” is a classic rocker straight from his past. [Alex McLevy]