Throughout its just-over-30-minute runtime--very punk--Graffin and company take on everything from gospel, Americana, and bluegrass to Crazy Horse-esque pre-grunge and breezy Laurel Canyon country-pop, and that they do so with such gusto makes Millport feel like less of an outlier, and more like guys making the best of a power outage.

Recalling contemporary debuts by names like Anna Burch and Madison Cunningham in terms of its polished sophistication, consistency, and fault-finding lyrics, Trophy introduces a songwriter fully formed.

Those days are far enough in the past to make this entire MTV Unplugged an exercise in nostalgia, a sentiment underscored by the rose-colored solo song "Once," but Liam is still in fine form, making this record an endearing and entertaining listen for anybody who shares fond memories of the glory days of Cool Britannia.

This is a return to the epic 12-minute suites of releases like Truant and Rival Dealer, flashing back to some of the same samples and themes. Second side "Boy Sent from Above" is the more soul-searching of the two, with lonely vocals calling out from the fog of vinyl crackle and spray can shaking.

While there's a sense that Moroney is well aware of her pop star status, on Cloud 9 her music soars, but her heart and her charm are as grounded and relatable as ever.

Wolf's Law, the second studio album from The Joy Formidable, finds the Welsh trio building upon its already gargantuan sound with remarkable aplomb.

James do have more quirks in their sound and plenty of quirks in Booth, who is always willing to act like a fool if it is in service of the greater good. These are the things that make Hey Ma a welcome comeback even for those listeners who may never have been big James fans.

Not everything works on Imps of Perversion, but it's still a strong second album that broadens Pop. 1280's horizons without sacrificing their pummeling impact.

Another evolution in the way Preoccupations bring poetic soulfulness to post-punk, New Material lives up to its name--it's not just another batch of songs, it's a fresh approach that feels like a breakthrough.

Rather than showing the humble beginnings of an experimental band, this album highlights the fact that, even from the very beginning, they were the enigmatic and impossibly heavy group that they are today.

Black Bubblegum isn't the type of sprawling, messy platter of rhythmic noise that one might expect from Copeland, but it's still wacky in its own way.

The material occasionally slides backward, from subtle and reserved to nearly featureless, but it's as clever and almost as charming as Sensational.

The name Psychedelic Horseshit is more accurate than ever, as they truly sound psychedelic for the first time, surrounded by wild soundbursts and shiny musical squiggles that would probably be called "horseshit" by most mainstream rock fans...In a way, it's perfect. A perfect mess.

This is indie rock where the big hooks and bold arrangements never get in the way of the complex emotions at the heart of these nine songs, and that's why five years isn't too long to wait for music this special.

Its freshness proves that ten years after their 2004 breakthrough, the band is as lively as ever and, in some sly subtle ways, better than ever too.

This debut EP is a deeper, meatier experience than expected, going as far as to be a conceptual release focused on relationships.

Everybody Looking is one of the best examples of Gucci Mane's contributions to rap in his highly prolific catalog.

Clocking in at just under 35 minutes, Sorcerer's willfully lo-fi, exploratory jam session architecture is pretty digestible, which makes the occasional sonic detour much more rewarding.

Born in the Echoes is an excellent mash of familiar and vanguard, the very same formula that lifts all the duo's best albums above expectations.

Even if it isn't as dynamic as its predecessor, at the very least Ullages reflects that Eagulls can do more than rant.

There's No Leaving Now succeeds best when he breaks out of that mode of one enjoyable enough ingredient constantly reused, or at least tempers it more thoroughly than at other times.

Everything on In Case We Die, from the intensely sweet melodies and vocals to the widescreen production, delivers the kind of playful pop majesty that Fingers Crossed's best moments hinted were within Architecture in Helsinki's grasp.

It's proof that while many try to emulate him, there's no substitute for the crankiest, funniest songwriter in pop.

Heydays is a surprisingly mature, accomplished second effort from a group who previously might have been perceived as a joky side project.

With the canny assistance of Henry's sensitive production, the songwriter's vulnerability rises into open view and elevates his craft along with it. In Carll's world--and hopefully ours--love wins no matter what.

Subtract the handful of tracks that fall into this category [come off like bad imitations of Drake or the Weeknd] and what's left is a fun, very well-crafted EP of uplifting dance music, the best Bear has made yet. Add them back and the record ends up a very mixed, somewhat disappointing bag that takes Toro y Moi to some exciting new places, but also treads familiar ground.

Mellow, multi-purpose country-pop designed to soundtrack good times at home, on the road, at the office, or at a bar.

There's a warmth to Up and Away that does suggest analog, with help from plenty of dreamy reverb and additional acoustic textures like Arabic stringed instrument the kanun, which serves to amplify the album's cosmopolitan flair.

Thankfully, there's a pleasing flow and emotional arc to the collection that draws you deeper in the further you go, in much the same way that Smashing Pumpkins' most beloved albums were such all-encompassing experiences.

It may come to define or utterly transcend metal; but it doesn't matter because this album is in its own class. Anyone remotely interested in heavy music needs to encounter Aesthethica at least once.

Highway Songs encapsulates Pajo's life experiences into a poignant travelog, and considering all that he's been through, it's a life-affirming work.

It's more of a proper album than Loose Fur itself was, but having fun making music together still sounds like the main priority on Born Again, which, once again, also makes it a lot of fun for Wilco and O'Rourke fans.

The songs are carried with energy and control, and even while the influences can be glaring, Gentle Grip is so well constructed -- and so fun -- that it stands on its own.

At times Give Me the Future feels a bit heavy-handed. Fortunately, the album's brisk pace saves it from feeling overblown. This is music for and of its moment, with a mix of ambition and pop concision that's unmistakably Bastille.

There's plenty good here, that's undeniable, but the album lacks the spark to push it forward and place it at the top.

Even as the guys stretch and flex their songwriting muscles, they never fail to remember where they came from, instead using their past work as the foundation to their essential growth.

This blend of cheerful weirdness and sick beats--often supplied by the Neptunes, delivering tough, sensual rhythms in a way they haven’t in a long time, but also John Hill and Wyclef Jean--is giddily addicting, a celebration of all the strange sensuality that comes out at night.

It's the work of an artist at the absolute top of her game, and as a result, Herein Wild ranks as one of the best, most inspired and inspiring, albums of 2013.

It's some of Firewater's angriest, most poignant, and most accomplished music.

There's a strong, varied energy that's showcased as a result, with youthful ideas and a sense of trying something different slamming up against a political and cultural atmosphere that was barely welcoming of it.

Hitch doesn't really deviate, at least sonically, from the template. Where it does separate itself from the two prior outings is in its lyrical themes.

The Deftones went soft, but in an impressive way, to twist around its signature punk thrash sound.

Ready for Confetti is, without question, Keen's most inspired and focused project in nearly 20 years.

TOPS have pretty much mastered their distinctive niche over the course of four albums, and in that respect, I Feel Alive should provide a familiar comfort, if an off-kilter one, for established fans. Initiated and new listeners alike, however, will be treated to a batch of well-crafted, sensual songs for the down-time hours.

Parton has never sounded fresher or more spirited, and with "Somebody's Missing You" in particular, she shows she still knows how to write a timeless song.

Inspiration flows out of the man throughout the album, and this end-to-end concept is executed with little note-spinning or boring lyrics that just serve the story, and while Twelve Reasons took a big giallo risk and nailed it, this more expected, '70s-favored success still surprises with its vigorous sense of purpose.

Get Gone is a very special dose of rock and soul, and one of the most purely enjoyable debuts of 2016.

Coleman absorbs and converts all the energy into something else: a joyous act of opposition to unacknowledged tyranny.

Colvin & Earle plays more like a detour for these two artists rather than the beginning of a long-standing collaboration, but the enthusiasm here is honest and the result is a good week's work that leaves room for a sequel.

Love Is Love is a thought-provoking, intensely felt album, full of all the warmth, frustration, and alternating bouts of despair and hope that half (or more) of the United States felt at the time the record was recorded.

Kidsticks isn't the sound of Orton closing her circle but opening it wide. In her restlessness and self-discovery, she looks outward and comes away fresh and renewed as a result.

Short-sighted as the party-hearty concept may be, the unbridled enthusiasm makes the album a helluva lot of fun even for those who have trouble relating to wasted youth.

The bottom line here is that for all of their tweaks and changes, The Sword are still a band all about massive riffs and epic lyrics, and while other bands might be more structurally complex or aggressive, few can offer the instant cosmic journey that dropping the needle on Apocryphon can.

A beautiful and often brave-sounding album, Joyland shows how much can be gained by letting go.

With Iteration, Haley has retained all of the qualities that made Com Truise so appealing while blowing everything up into a higher resolution than before. If this is truly the end of the Com Truise saga, then it's the project's definitive release.

The singing may be subdued and the playing quiet, but everything here packs an emotional wallop.

While Coco and Hannibal are doing it a little less softly now, they're still killing 'em.

The album seemingly becomes more spaced out towards the end, but the concluding "Slow Movement: Sand" feels like a solemn resolution and is one of its more affecting tracks.

American Utopia is an album of beautiful and witty surfaces stretched over a sea of troubled waters, and if Byrne is rarely inclined to give direct answers to the questions he asks, it's obvious this isn't a joke, it's an ambitious work from an important American artist.

Rancid's been doing this a long time and while they'll never recapture the exact same power and glory they exuded in the '90s', on Let the Dominos Fall they show they've got more than enough of each to get by in grand style.

Perhaps the performances aren't enough to warrant a reassessment or revival, but they're consistently strong and a testament to Pearl Jam's endurance.

Doves' best yet.

It's a melting pot to be sure, and the band has a tendency to go heavy on the atmosphere and light on the hooks, but there's never any doubt that it's a brew tended over by some awfully talented cooks.

God Willin' & the Creek Don't Rise is a mixed bag. There's fine stuff here to be sure, but as a whole, it feels unbalanced; too much of one sound makes it drag a bit. Given that this is his debut as a producer, it's not unexpected; but after his previous trio of fine recordings, this one feels anticlimactic.

The only drawback for fans is this Golden Smog doesn't bear much aural resemblance to the band that made Down by the Old Mainstream and Weird Tales; then again, the bands who make up Golden Smog's membership don't sound much like they did back then, either, so that shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

There's an innocence that's like slow dancing at twilight that sets Night On My Side apart from all the rest.

It's honest and raw in the sense that McCulloch is cool with where he's from and unconcerned with where he's headed.

Bristles with the independent spirit that put both punk and hip-hop on the map.

The total effect is less a spin through 3 Feet High and Rising than it is an hour of Yogi Bear cartoons -- fine when you hear any one track, but much too much over the course of a full album.

One of the best New Order albums they never made.

Wanna Buy a Monkey? shows off Nakamura's ear for a great track as well as his deft turntablist skills.

The band's sound is both fresh and nostalgic, and so pretty that it seems overly harsh to criticize them too much at this point. It's just that Ratatat is good enough to suggest that, with a little more diversity, the group could do even better things.

Even for fans not needing much convincing, Get Ready is a "grower," an album whose focus on sublime songcraft and introverted delivery reveals its secrets slowly and after many listens.

It's some of the band's fullest-sounding work, rich with strings and keyboard flourishes... The Rising Tide is one of Sunny Day Real Estate's -- and 2000's -- most impressive albums.

So, it's essentially a harder-rocking version of the last album. But you know what? It doesn't matter because the band is at a peak.

Fast Future Present is a self-assured and often fascinating collection of songs that artfully blend the standard elements of post-rock with unexpectedly melodic pop.

It's breathtaking and essential listening for all fans of electronic music.

A cohesive blend of intelligent '60s rock and power pop that sounds like an extension of New Pornographer A.C. Newman's Slow Wonder as played by Cheap Trick.

Gone are the big washes of sound that Don Was added to her Grammy-winning recordings, and the sound Raitt has chosen for herself is a bit edgier, far more adventurous than Silver Lining.

It's a collection of simple but warped electronic pop music, where Kid606 spins a tight hook into five or six minutes of chugging or swinging bliss. No more, no less.

With Descended Like Vultures, Rogue Wave have become just another indie rock band, one that has delivered a strong album without a weak song on it, but a real band just the same.

Even with the amount of expectation-lowering context heavy on the mind, Free at Last sounds like a very strong follow-up.

As always, that easy touch is Travis' greatest strength, as it gives the best songs authenticity and makes the weaker songs palatable--and as Around the Bend is a fairly strong set of songs, it's easy to enjoy Travis' gentle authority.

The McGregors are ultimately at their best when their dynamic isn't overpowered by too many musical ideas.

As you might expect from a Seeger album, the songs on At 89 take on some of the problems faced by America in 2008, and while the music is sometimes touched by melancholy, Seeger's faith in his fellow humans shines through clearly.

At least a third of the album's contents would have to be part of any representative introduction to Hamilton. In fact, this puts a cap on a three-album run as remarkable as any other in 2000s R&B.

Where 2006's "As Daylight Dies" hinted at an accelerated focus on the more melodic aspects of extreme metal, Killswitch Engage cements the notion.

Even if it's a little less lively, it's still pretty typical Clutch: always heavy, always solid, and ideal background music for driving a semi-truck through a swamp.

Somewhere Gone is a different animal from Cervenka's acoustic music of the late '80s and early '90s, at once simpler, riskier, and more confident, and it captures one of the great wild talents of her generation in strong and impressive form, still unafraid to take her talent in new directions after more than a quarter-century of blazing trails.

Impressively impressionistic, New Clouds is a rare mix of restful and engaging, and a significant step forward for Forkner.

By and large, European strikes a nice balance between genuine and theatrical, shambling and shiny.

Pictures is one of the rare albums that manages to hold tight to what is good about a band (in this case, energy and hooky songs), and add on new things (wider instrumentation, better arrangements) without compromising their strengths.

The 16 songs sequentially chronicle an astronaut's journey from liftoff to landing, and Minowa seems as on top of his game as ever as he deals out uplifting lines like "All our anxieties are in a box I mailed to Pluto" over imaginative soundscapes.

On Post Electric Blues, they're a worldly pop/rock band, showing off their Scottish roots on the Celtic numbers and channeling the American heartland.

Valentine's lyrics are delivered with a rigorousness that seems like it's meant to assure the listener that the only thing the Electric Six take seriously is having fun. It feels good to know that someone out there is fighting for our right to party.

It's safe to say no one was expecting a mid-career renaissance from Cervenka when she signed to Bloodshot Records, but with Somewhere Gone and The Excitement of Maybe she's made two of the strongest and most impressive albums she's recorded outside of her work with X, confirming her status as a one of a kind talent with plenty of welcome surprises up her sleeve.

In 2011, the band is still going strong... Several tunes here sound like they could end up on Fairport's next greatest-hits compilation.

Throughout his career, Mr. Mathers has given props to his Detroit hip-hop clan and spoken of his interactions, but his discography has been somewhat light on examples. Past the Mars cut, Hell: The Sequel helps right that wrong, providing the welcome sound of Shady meets the streets.