Packaging deeply revolutionary rhetoric in surprisingly cozy packaging, Box of Dark Roses by Mope Grooves introduces us to the lives shattered by institutional dehumanization, seating us at the table with an inspiring family of choice as they weather nonstop storms with no help but one another.

Every component of this album, every stanza of half-spoken poetry, every deeply textured percussive element, every spatially aware synth tone reaches desperately for sublime beauty, thwarting each other’s reach with the entanglement of their own arms.

If you’ve ever submerged yourself into a social media algorithm that subjected you to nothing but pain, with each post angering you or downright terrifying you, the music of Passing Stones by The Gallstones has you in mind.

Teasing out the darkest, most brutalist components of UK garage, Municipal Dreams by Low End Activist tells an autobiographical story of life on the fringes of British society.

The electrifying free jazz guitar of Brandon Seabrook tells a vivid story on Object of Unknown Function, an album jittering under the pressure of its own entropy as a depressive abyss opens beneath.

In the same way that a cubist painter captures all sides and angles of the subject on one flat canvas, the sounds of Pescadou Gualapagouse by Babe, Terror combine music from a vast array of time periods all in one succinct, beautiful, cohesive piece.

In the air we breathe, on the ground we walk, a blatant disregard for human life prevails. Jolted awake to face the consequences of a homicidal, post-human ruling class, Chat Pile uses their new record Cool World to pull us closer to the distant atrocities committed in our name until we’re face to bleeding face with our own unceremonious demise.

This struggle plays out on There Will Come Gentle Rain by HMOT, a collection of sonic memories bursting forth from within the colonizer state.

We’re quick to ascribe the adjective “apocalyptic” to music, but how often do we think about what music would actually sound like during an apocalypse? Itsasoko Sua by El Café Atómico presents an answer with its dilapidated production quality, DIY instrumentation, and lonesome spirit, replicating the type of music that would emerge in a state of extreme austerity and paranoia.

Midwestern emo music and country music seem like a natural match made in Heaven, and I’m certainly convinced after listening to the new album How Could I Be So In Debt? by Tombstone Poetry. Pedal steel licks and downbeat acoustic riffs layer into melodic shoegaze-y hooks, building into massive swells of intense distortion that feel more Tiny Moving Parts than Johnny Cash.

Some people are raised not to acknowledge their anger, to push it down and let it steep, but Portland punk rockers HELP invite us to purge our rage as a form of creative release, the idea being that expressing our hurt is one of the last freedoms we have.

The celebratory, empowering, noisy, experimental sounds of Patience by Maral reframe Iranian folk music as something living and breathing, highlighting Iran and its people for their resilience amid nonstop economic warfare from the west and dubious leadership from their own government.

Violating every expectation surrounding love songs, The Great Guitar of Universal Compassion by Bodies of Divine Infinite and Eternal Spirit crafts meandering, partially improvised pieces of vocal poetry backed by eerie, fuzzy, sparse instrumentation.

Experimental folk group RÓIS restores a key aspect of this forgotten culture on MO LÉAN, a progressive, electronically-assisted recreation of ancient ritualistic funeral songs.

Sure, you call your band DIY, but who made your instruments? For Belgian experimentalists Why the Eye? on their new album Inspirex, homemade instruments with absurd names like the “castabignettes” draw us into their idiosyncratic world.

What at first glance appears as a picturesque paradise gradually reveals itself as an imperfect and at times downright ruthless environment that treats local residents as mere means to a global drug trafficking end, a path of discovery that mirrors the exponential rise in dynamic musical intensity within each track.

Given legendary Canadian post rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s previous bold political stances against the American military-industrial complex, we all understood that their next album would deliver a powerful statement against the ongoing genocide in Palestine.

We’re a long way away from the days of riot grrrl having its own instantly identifiable sound, but L​æ​nge Leve De Vrede by Situationsfornærmelse utilizes an impressive array of novel techniques to express that familiar feminist rage.

All the while, frantic lyrics summon strikingly detailed imagery and deep, dark subject matter through rapid-fire, one-off references, sending our attention on a schizophrenic easter egg hunt for the components of a human race hellbent on removing itself from the earth.

Musically, competing drones from violins and synths slip in and out of tune, creating subtly pulsing sonic textures that chart our slow arcs through the shade of worry.