We Will Always Love You

Maybe it takes the recognition of how great Since I Left You was and the almost-disappointed reception to the 16-years-later sophomore release Wildflower to really internalize what an odd miracle of a post-genre pop record this is, merely the third in two decades for the beloved Australian sample-slayers. Almost impossibly riddled with stars from once-far-flung worlds — they put Rivers Cuomo on the same track as Pink Siifu, ffs — it out-Gorillazes Gorillaz in its eclecticism-as-fandom outlook, and finds a constructive use for nostalgia in its ability to create synthetic-yet-better memories of formative sounds unbound by their old radio-format prisons.