It might seem like a trick the way Arthur Ashin pairs songs of incredible hurt and fear over ass-shaking jams like the ones found on his album Anxiety, but that title is hardly a misnomer. Ashin is someone expressing his deepest anxieties as best he can, by belting his vocals to the back room and wrapping them in maximalist R&B — the genre of music he listened to with his parents as he grew up, he told us in an interview. These are not typical R&B productions (how could they be with Dan Lopatin and Joel Ford helping in the studio?) but fractured, alien approaches to the sound, breaking down the tropes of this music while Ashin does the same lyrically, from the opening hysterical panic attack of “Play By Play” to closer “World War,” where the tranquil and beautiful coda feels like something that’s been fought for throughout the record. It’s what makes Anxiety one of the most cathartic albums you could hear this year in addition to one of the most danceable. It isn’t post-anything, it isn’t PBR&B, it’s genuine soul music for these terrifyingly modern times. –Miles [LISTEN]