This is collaboration in its purest and and most elegant form.

Breakup Song is fresh and addictive enough to make listeners fall in love all over again.

I Know What Love Isn't is Lekman at his finest, transmitting real emotion and humor in songs that are impossible to stop humming for days.

There's a higher percent of anxiety and queasiness mixed in amid the moments of pop bliss, and though fans of the glassy perfection of MPP may be initially disappointed, Centipede Hz sounds like another logical step in the band's evolution.

Sun lives up to its name, but its album cover is more revealing: like the rainbow crossing Marshall's face, these songs are the meeting point between a stormy past and optimism for the future.

Matchbox 20 has never made a record as cheerful or appealing or satisfying as this.

What is easy to figure out is that they are still operating at top capacity and anyone looking for smart, emotional pop that sounds almost perfect can turn to Stars for all their needs.

This is a king rightfully reclaiming his dominion.

Antibalas is a welcome return; its slight shift in direction and production nuances reveal just how sophisticated this ensemble is, expanding the Afro-beat sound in the 21st century without sacrificing its heart.

Mature Themes just reveals more levels with more listening.

Into the Diamond Sun shows the trio has its own ear for how to combine and recombine those elements [moody psychedelic jamming, entrancing female vocals and slow-burn tunefulness], not least thanks to a balance of sprightly clarity and sudden shifting in the arrangements that feels more like a hip-hop mix transposed onto past approaches than just a jam.

It's this kind of mellow eclecticism that has helped Greenwood to develop such a devoted following, and it's his music's sticky, molasses-like sweetness that keeps those fans coming back for more and more.

While Yellowcard's songs still retain the youthful, emo-rock enthusiasm and catchy melodicism that marked the best of their earlier work, there is a weightiness and expansive gaze to many of the songs on Southern Air.

There is a purity to their sound and vision that gives the album its power.

Nothing Bad Will Ever Happen has flashes of brilliance and moments where they're still figuring out what to do, but overall, it shows them growing into something new as gracefully as they can.

This is much more of an abstract, "experimental" affair than a pop one, as friendly and approachable as it is--only a fraction of the selections could properly be described as songs, and even those tend to spiral off down unexpected textural avenues.

Matthew E. White's Hometapes' debut, Big Inner, is as frustrating as it is cosmically transcendent.

2 Chainz over-promises and almost delivers on his official debut, putting him right in the punch-line rapper's sweet spot.

Nude Beach aren't starting a revolution with II, but its well-crafted songs and raw-edged execution are just too damn joy-inspiring to deny.

It's a return to form and just what fans of Cliff's early work could ask for, but it's vital too, putting it on the man's top shelf, somewhere in the vicinity of The Harder They Come soundtrack and Wonderful World, Beautiful People.

For the most part, The Soul Sessions, Vol. 2 does feel right: it has the form and sound of classic soul while never acknowledging that R&B continued to develop past, say, 1972. For an audience that agrees with that thesis, this is fun.

For those willing to rise to the challenge, Fragrant World has a wealth of obscured moments of bizarre genius.

This collection ultimately serves as a chronology of an incredibly important band as it phases through the good, bad, and ugly of an unprecedented run of magical songs in every era.

While it sounds less like a single-minded effort from Chasney than it does a high-spirited collective freakout from a reconfigured Comets on Fire, Chasney is still at the core of all the songs, transmitting his freaky visions in the guise of one face-melting power jam after another.

The mood is thick and cloaking, and the album represents a continuing development toward the best and most captivating material of Caminiti's expansive body of work.

This is the worthy sequel to the group's Madlib collaboration In Search of Stoney Jackson, and that's meant as high praise.

Fans will find that Key to the Kuffs goes from confusing letdown to intriguing mystery after just a couple listens.

"Playin' Hard" and "Fumble," introspective and self-critical, are two of the album's most resonant songs and provide more depth, even though the sentiments are probably fleeting.

Hot Cakes is definitely worthy of throwing more than a few devil horns the band's way.

Anastasis will more than likely please longtime fans--and to be fair that is who it seems geared to--rather than win many new ones.

Think of this as a run-of-the-mill Khaled album and that mill is still doing pretty awesome.

Crotch-grabbing tracks might crash into a convincing emo-rap number and these proven wordsmiths might have left more room for guests and hooks than they probably should have, but just because their indie debut was a more cohesive showcase doesn't mean the joy and pain of Welcome to Our House isn't worth the required sorting.

Ten tight tracks, and that includes the epic "Intro," puts this on the man's top-shelf, where it sits next to The Reason as the album's flashy little brother.

Four may not be as cohesive as Silent Alarm, but it just might be more vital.

At the very least, In Limbo shows that the band can do a lot of things well, and while this set of songs isn't exactly scattered, TEEN's ambitions lead them to be less cohesive than they might have been had they picked one direction and stuck with it.

The Seer is unquestionably a work of ecstatic beauty; it encompasses everything because it is everything.

The approach is dubwise, but the result is unique -- it simultaneously pushes familiar musical buttons and sounds like nothing else that has come before.

The result is an album not only more interesting, but far more enjoyable.

Fortunately for Flobots, the messages in The Circle in the Square feel pretty universal. While the matter of whether or not hip-hop backed by a live band is your taste is purely a subjective one.

Though Infinity Overhead isn't exactly a return to form for Minus the Bear, it does find them moving back toward what they do best, and is a step in a promising direction for fans hoping for the band to return to the more vigorous sound of Menos el Oso.

While A Thing Called Divine Fits might be a shade less eclectic than Boeckner, Brown, and Daniel's other projects, it's hard to find fault when the results are this consistently catchy.

H.N.I.C. 3 is a back-to-basics return to form with some worthy pop cuts, and it just takes a slight trim and a push of the shuffle button to become worthy of any long-term fan's attention.

Since he's not a world-class performer, most classical fans won't find music of interest here, but Solo Piano II is an engaging record with a personality all its own.

Dear's vocals are at their most expressive, imposing, and sinister.

America's artful merging of the electronic and the acoustic shows that these tools we dedicate so much time and brain space to can also be used to create something free and emotionally invigorating.

You've got to credit Brown and his songwriters and producers for cranking out another handful of easy to remember hits that cover the bases, from upbeat and carefree numbers to go-to mixtape ballads that push all the right target-demographic buttons.

Havoc and Bright Lights is as soothing as a Sunday afternoon nap or a warm bath: it's music for when you know you're right where you want to be.

En Yay Sah is easily the most auspicious--and original--debut album of 2012.

Language is short on originality, but Zulu Winter's polished musicianship and warm confidence may be enough to win over listeners who enjoy the bands they reference here, and when they do succeed in shaking things up it's enough to leave listeners wanting more.

The House That Jack Built may be aimed at a new audience, or it might simply be the record that Hoop had to make. Either way, it's welcome for the risks it takes and delivers on.

This open-minded vision was already quite evident on prior Ihsahn solo albums, of course, but on Eremita it arguably flowers more confidently than ever before.

An utterly exhausting but consistently thrilling listen, L'Enfant Sauvage is arguably a career best which suggests Gojira have found their spiritual home.

One Day I'm Going to Soar hardly justifies the almost-three-decade wait, but it's as marvelously idiosyncratic as any longtime fan could hope to expect.

Alt-J's wave is far more awesome when it's at its most schizophrenic.

For now, Dark Roots of Earth improves upon 2008's comeback The Formation of Damnation and, in tandem with those rejuvenated live performances, promises a well-deserved second act for a band that so narrowly missed grasping the golden ring their first time around.

This is an album that hints at plenty of promise for the future, but most of it has yet to be realized.

Swallow this album whole, letting the peaks and valleys of its cinematic reach melt into one another as it moves forward toward its soft sprung conclusion.

Ultimately, in I Was a Cat from a Book, Yorkston has delivered a measured, wise, and life-affirming record, which has the power to inspire.

Solid, purposeful, and crafted in a manner that betrays both Drew's age and the album's hurried road to release, Ill Manors makes heavy-hitter number three for the rapper, suggesting that Plan B doesn't issue albums, just milestones.

It builds nicely upon The Heavy's previous work and should please fans of the band's quirky take on rootsy soul-influenced music.

With just a few exceptions, The Midsummer Station's would-be mainstream anthems of youth, love, and longing come off generic, hollow, and barely enjoyable.

A surprisingly compact album, Tracer covers a lot of musical ground in under 40 minutes, and on the whole it feels like a love letter to electronica's formative days (or like an album they might have sampled from in the past).

It is the most organic record he's issued in almost two decades; and, more importantly, it restores topical protest music to a bona fide place in American cultural life.

When they're on a roll, Guantanamo Baywatch deliver some ripping surf tunes, and they clearly know how to deliver a good time with a beat you can dance to, but Chest Crawl is never quite as exciting as it wants to be, and the flat, confined sound of the audio doesn't help one bit.

The bulk of Made in Germany is undoubtedly still an acquired taste, but as an overview of the country's biggest rock export, it's a fairly representative collection and showcases them at their best.

His sound was a forward-thinking and richly engaging blend of African roots music, the makossa (urban popular music) of his native Cameroon, and the then-emerging electronic music movement.

Suffice to say that In the Lair of the Sun God delivers from start to finish, and can't even be marred by Dawnbringer main man Chris Black's strained singing, which falls somewhere between Lemmy, Slough Feg's Mike Scalzi, and frequent collaborator Blake Judd of Nachtmystium, but fits right in with his band's lo-fi aesthetic.

What's charming about this album, beyond the sheer quality of the songs and the arrangements, is Pizzarelli's obvious and genuine love for this really broad gamut of material, and his insight into the varied qualities that make them all great songs.

Foxygen has made something that reaches out for so many possibilities it ends up reverting inward, ultimately sounding insular, like a highway of endlessly firing synapses in someone elses' brain.

Billy Joe Shaver is one of a kind, and this set proves it; it makes an excellent introduction for anyone not familiar with his singular talent.

This does have the familiar tunes, so it serves its purpose.

An unusually satisfying tribute album.

He's equally adept at almost any kind of music.

One of his most accomplished efforts since his Chess/Impulse! heyday.

There aren't really any new rules on this album, just old-school honky tonk dressed up in shiny new boots.

Rather than offer anything new, they instead focus on re-introducing the band as a creative unit whose capacity for musical excellence is undiminished.

A truly engaging listen, Tree Bursts in Snow should see the band build on their unexpected transatlantic exposure.

White Lung make their case as one of the best bands of their kind anywhere with Sorry, picking up where they left off two years ago almost seamlessly while innovating just enough to ready them for a larger stage.

Some of the songs are restrained and bare to the point of being plain and easy to disregard, but they succeed in accentuating La Havas' thoughtful and often sharp words.

Instinct is a vivid and varied debut, and ultimately a more rewarding listen than if Niki and the Dove had just explored one facet of their sound.

Not only is it their best-sounding album yet, totally alive and raw, but it contains some of the hookiest songs and most thrilling performances of their almost-35-year career in rock & roll.

This "less is more" approach shows off the wealth of songwriting these two have cultivated in their other projects, and makes Criminal Heaven a beautifully blissful debut that is warm, comforting, and typically Swedish in the best way possible.

The Riverboat Gamblers have shown they can evolve without losing the plot, and if The Wolf You Feed isn't their best album, it's smart, ambitious, and rocks with authority, sounding fresh and exciting in ways you might not have expected.

It lives up to the title and provides an enjoyable contrast to the darker moods earlier in the album.

"An Evening with Dusty" further reveals why Dunn's work is so consistently enjoyable.

This isn't really a Cinematic Orchestra album--it's a compilation of pieces ("songs" would not be the right word) by Grey Reverend, Dorian Concept, and Tom Chant, and Austin Peralta, plus three tracks by The Cinematic Orchestra.

This band hasn't sounded this enjoyable since the mid-'90s, and if it isn't a full-scale return to form, it shows they aren't a spent force.

While the band's sound here leans toward the more grungy end of hardcore, P.O.D. have always evinced a knack for hooky pop songwriting, and the best tracks here are the more melodic, pop-oriented ones.

Rather than a catharsis or even an explosive slab of entertainment, Slug Guts have coughed up a visceral collection of desperate howls, sometimes difficult to engage with, but equally difficult to ignore.

It's tender, gentle, and expresses what absence teaches in the music and poetic language of Gothic Americana -- without nostalgia or artifice.

On Christian aTunde ADJuah, Scott and company create a seamless, holistic 21st century jazz that confidently points toward new harmonic horizons.

There were plenty of other great British bands of the '90s but none of their peers--Oasis, Suede, Pulp, Radiohead--covered as much stylistic ground or wound up with a catalog as rich as this ridiculously generous box set handily proves.

The perfect blend of modern and classic, Loma Vista is an album with a unique vision that captures the spirit of modern alt-rock (with all the trimmings) yet is rooted in classic pop songwriting. It is an album that is honest, earnest, and entirely unpretentious.

Each song competently mimicking the characteristic death metal ingredients of the era, but adding nothing new to the recipe in the end.

It's surprisingly mellow and restrained.

So overthink it if you must, or accept Burning Love's emphatic kick in the head for what it is and let your ears do the rest.

Bear Creek feels both easy and immediate, which is usually what happens when talented artists finally figure out who they are, and that heartache, failure, defiance, and confidence can all go to the dance together.