7. MARGARET GLASPY “Emotions and Math” (ATO) Ms. Glaspy’s stubborn songs need nothing more than drums, bass and her own voice and electric guitar. Her sinewy music finds an intersection of roots-rock and indie grunge, as she sings, mostly, about relationships in various states of misapprehension and unequal expectations. Her voice wraps her lyrics in burlap: flexible, sturdy and a little rough to the touch.

8. ANOHNI “Hopelessness” (Secretly Canadian) The intent is vociferously political in this set of songs by Anohni, previously known as Antony Hegarty. Her voice remains arresting and androgynous, while the perspective, often, is dystopian and blatantly ironic: calling down a drone bombing, welcoming constant surveillance and looking forward to boiling oceans and burning forests. Anohni trades the chamber-pop of Antony and the Johnstons for caustic, arresting electronica — veering between stark and vertiginous — produced with Hudson Hawke and Oneohtrix Point Never. It’s not exactly dance music, but it pushes hard. (Read the interview | Read the live review)

9. SAVAGES “Adore Life” (Matador) Love is a elemental, colossal force on the second album by Savages: one that can be barely contained within the drone, gallop, blare and incantations of the English quartet’s post-punk onslaught. At once muscular and enveloping, the music nonetheless makes way for Jehnny Beth’s high-beam voice, clear and determined even as her lyrics battle to figure things out. (Read the review)

10. ELZA SOARES “A Mulher do Fim do Mundo” (Mais Um Discos) No translation is necessary to recognize the wrath and nerve of “A Mulher do Fim do Mundo” (“The Woman at the End of the World”) by Ms. Soares, a 79-year-old samba singer who has long been celebrated in Brazil. She uses the raspy but still commanding state of her voice to hurl songs about abuse and abusers, poverty and history, lust and violence. (The album package has thorough translations.) Ms. Soares is abetted by musicians from São Paulo who describe their music as “dirty samba”; they spike traditional samba with distorted guitars, pushy drums and unruly electronics that underline how indomitable Ms. Soares remains.

Jon Caramanica

1. KANYE WEST “The Life of Pablo” (Def Jam) A grand, caustic album about grace: finding it, praying for it, falling from it. There remains no more adept fuser of the sacred and profane working in pop, and no one else who, time and again, will unflinchingly assess — at his own peril — the costs of audacity. (Read the review | Read the live review)