Produced with exquisite balance, these ten self-penned songs reflect what Lynne's learned about the studio process in her 20 years as a recording artist.

Devin’s redundancy is the reason fans keep coming back. They won’t be disappointed by Suite #420, which features the usual set of chilled-out weed anthems, sex jokes, and old-school R&B beats, along with those great oddball numbers the Dude uses to break each album up.

Blue Sky Noise, with all of its spit-shine and modern rock luster, may not move mountains outside of its own pained and heavily marketed demographic, but as long as superhero movie franchises remain profitable, bands like Circa Survive will be there to play over the credits.

True Love Cast Out All Evil is more than just a comeback, it's the best and most deeply moving album of his solo career.

Broderick was once as integral to Horse Feathers’ sound as Ringle himself, but Thistled Spring doesn’t stumble in his absence, and the retooled lineup pairs well with Ringle’s warming disposition.

In the end, Kurupt turns in strong performances on much of Streetlights, delivering furious free association freak-outs and ultimately some of his nastiest verses in years.

It's hard to find fault with the album's intricate arrangements and top notch production, but the songs, which rarely change key, begin to congeal into one big independent film trailer montage as the record progresses.

From the opening moments of the sublime "It's Working" all the way to the titular closer, Congratulations is an incredible follow-up from a band that is still maturing into some unknown entity.

Pond still fills his lyrics with snark and deadpan cynicism, a move that gives complexity to his otherwise soothing music, but even that has gotten old by now, and The Dark Leaves rarely distinguishes itself from the music that came before it.

Careful listening reveals a newfound looseness and emotional range here.

As a band, C&C either inspire rabid adoration or complete dismissal; that won't change with Year of the Black Rainbow. That said, any fan of heavy progressive rock music may find this music to be of compelling interest, whether one buys into the conceptual nature of the Amory Wars or not.

The pieces here -- it's hard to call them songs or tracks -- are almost ambient, but there's too much noise and too many shifting sounds to keep you from spacing out for too long.

The biggest drawback, one that can make the listener tire of the album long before it ends, is her terminally flat, undisciplined voice. More often than not, her compelling song structures suffer because of it. Ultimately, Junior feels more like a band record and furthers the sounds explored on Dreaming of Revenge.

Leave Your Sleep is easily her most ambitious work, yet because of that welcoming voice, it provides familiarity enough to gather listeners inside this world of sound.

If the album has a flaw, it's the excessive length — 14 tracks in 45 minutes should have been shaved down to ten in 30. But overall, this is a solid effort from a band with a lot to offer fans of aggressive rock who aren't too worried about categories.

Beck has chosen to forgo his signature frenzied fretboard blitzkriegs and weave long, laconic phrases, his guitar rich, thick, and warm, sounding familiar yet different: he's never sustained this level of grace for a full record, and his soulful playing cuts through the clean sheen of the production, always commanding attention even when he's not demanding it.

Lean, deafening, and effective in its brutality, Bleeding Through may not have brought anything new to the table, but at least it brought everything else.

Fornever is one of those rare, late-career triumphs. There are no weak tracks and it’s entertaining throughout; every bit as much as Murs’ best early outings.

The timing could be much better, but the songs aren’t bad at all, with most of the material taking its cues from Jason Mraz, Ben Harper, and other folk-pop heavyweights.

It’s the first half of the album that is more substantive and memorable.

The Legacy Edition of Raw Power honors this great album better than the Iggy Pop remix that's been its only digital representation since 1997, but the extras included here fall short of making this the definitive release of the James Williamson-era Stooges' bloodied but unbowed triumph.

Animal Feelings is still more sweet than sweaty, and may not get indie diehards to shake what their mamas gave them. Nevertheless, it more than delivers on the promise of Rafter's earlier music and fits right in with YACHT, Dan Deacon, Bobby Birdman, and the other acts fusing electronic, pop, R&B, and indie pop elements into playful grooves.

Their charm wears thin with each passing track, and Stride's hit-making approach becomes increasingly plain in the process. In the end, it's something of a blessing that Everybody Wants to Be on TV is over and done with in a mere 34 minutes' time.

While it's hardly the stark, across-the-board tonal sea change suggested by several of its most immediately ear-catching cuts, And Then We Saw Land is at once an adventurous outward journey and an invitingly familiar return from an always intriguing, intrepid, and under-heralded band.

I Speak Because I Can delivers on nearly every level, upping both the production value (thanks to Ryan Adams and Kings of Leon producer Ethan Johns and fellow indie folk darlings Mumford & Sons) and the songwriting.

If Sigur Ros never releases another album, as long as Jonsi makes records this thrilling, it'll be OK.

And while the story hangs together quite well, the main impression you are left with is that Byrne and Slim have impeccable taste in female singers.

All this would be surface charm if the group didn’t deliver songs, and they do--songs that swagger and stir the soul, fitting within tradition without being beholden to it, songs that prove that Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings are the real deal.

Wolf’s touch here is easy and assured, so it feels familiar upon the first spin but better upon repeats, when the songs truly take hold and the conversational nature of the performances settle in, revealing the warmth and skill beneath the surface.

Robyn Hitchcock doesn't really make bad albums, but he doesn't always make legitimately great ones; Propellor Time thankfully feels like one of the high-watermarks of his post-millennial body of work, and it's beautiful, essential listening.

This is still a Dr. Dog album and it's bound to put a smile on your face. These guys have a real knack for making classic-sounding rock & roll and Shame, Shame is the sound of a fine band really hitting its stride.

Woman + Country is somewhat of a grower--it's so purposefully hazy it seems to pleasingly fade into the slipstream upon the first play, but those repeated spins reveal the deep craft at the heart of Woman + Country, deep craft from both the songwriter, his producer, and musicians.

Sometimes it's enough to write really catchy and fun songs and play them with a minimum of fuss. Harlem has done that on Hippies, and for that, they deserve all kinds of praise.

Yeah, it's that stoney and weird, but it's also really, really good. Potentially their most accomplished work.

It's a comfortable and familiar fit that poses only one significant problem: nobody bothered to write any songs; they're just playing for the sake of playing.

For the most part, the cutesiness is kept just controlled enough to make the songs intriguing.

Per usual, the music is skewed and exhausting (in the best way imaginable) and the rhythmic interplay between bassist Jacob Long and drummer Damon Palermo is fantastic.

The record isn’t a complete knockout, but it’s a nice consolidation of the Dum Dum Girls sound to date and a fine starting point in what could be a nice string of noise pop records.

Freight Train, Alan Jackson’s 16th album, has none of the momentum of a locomotive but all of the reassuring sturdiness of a hulking piece of steel: this is music built for distance, not speed.

The sleek dancefloor track “So Many Girls,” one of a few songs in which Usher sounds dead in the eyes, going through the motions, desensitized by the bounty of women at his feet, is followed by the sarcastically titled “Guilty,” where he whines “I guess I’m guilty for wanting to be up in the club” — which warrants a response like “Yes, attached 31-year-old man, that’s correct.” A few songs before that is a quasi-redemptive ballad “Foolin’ Around”; he humbles himself, seems to take responsibility for his actions, then casually drops “Guess that’s just the man in me, blame it on celebrity.”

Return of the Ankh is a relief in that Badu does not attempt to trump herself with a set that is even more intense and powerful than its predecessor.

While the experiment with a more edgy, rock-oriented sound worked well for the British duo, singer/songwriters Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian are obviously most at home with their comfortable brand of melodic folk-inflected pop, and that is the sound that makes up most of the tracks on Outbursts.

There are too many good moments, and Golightly is too talented a singer to dismiss this, but at the same time, this album just doesn't live up to her high standards, and she's done too much work far better than this for any fans to not feel a bit letdown by this release.

Down the Way may be a bit long by 2010’s standards--there are 13 tracks here, none of which is particularly short--but the songs are solid throughout.

This is not an indispensable part of the Wu legacy, but it's a consistent, duly rugged, and satisfying one nonetheless.

There are occasional missteps, of course, with Becky Stark’s spoken interlude in “Cradle”--a spot-on vintage ballad that dissolves into pure camp--being the worst offender. But the vocals rarely disappoint, and vocals are Love to Live’s bread and butter, anyway.

Even if this isn’t some of Francis’ most striking work, it continues the more personal vein of songwriting he began exploring after the Pixies.

Where Vol. 1 presented shorter versions of singles from their earliest incarnation and shaped them into a seamless full-length, this set is different in approach and sound, though no less worthy. It covers a wider sonic scope and brings us up to 2009 in their evolution.

Starting with demo versions of "For Ex-Lovers Only" and "Throw Aggi Off the Bridge" that are enjoyably scraggly if not as overwhelming as the final takes. The remaining four consist of new recordings by the original band, though they're not new songs; instead, they're selections from their irregular live sets that were never formally recorded and released at the time. The production style makes it sound like they were recorded at the same time as the rest of the disc, making it a seamless treat.

Produced by the band itself, these songs help bridge the gap between Annuals’ two full-length albums, taking their wild eclecticism from "Be He Me" but keeping the melodies that anchored "Such Fun."

A comparable but slightly superior outing to E-40’s nightlife-oriented Revenue Retrievin’: Night Shift, which was released on the same date, Revenue Retrievin’: Day Shift finds the Bay veteran sticking more closely to his comfort zone and making songs about what he knows: the streets.

So once again, they're preaching--at top volume--to the converted. Which is fine, because they remain very, very good at what they do.

Archie Bronson Outfit might be testing their limits by taking so many stylistic risks on Coconut, but it all works surprisingly well for them; they never sound like they are pushing for the mainstream or losing their sense of individuality.

Like the previous album, Volume 2 would suffer under the weight of its own pastiche if it weren’t so darn endearing, filled as it is with call-and-response vocals, studio reverb, sweeping orchestrations, and other bygone tricks of the trade.

Many bands start to lose their way around the time of their third album, but on Two Thousand and Ten Injuries Love Is All sound better than ever and well-positioned to keep making smart, hooky, passionate records for a long time to come.

If the album seems somewhat slight, it’s purposefully so: Head First is a love letter to the frothy, fleeting, but very vital joys of pop music.

Bieber makes all the right, charming moves for a teen, and he covers all the bases. The dance-pop songs are light on the ears yet memorable; the unrequited material sounds deeply felt; the ballads have all the necessary us-against-the-world teen-love dramatics.

Make no mistake, the beats are coming, as is the dread synth (that sounds like The Terminator reborn), but it's all done in the context of music that is as engaging as it is experimental.

The Way of the World is not a comeback album; Henry had a nagging suspicion that Allison might have something new to say and Allison obliged. In the process they created a gem of an album that proves the pianist and songwriter still has many tricks up his elegantly tailored, eternally hip sleeve.

Some fans will be irritated that it took Monica three-and-a-half years to follow up a ten-song album with a set of equally brief length, but Still Standing benefits from quality control and a handful of particularly strong ballads.

The Bird & the Bee manage to make these very familiar hits sound fresh without radically reinventing them. That in itself is a much trickier move than turning these all into slow acoustic dirges, but it's better still because these arrangements are true to both Hall & Oates and George & Kurstin.

Musically, there's much greater richness and variety in the arrangements now, heightening the shadings that have always been there, and bringing them to the fore, while also making it easier for a wider audience.

There's no arguing Putnam has a genuine talent for writing melodies and giving them shape in the studio, but he needs to add more colors to his palate if he expects people to come back to hear the same tale again and again.

If you heard Mankind without hearing their other work, you might think it was a decent record with a couple of memorable songs--kind of generic and bland, but not awful. It’s only a disaster if you were charmed by High Places' original sound and left cold by their new approach.

The sound is pretty awe-inspiring, with huge molten streams of guitars, thundering drums, swirling voices, and all sorts of keyboards, sound effects, and stray noises combining together into a great, layered wall of sound that rivals My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless in terms of sonic construction.

They do a first-rate job blending humor, emotion, and energy on In the Court; it’s a tricky routine to master but they’ve done it impressively right out of the gate.

More than most Bonnie "Prince" Billy records, this is one of those austere records, filled with lyrical archaisms -- fans will think first of Master and Everyone -- but Kelly and company prove a capable foil for the monolith of Oldham's rustic songwriting and singing.

Still, despite a handful of throwaway cuts, Manifesto has more than enough heat to prove that Deck's mike skills still stand up up to any of his Wu brethren.

Juxx seems to have benefited from Sean Price's mentoring as he works a perfectly cadenced flow and manages to maintain a high energy level throughout the LP. Still, the most exciting moments on The Exxecution come when Juxx's Duck Down elders stop by.

For a style of electronica (chillout/downtempo) that's grown decidedly dusty over the past decade--even though Bonobo is clearly striving to move well beyond such staid genre divisions, and in many ways succeeding, that's probably still the best place to slot him if you gotta--Black Sands is a welcome infusion of life and warmth.

The Big To-Do is a subtle but genuine step forward from 2008's Brighter Than Creation's Dark, but while that album dug deep into the darker undercurrents of its songs, The Big To-Do resembles Bruce Springsteen's The River in that its stories of folks under punishing circumstances are married to music that tries to find some sort of grace and honor in the struggle without dulling the lyrical impact.

The Whigs absorbed every rock trend of the '90s, consciously taking in the cool stuff while the mainstream tunes seeped in, and here they turn In the Dark into something that's a guilty pleasure for anyone raised on grunge.

Since a big part of the Stripes’ live show also rests on their visuals, the Under Great White Northern Lights DVD gives the complete experience, but this album is satisfying enough to make it a must for most fans.

For the most part, though, the songs are spilled out softly in McRae's high, honey-coated voice, and are centered around humble-but-plaintive acoustic guitar and piano patterns. This proves to be just the right mode for a guy whose worldview is rather less than cheery.

Perhaps the strongest full-length electronic release from Denmark since Trentemoller's "The Last Resort," Standing on Top of Utopia found the DJ/producer creating not merely a solid album but a strong and surprising one.

The stylistic similarities are pretty undeniable, and not necessarily to Josiah's advantage--but the elder Wolf has enough of a distinct voice (and enough to say with it) that Why?'s fans will definitely want to give it a listen--and those who find Yoni a bit too dizzyingly cerebral might take more kindly to Josiah's sincerity and directness.

Repeated listens bring a number of sounds to the surface--a hint of heartland twang, plenty of pop melodies, and an endearing messiness (evident in the half-sung, half-shouted background vocals)--but We Built a Fire is mostly concerned with mood, which it casts during the first minute of running time.

In the end, the unexpectedly loose, protean feel of Rush to Relax makes for a wholly satisfying step forward from one of Australia's finest bands of the first decade of the 2000s.

Happy Birthday may be bedroom lo-fi from the fuzzy sound to the scribbled cartoon cover art, the buzzing guitars to the off-kilter subject matter of the songs, but they transcend any limitations of the style (real or imagined) by writing songs that would be great no matter how they were recorded.

It’s a slow burner with nary a hook in sight, and vocalist/guitar player Petter Ericson Stakee’s theatric mumbles can be an acquired taste, but listeners with a CD collection that leans heavily on bands like Catherine Wheel, Sixteen Horsepower, the Cult, and Kings of Leon will find this dense monolith of roots-based stoner rock to be the perfect late-night companion for a dark summer highway.

Ironically, these individual pieces don’t add up to an overall masterpiece, possibly because the narrative is convoluted and strained, getting in the way of the pure musical flow, but also because it’s hard not to shake the feeling that this is a transitional effort, pointing toward a day when Damon Albarn will feel no need to front a band, not even in a cartoon guise.

Though the concept and the band’s handling of it are impressive, listeners don’t have to be aware of it to appreciate the almost tangible moods Liars create on each song.

Broken Bells is an honest-to-goodness debut album--there are as many promising flashes as frustrating moments here. Mercer and Burton have obvious chemistry, but they need to blend more for true alchemy.

On Winter of Mixed Drinks, they focus and polish Organ Fight’s epics--and add a healthy dose of optimism.

While it's impressive that the band fills such big shoes, the biggest achievement of The Monitor is that it feels so significant in its own right.

Whether the dip in quality is the result of a rush to create new material or whether these are simply the lesser leftovers from the same sessions that produced N 2, here's hoping JJ take some time (and maybe one of those epically blissful vacations their music conjures so evocatively) to make sure N 4 comes out fully baked.

While it doesn't rise to the level of his other studio albums, Valleys of Neptune is a welcome catalog addition from a tremendous talent who died too young.

With an overall sound that seems inspired by a searing mix of old-timey blues mixed with a hypodermic blast of melodic noise, there is a driving, wild-eyed intensity to many of the tracks on Beat the Devil's Tattoo.

In Leo’s case, it’s somehow comforting that every few years he’ll be along to inspire and cajole his fans with his dedication and passion. The Brutalist Bricks will let no one down in that regard.

Limited and a little patched together, but if cheap thrills are what you’re after, this one puts the dirty back in dirty south.

Call it Sigur Rós meets Supertramp in the end, perhaps most especially on the penultimate number, "Light Up the Night," with its keyboard-led opening moving into a slow sweet-sounding swagger of an arrangement thanks again to a big beat and guitar chug, but the signs of that kind of sonic grandness, if not full on grandiosity, abound.

While this album sounds like the Chieftains playing in fusion mode, it is so much more ambitious than anything they’ve attempted before. Some of the music here is contemporary, though much of it is over a century old; yet it reaches past its settings into the present day, telling of the indelibly rich meeting of two cultures oppressed by a third.

Think of Quarantine the Past as a cousin to Hot Rocks or the Red and Blue Albums: it doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, but as a primer, it’s hard to beat.

A Sufi and a Killer is nearly impossible to place or categorize, and this ageless quality is only embellished by Gonjasufi's vocal work, which at times sounds like a mystic channeling spirits from another dimension. Truly visionary.

Few songs from either record match the bombast of his work with Broken Social Scene, perhaps, but Collett’s albums are better viewed as part of a whole, and Rat A Tat Tat strengthens the country-fried side of his solo personality.

Shallow Effects is almost shockingly coherent. Instead of a big, sprawling mess, the arrangements — which incorporate everything from glockenspiel to Mellotron — offer complex but controlled layers of sound that never seem too thick or unwieldy.

Home Acres never breaks any new barriers and it's less cerebral than earlier outings, but it’s a good, consistent listen that showcases the band in their comfort zone.

Sour backpackers and over-scrutinizing fans that hold the Kidz in high regard may be disappointed by all the light-heartedness, but trim the fat and the party people will be rewarded with a vibrant, clever celebration.