Some of us still pretend that Ryan Adams didn’t release four full length studio albums on New Year’s Day last year, and that’s not okay. Mind you, he’s gone on to release three more since (including the 25th-year anniversary edition of his trailblazing debut Heartbreaker)—which almost feels like a low yearly average for him—yet such a stint makes the detection of a fourth quarter release backloading in any given year provably harder. For context, the last time we noticed such late blooming was in the year of our Lord 2022, and we blabbered about that extensively. As we near the celebration of another revolution around the giant, hot-flaming burning star we call Sun, wrap up a full quarter of a deranged new century (or 2.5% of a millennium, depending on how long your horizon muscle flexes), and close off the books on a wonderfully off-the-wall 365 days without Olympics or World Cups, we’re here to report that this too shall likely go down as yet another front loaded year. Musically anyway, that is.

And not that there aren’t plenty of perfectly valid reasons for it to pan out this way. To record label executives the world over, the final three months of any calendar year are a bit like that connecting flight involving a lengthy, uninspiring, and code-switching airline overlay at a nondescript airport: inevitable to get to your destination, yet accompanied by a somewhat sour taste in one’s mouth for the direct flight was not quite out of reach, but simply too expensive in this late-stage capitalism juncture of diminishing returns. Quarter 4, i.e. the financial accounting period allotted from October through December each year, is a pesky and awkward one not just in the music industry. Weathers get colder and darker—unless you relocate to Florida, which is exactly what this newsroom has done—people grow increasingly tired and worn out, inflated budgets are mostly unspent and shall go lost before the turn of the year on 31st December, bookkeepers are bracing for their busiest months, and the inexorable wrath of commodified ethnocentric holidays seem like the only chewing gums and breadsticks holding the chassis of Western civilizations together.

For record executives dripping in Fear of God Essentials and Balenciaga threads, Q4 also means entering into a liminal marketing space not unlike a music industry Bermuda Triangle. Major awards eligibility periods and consideration requirements for the following year tend to clock in then, with significant implications over exact street dates and how they might affect a project’s eleventh hour consideration for those prizes. Moreover, coveted and hyper inflated Albums of the Year lists by lukewarm-yet-rainmaking critics and pundits alike are increasingly being brought forward and published earlier and earlier each year. Absurdly, some of them start to percolate at the beginning of November. This trend de facto turns November and December into guaranteed oblivion scrapheap release months, for most of y’all out there have goldfish memory spans and sure as hell won’t remember to pluck from said months when reaching AOTY verdicts a year down the line. (Side note here, this is exactly why EMS won’t ever budge from publishing our AOTY around Christmas time each year. November and December have not only gifted us outta sight albums in the past, but last time we checked they both still count as valid months within a given calendar, fiscal, and administrative year. Come on, man).

Notwithstanding another backloading slump, we did want to take a moment to savor in the irresistible temptation to co-opt a public US observance of questionable origins to round up a handful projects we’d hate to have slip by you all. Rigorously, these have all been released well within this ongoing Q4 financial period: this might double as the final music-centric EMS serving before the highly-anticipated, and intentionally long-awaited, Albums of the Year revelations late into December. This all depends on whether we can finally put out that folklore Legend Has It… Tier List, should Preemo & Nas Escobar actually come through with their joint to close out the iconic Mass Appeal Records series this upcoming 12th December. If you’re reading this after said timestamp—joke’s clearly on us.

Let’s dig it. The first offering we’d want to hold space for is none other than misunderstood Britpop soul crooner Richard Ashcroft’s Lovin’ You. Marking his seventh solo studio exploit—and sporting a surreal front cover that can only be described as so purposefully bad that it’s good—the 10-track LP comes out on the heels of seven years without any new collection of original songs. Well, the 54-year old English singer/songwriter and former Verve-frontman couldn’t have engineered a more triumphant return than stepping onto stadium stages as the opener for his old mates in Oasis on their 2025 world reunion tour. And yet, the astute Ashcroft wasn’t there to simply wax and coast on Britpop nostalgia alone. He immediately set the tone right outta the gate with “Lover”—a buoyant, sprawling, and euphoric R&B-leaning groove that aptly captures the relatively uplifting, genre-salad spirit of Lovin’ You as a whole.

Congruently, the project remains filled with life-affirming choruses, wide-open love songs, and even daring flirtations with dance music that spotlight one of alternative pop’s most soulful voices sounding as timeless and open-hearted as ever. Lovin’ You is a near-all killer no filler 43-minute affair; a record made by a veteran rocker who’s clearly tuned into contemporary vibes and mood. “I’m a Rebel,” moulded by Swiss guest producer Mirwais, is a sleek, Prince-esque, French-touch-inflected cut that pushes Ashcroft’s falsetto into ecstatic new territory. The title track, meanwhile, plays along the vibes of his storm-tossed solo classic “A Song for the Lovers” reimagined and re-tooled through a modern hip-hop-beat sensibility. Still, fans of his Urban Hymns troubadour side will feel right at home with the late-night intimacy of “Find Another Reason” and “Live with Hope,” cuts that reach for the strings-infused cinematic sweep and gospel-tinged warmth of trademarked early-’70s Rolling Stones ballads. Geezer’s cut from a stained glass mountain.

Son of Spergy, the fourth studio album by Canadian Neo-soul torchbearer Daniel Caesar, is the pleasant surprise of the recommendation bunch. Admittedly never on his rotation in our newsrooms, the 30-year old Republic recording artist mostly entered our orbit by way of his excellent work with Tyler, the Creator. For an artist raised in the pews, Caesar has consistently seemed more driven by the pursuit of spiritual communion with his listeners than by the trappings of fame. Ahead of releasing his latest album, a gorgeous and ethereal spiritual successor to Frank Ocean‘s Blonde, he betrayed his reticence to glamour by staging impromptu park shows across multiple cities, appearing with little more than an acoustic guitar—a fitting warm-up to what is being lauded as his most personal, unguarded record yet. Named in tribute to his gospel-singer father, Son of Spergy serves as a backdrop space for Caesar to revisit family bonds, old romances, and his church roots. “Lord, let your blessings rain down,” he pleads on album opener “Rain Down” while supported by the ever spiritually awakened Sampha, in a nebulous, devotional tune that establishes the album’s deeply introspective arc.

Divorcing from more beat-heavy, experimental textures explored in past projects, this new exploit leans into something both earthier and more abstract at once: stripped-back roots influences that the Toronto-native upcycles into dreamy, lush vignettes like “Have a Baby (With Me)” and the Bon Iver–featuring album standout “Moon“: a track of the year contender whose soft jazz piano coasts through a gentle acoustic arrangement like a quiet drizzle. Nonetheless, Son of Spergy isn’t all meditative glow and religious recentering, with Caesar stretching creatively well beyond the canonical borders of traditional R&B. “Call on Me” erupts as a rambunctious curveball, merging jagged alt-rock riffs with a reggae pulse, while “Baby Blue” is a blissfully woozy lullaby that unravels into delightful oddity over six minutes of sample bonanza—folding in warped strings, spliced vocals, and playful sound effects with the wandering spirit of a fearless creator.

Let’s get into some bona fide rap with Big L. In the story of New York hip-hop, hell of hip-hop at large, L Corleone undoubtedly stands as one of the culture’s most enduring and influential voices. Though the Harlem luminary released just a single studio album during his tragically brief life—1995’s Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous—his fingerprints can be retrieved all over the work of countless rappers who followed. A few posthumous releases have surfaced over the last 25 years, including the DJ Premier–helmed The Big Picture, but his latest on Mass Appeal, Harlem’s Finest: Return of the King, feels like the definitive final word on his artistic prowess. Less a mixtape than a compilation in shape and spirit, this fifth and final studio effort by Big L consists of unreleased remastered tracks and rare freestyles, carefully curated by Nas’s stewardship alongside a slew of rotating producers all adding their own trademark tags and sounds to it.

In keeping with the material’s provenance and gestation, Big L’s vernacular occasionally dips back into the slang and sharp-edged bravado of his ’90s rap milieu. Yet, the overall artistic merit and staying power of his writing elevates this 16-track tape far above the usual posthumous grab-bag compilations often hastily assembled after an artist’s passing. The project’s seamless blend of eras, recording environments, and topical narratives—fueled by its inclusive production choices and guest lists—plays a big part in this standing toe-to-toe with the best rap body of work released this year by MCs who are not six-feet-under. To this end, guest slots from longtime peers like Diggin’ in the Crates Crew-co-founder Showbiz and fellow Children of the Corn-member Herb McGruff sit comfortably alongside contributions from heirs to his pen and school of thought, including Joey Bada$$ on “Grants Tomb ’97” and Mac Miller on “Forever,” which opens with a rare and heartfelt verse from the similarly prematurely departed Pittsburgh, PA-native: an unmistakable nod to the wide reach of Big L’s influence. Still, it’s the inclusion of some of his most legendary freestyle sessions—complete with an iconic tag-team moment with JAY-Z—that truly cements this release as essential listening.

Smaller in both scope and reach, we’d be remiss if we didn’t shout out Reuben Vincent & 9th Wonder’s soulful hip-hop classic chops on WELCOME HOME, an hour-long collab joint out on the accomplished record selector’s Jamla Records and distributed by Roc Nation. A meeting of the North Carolinian minds, the project sounds timeless and meticulously constructed. 9th Wonder’s lavish, lush, and glossy beats are aptly complemented by the 25-year old Charlotte-born MC’s robust wordplay and articulation throughout. From the airy and watery “HOMECOMING” kicking the dances off, to the gospel-tinged crystalline “IN MY LIFE” bookending the album, this thing alights at so many highlights along its 16-cuts tracklist, not least through the co-sign of guests such as Ab-Soul, Dinner Party, and Raphael Saadiq. Don’t let this slip by you—it’s salt of the earth.

A brief rock-adjacent intermezzo breaking up the rap dominance here comes in the form of Taking Back Sunday‘s John Nolan-curated Music for Everyone, Vol. 2 compilation. Following eight years after the first instalment, the generous 27-track Vol. 1, this second chapter carries on in that spirit as it continues to benefit and support the American Civil Liberties Union. Assembled and released in partnership with Philly-based Born Losers Records, the 19-track mixtape features both original and reworked numbers by letlive., Fuckin Whatever, as well as “The Pattern“, a Taking Back Sunday throwaway that sounds just as if Tidal Wave and 152 had a sonic love child. Naturally a bit of a hodgepodge in terms of sounds and styles, some of the highlights include At the Drive In-spinoffs Sparta’s “Fight With Love“, Modern Chemistry’s foray into synth pop on “Crybaby“, as well as lead curator John Nolan’s very own swan song contribution with the fitting climactic coda with “There’s No Hate Like Christian Love“.

Alright—let’s wrap this thing up with Q4’s pièce de résistance: De La Soul’s Cabin in the Sky, Mass Appeal’s penultimate Legend Has It… drop and handily one of the most highly anticipated hip-hop releases this year. What is there to say about the American rap group that hasn’t been said before? Across a near 40-year career marked by both innovation and adversity, the Long Island trio has always found a way to endure. Even the heartbreaking loss of co-founder Dave Jolicoeur aka Trugoy the Dove in 2023—just as the group’s long-unavailable Tommy Boy LPs were finally being digitally reissued and restored—didn’t halt their momentum. Defiantly, surviving members Vincent ‘Maseo’ Mason and Kelvin ‘Posdnuos’ Mercer felt a renewed responsibility to continue in his spirit. Cabin in the Sky, the group’s first studio album in nine years clocking it at seventy minutes of new material, sports a title that gestures toward big, existential questions about what awaits beyond this life. Faithfully, all three members appear throughout the record, with Trugoy’s presence woven deeply into its fabric.

Such a commitment to perseverance and endlessness resonates strongly on the first musical joint “YUHDONTSTOP,” situating the eventuality of ending the group as something inseparable from the loss of Dave himself—an idea neither surviving member is willing to entertain. By and large, joy and pain are emotional poles that surface across the whole 20-track album, supported by production from longtime collaborators and heavyweights like the aforementioned DJ Premier, Jake One, and Supa Dave West. Several cuts on Cabin in the Sky actually originated from a separately plotted Pete Rock joint project, including the meditative “Palm of His Hands” and frisky lead single “The Package.” A who’s who of luminaries joins De La in honoring both the life that was lived and the future still unfolding. Amongst many others, Black Thought, Q-Tip, and Nas all commit their sets of devotional bars to wax; while Killer Mike delivers a touching tribute to motherhood on “A Quick 16 for Mama”; and Common and Slick Rick breathe new life into a latter’s rap staple on the tastefully uplifting “Yours.” All together, they help send Trugoy off with grace, while illuminating a path forward for a group still bursting with creative potential as they carry his ever enduring legacy beyond the cabin’s stratosphere.

These are the records. This is this year’s Thanksgiving.

We’d like to thank you sincerely for taking the time to read this and we hope to feel your interest again next time.

AV