Thankfully, while Nash has moved to a more extroverted, aggressive sound, she hasn't sacrificed any of the personal, intimate lyrics that marked the best of her early songs.

Rose isn't trying to be all traditional country here, or even all straight pop either, but somehow she effortlessly melts the two together, and this set is definitely a winner, full of solid playing and, of course, Rose's easy and comfortingly wise vocals.

This blend of contemporary attitudes and classic sounds is insinuating and addictive, particularly because at nine songs, it's too brief--once it's through, the album practically begs you to start all over again.

At times, Nanobots feels like Join Us' more melancholy flip side, and even if this album isn't quite as immediate as the one before it, it shows how They Might Be Giants can continue in the vein they've excelled at for decades and build on it, too.

Hitchcock is clearly having fun here, and while that sense of joyful, mad abandon may not always result in quality, it's hard not root for a guy who, at 60, isn’t afraid to stand behind his "honey naked and uncooked."

Added up, it's a departure for sure, but it's a swerve that's easy to follow.

Hymnal's serene beauty may make it his most sublime music yet.

Honky Tonk is country facing forward informed by the past.

Somehow managing to sound minimal and controlled even when claustrophobically arranged with ever-shifting sounds, Images du Futur improves on Suuns debut and goes even deeper into the dark sounds they've been developing and perfecting as they go.

Fortunately for fans of their punishing past, New Moon smoothes out the edges without getting rid of them completely, leaving just enough rough patches here and there to remind listeners that there's still plenty of muscle hiding just below their languid façade.

The album could have been pared down a bit, yet it's a drop in a bucket for Booth and Brown. Prior to this, their discography clocked in at 18 hours or so. What's another two hours?

In the same way as records like the Buzzcocks' Singles Going Steady, the Smiths' Hatful of Hollow, or even Weirdo Rippers by No Age, the incremental blasts of brilliance collected in one place as Early Fragments fit together perfectly, capturing a remarkably intriguing band at various peaks.

Welcome Oblivion is not an album that comes on forcefully, and by many measures, it's the most measured record of Reznor's career, yet it's also his most melodic, showing that this former angry young man has a design to grow old gracefully.

The album sometimes amazingly sounds as if the Zombies had reunited in 1980 for an album produced by the Buggles' Trevor Horn, resulting in a joyful, 50-minute orgasm of chamber pop jubilation.

The band hasn't strayed too far from what made it successful in its beginnings, but with Naomi, they've shifted their energy into producing the aural equivalent of a cloudless summer day.

Less expansive than 2010's So Runs the World Away, yet still rich enough in atmosphere to make for a relatively seamless transition, Ritter doesn't just sit at the end of his bed with a guitar and emote into a tape recorder.

Wondrous Bughouse is an undeniably impressive-sounding album that will please fans who loved The Year of Hibernation for its intricate sonics, but those who empathized with its emotions might feel a tad disconnected.

People, Hell and Angels certainly isn't the place to start your Hendrix collection, but collectors will surely want to hear this and it provides an interesting perspective on where Jimi's music was headed post-Experience.

Black Sun is an infectious, dance-oriented release that summons the new romantic spirit, if not the moussed hair and neon blush, of such '80s bands as Duran Duran, ABC, and Spandau Ballet.

The album is fun, huge, and pleasantly confused (as evidenced in part by the out-of-place Germs cover that closes the album) but ultimately just another chapter in Moore's lifelong exploration of sound, poetry, and the darkest corners of American subcultures he helped build, and continues to add to.

While this doesn't carry the weight of an "historic" recording, it is thoroughly enjoyable. Harris is in better voice than she's been in years and Crowell is a natural as a duet partner.

The Raven That Refused to Sing and Other Stories is the best of Wilson's three solo projects; let's hope this particular group stays together awhile.

No matter how you feel about Pixies worship or Star Wars references, if you have an affinity for loud, fast, but brainy, punky pop that is fun and full of hooky jams that'll have you bobbing your head like a maniac, The Late Great Whatever is just what you need to make you happy.

While somewhat brief with just seven songs, there's more than enough diversity on Deathfix to keep things interesting throughout.

Miracle Temple is gorgeous. Its songs contain poignancy, pathos, pain, and desire inside gritty yet artfully played Southern gothic rock & roll.

Thanks to the production, the overall strength of the songs, and the quietly intense energy the bandmembers put into their performances, Optica is a welcome return to form and solidifies Shout Out Louds' position as one of the best indie pop bands of their era.

As a producer and songwriter, Bilal has stepped up. As a vocalist, he remains supernaturally skilled and creative--swooping, diving, wailing, and sighing, all with complete command.

Peacock's organic, sometimes, limpid production makes damn sure that nothing gets in between them, allowing the listener to have a direct, often powerful experience with both.

The result is an album of exploratory jazz that is often more about group interplay on various musical themes rather than straightforward improvisation on melodic compositions--though there is that, too.

Darker and more mature than any of the band's previous music, Antipodes sacrifices some of the quirky charm of Popstrangers' earliest work and Happy Accidents' firepower for a strong debut album.

When It Was Now is a solid debut that proves Trojans wasn't a fluke.

Moving toward more mainstream sounds makes this album some of Autre Ne Veut's most distinct and confident music yet.

Highly personal, heavily detailed, and brimming with wounded optimism.

As it is, with the improvements, revamps, and overall more interesting arrangements, Somewhere Else manages to be the equal of Disco Romance, and the only reason it isn't better is that it lacks the surprise factor that made Sally Shapiro's debut so breathtaking.

To say this album is a return to form wouldn't be quite correct. It's an extension of it.

One quick listen to The Messenger brings all his signatures rushing back--the intricate, intertwining arrangements, the insistent riffs finding a counterpoint in the elastic yet precise melodies, a romance with the past that doesn't negate the present.

In other words, this is another Thom Yorke solo album, and it sounds really nice on decent headphones.

Though Donkey Punch the Night isn't the best place to jump into Puscifer's work, it's a well-crafted and thoroughly entertaining EP that will definitely keep Keenan's fans hungry for more.

Welcome to 21st century Appalachian string band music. It hasn't changed that much. It doesn't have to, because it still works fine.

Taylor's chameleon-like always-hiding-in-plain-sight aesthetic gives us a poignant, compelling recording that warrants repeated listening.

He's made an album that sounds so good and authentically psych-like, and one that wraps the listener up in a warm embrace of misty melodies and cobwebbed arrangements.

It has all the fire and fury of the debut, the same live-wire dual-guitar attack, and a similarly top-notch batch of songs that deliver plenty of rock-hard punch and are loaded with a nicely strutting power that has as much swing as it does thud, but also a few that show just the smallest bit of restraint and Spoon-like attention to sonic detail.

When it works, it runs like a stallion, but for fans whose allegiances lie with Carter and Carroll's previous incarnations, the engaging but jarring Anthems will probably prove awfully hard to digest.

House of Woo is more of the same, providing soundtracks for chillout rooms where the minds are satisfied and no one can even remember the definition of the word "dour."

Overall, Ores & Minerals is a showcase of the band's strengths that finds an original band settling in and taking their ideas to the next level of clever.

Thirst is stylistically ambitious and often quite successful for a debut album, but while the rest of the ingredients are there, Carter Sharp needs to get his vocals whipped into shape before Waves of Fury can be as nasty as they want to be.

The band's debut for the Innovative Leisure label, forces noisy indie rock, stoner metal, trippy psychedelic pop, and freak folk to sit at the same lunch table, resulting in a spirited yet oh so slightly hesitant food fight that goes just far enough to earn a couple of detentions.

Flowers' best moments are often the loudest, and they sound all the fresher because they're just as inviting as Sin Fang's more intimate music.

Those looking for something more consistent should first check out the exceptional Serial Hodgepodge, but fans of the poppier side of Lusine will find this to be a nice counterpart to A Certain Distance.

The demonic rage of this innovative band approaching 20 years in existence is in top form on these 11 unrelenting songs.

Ultimately, even layers of fuzzy noise and fully saturated weirdness can't obscure the band's hooks or their unique pop perspective.

The washy blend of acoustic dirges, blown-out guitar tones, and lonely psychedelic character sketches solidify into an increasingly accessible sound from this once ungrounded act, without losing any of the group's character or inspiration.

Total Folklore is not for everybody, and the act of playing junkyard synths through scorching feedback is gimmicky by design, but he's successfully found his own niche in noise, and his creativity and determination to reinvent music is worthy of high praise.

Flume's debut certainly fits into a post-2000s club vibe and DJ culture that borrows liberally, and often with inspired aplomb, from cut-and-paste hip-hop, avant-garde electronic composition, ambient pop, and contemporary R&B.

Drawn-in listeners are sure to be rewarded with increased payoffs after multiple listens, but even they may long for the simpler days of "Radar Detector."

We Will Not Harm You does just what it does on the tin, and so much more.

A predilection for brevity and simple pop craftsmanship ultimately tempers their more obstinate tendencies, resulting in a smart, well-executed set of staccato dance-rock anthems that flirt with excess, yet never overstay their welcome.

Not surprisingly, it's the less propulsive numbers that truly resonate on What the Brothers Sang, as Oldham and McCarthy sound less emotionally constricted at a more measured pace, and when they allow their muses to meet, as they do on highlights like "Breakdown," "What Am I Loving For," and the beautiful closer "Kentucky," the results are transcendent.

As a fully realized collaboration, this record sees STRFKR dimming the lights just a little bit and coming into their own more than ever before.

Ford is a rare talent and, for now at least, she's got the right band and seems headed in the right direction, not that Untamed Beast is a transitional album. It's a full-tilt arrival.

All in all, Clash the Truth is exactly the record Beach Fossils should have made at this point, reinforcing all the things that made them good while adding some excellent new wrinkles and boosting the production values.

It delivers some of the most abstract, and most visceral, music in their career.

Much of No World is so slight, tentative, and ill-defined that it easily slips into pleasant background listening for intimate encounters and soul searching.

Granted, Lidell has more of a retro touch than any pop group would dare consider, but these songs are just an AmIdol appearance away from the commercial mainstream.

Iceage have developed a record reaching out in many directions without straining to make any points.

The sonic sea change is deliberate, but given what a vastly musical band the Bad Seeds have always been, this more economical approach is jarring and delightfully unsettling.

While this album's predecessor evidenced his accomplishment in the instrument's creation and operation, The Orchestrion Project reveals that Metheny's possibilities with it have only been tapped.

n. Out of View is an impressive debut but, more than that, it's the sound of shoegaze and early-'90s guitar pop at its best.

Ultimately, Biffy Clyro's gift as a band is to craft songs that balance immediately catchy hooks with complex arrangements that only help to reinforce the drama of the pop moment. Thankfully, there are plenty of these dichotomous yet rapturous moments on Opposites.

Atmospherics and meticulous recording are as important as ever, and while you can take a copy to the stereo shop to make sure that amp sounds rich and warm enough, the album is slightly more song-based than previous efforts, so finicky fans might gripe when the lyrics go quite Depeche Mode or James Blake.

As with the first album things follow a basic title format of band name and number, giving the sense of installations in a larger process. Sometimes that results in things that steer away from re-creation to new inspiration.

This is one to keep handy when graceful and cool are what's required, since Pillowfight are happy when it rains, and happiest when it mists at twilight.

Everyone in the band is a seasoned Nashville vet, so while they never sound like they're trying to consciously stretch the limits of bluegrass, they do so just by being themselves.

Untogether's aloof beauty comes as something of a surprise given how free-flowing and whimsical Blooming Summer was, but while this change takes some getting used to, it's an impressive debut from a group that has taken the time--and space--to refine and develop its sound.

While any new album from Shorter is an event at this juncture, Without a Net is special even among the recordings made by this outstanding group.

The casual listener might think it drifts too much, but fans who wrap it up in the Slaughterhouse universe will find it's a somewhat jumbled effort with plenty of literate, thoughtful writing to explore.

Oh, Mayhem! won't make anyone forget Palomine, but it is an amazingly strong album that shows they have plenty of life left in them. And truth be told, this isn’t really that far off from Palomine.

More comforting than revelatory, M B V reaffirms that My Bloody Valentine are one of a kind; the subtlety to their melodies, instrumentation, and the way they blur together belongs to them alone.

Ultimately, Anna is something of a return to form after Falcon, but still lacks the spark of the Courteeners' early days.

While it makes for pleasant music to have on while you are sleeping away the afternoon in a cubicle or fighting insomnia late at night, the album is something of a letdown for anyone who, not unreasonably, came to it expecting something a little more interesting from Schnauss.

A heady and quirky mix of Regina Spektor, Leslie Feist, and Joni Mitchell, the second album from Nataly Dawn, the female half of heady and quirky indie pop duo Pomplamoose, is held together by the French- and Belgium-raised, Stanford-educated, American singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist's gift for gab, unique phrasing, and sophisticated musicality.

On Holy Fire, the third album from the English band, the post-punk revival is given a newfound sense of depth, creating songs that are rhythmic enough to draw listeners, but hypnotic enough to leave listeners lost in their wide-open spaces.

Though Bullet for My Valentine still have just enough post-hardcore and screamo in their sound to keep metal purists from coming completely around to their way of thinking, Temper Temper feels like a gateway album into thrash.

Though the sonic palette may be tweaked a little, the band's sense of disdain and frustration toward the little things is still gloriously intact.

Adding the pluses and minuses, it's clear that Waiting for Something to Happen isn't a failure by any stretch, but it is something of a disappointment.

Germano's gift for conjuring otherworldly melodies is as strong as ever. That said, she's still, and will always be, a niche artist.

No Beginning No End is James' most holistic and expansive recording.

Stripped down but nonetheless gorgeous for it, the album is an inviting combination of heavy themes and unassuming delivery, and easily some of Hayden's most colorful and intriguing songwriting.

The songwriting is the driving force behind the album, and any reservations about whether or not Frightened Rabbit would transform into radio-friendly M.O.R. are swept away.

As an entryway into the burgeoning psych scene that's been developing in Chile, you couldn't ask for a more accessible album than Noctuary, and niggling issues aside, the Holydrug Couple's breezy, slow-motion beach party jams are something that psych fans will definitely want to explore for themselves.

Fourth Corner establishes Whitley as a sophisticated, mature songwriter and a passionate vocalist only beginning to realize her powers.

Lives is a collection of hopeful, almost wonderstruck looks at the human condition, delivered with enough tasteful and catchy hooks to make it one of the best albums in an already lengthy career from this seasoned indie troubadour.

Live in Europe, 1969 makes obvious that on this tour, Davis' creative vision was holistic and completely assured.

Yellen employs a set of pipes that are as deft as a swallow's, allowing the arrangements the space they need to set the tone, and then swooping in to seal the deal.

While all of Groban's albums are immaculately produced affairs, All That Echoes is one of his best.

In somebody else's hands, the introspection of Lovesick Blues could turn solipsistic or sodden, but he strikes precisely the right notes, creating an album that serves as a suitable soundtrack for long, lonely nights.

Highlights include the folky "Sneak Out the Back Door," the jaunty, joyous-sounding, and lovely "Blind Eye" (which sounds just a little bit like vintage Donovan without the hippy-dippy lyrics), and the oddly hopeful (for Sexsmith, anyway) "Life After a Broken Heart," although the whole album feels like a uniform meditation on aging, mortality, and the affirming wish to go forward in spite of what's been.

At times, Conduit feels like a step backward for Funeral for a Friend, but that's because, well, it is. Fortunately, the album is solid enough to prove that every so often a little de-evolution is just what a band needs, and that it's entirely possible to head into the future while looking toward the past.