NPR Music’s 25 Favourite Albums Of 2015 Thus Far

We'll call it in the air: 2015 is going to end up being a great year for music. There's enormous ambition on display here, epic works crafted to bust boundaries or reshape at will (check out that three-hour debut album), but also intensity in small gestures: a pair of devastating albums about loss, two more anchored in the sounds of sisterly harmonies. As we reach the year's mid-point, take a moment to listen, ears wide open to a great six months of music. Let's hope the second half of 2015 lives up to it.   ALABAMA SHAKES Sound & Color On its second album, this Athens, Ala. band — now chart-toppers, late-nite TV veterans, large-font festival draws — sounds less like a historically-accurate pedestal for propping up Brittany Howard's monumental rock-soul-blues voice than a demolition crew with a work order to knock down some pedestals. Where the Shakes' debut, Boys & Girls, bopped along on the energy generated by its musicians locking into perfect step, Sound & Color sees each band member stretching out. Bassist Zac Cockrell and drummer Steve Johnson might be the album's secret weapons, switching tempos and clearing space for the emotive guitar playing of Heath Fogg. Howard coos and sighs as often as she howls, hanging in the background for long stretches, yet still comes across as someone who doesn't have to tell you twice to step aside. Like its predecessor, you can dance to all the songs on Sound & Color, but it's an angrier, druggier, cooler, freakier kind of dancing. —Jacob Ganz BJÖRK Vulnicura There's nothing easy or joyous about Vulnicura. Björk's break-up album is full of pain and betrayal. Its electronic beats won't let you dance, the strings are heavy, there's not a singable chorus and the words are wounds documenting an almost anthropological timeline of love lost. And with all that, Vulnicura is worth its weight. It's a universal album for all of us who have tangled in love. There's never been a record quite like this; alongside all the hurt, there's still healing to be had and to be heard. —Bob Boilen BOMBA ESTEREO Amanecer Bomba Estereo has cemented itself as a band that is able to produce fun, danceable music that is also deeply rooted in tradition. The Colombian band's sound is as much an exploration of Latin America's indigenous and African roots as it is a stroll through the noisiest neighborhoods of Bogota. With its latest album, the band goes beyond just being incredibly fun and energetic — it dives further into a spiritual, reflective feel. Amanecer is intimate in a way the previous Bomba Estereo albums are not, like hanging out at an after-party with someone you always suspected you could fall in love with. The crowning gem is the song "Mar (Lo Que Siento)," a reflective, airy piece that feels like drifting away on a beach after a night of dancing. —Jasmine Garsd BOSTON MODERN ORCHESTRA PROJECT Play (Andrew Norman) Just how good is Andrew Norman's Play? [...]

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