Kin (<-->) proves that the Unity Band is the next evolution of what Metheny -- and Lyle Mays--began with PMG. Musically, this unit's musicality derives as much from feel and freedom as it does sophisticated form and function.

Throughout its shifting emotions and sounds, The Age of Anxiety is a consistently thoughtful, playful reflection of hyper-stimulating times.

The album manages to sound detached yet intimate as dal Forno's fragile voice and glowing melodies reach toward something intangible.

Unrelentingly harsh and moving deliberately away from previously charted territory, Head Cage might disappoint fans looking for a rehash of former styles and statements, but those excited by Pig Destroyer's journey through new forms of despair and hostility will enjoy hearing their hybrid sound continue to mutate.

Their debut record doubles down--or triples, if we're talking about actual time--on those sentiments [of youthful fun and young defiance] and exposes a deeper level of honesty, although that same honesty might make it hard for anyone over a certain age to relate.

The resulting record is a shiny, dreamy affair that retains all the hooks and feel of the first album but adds some energy and pop immediacy.

This is the folky, bluesy, jangly-guitar-slinging sound of somebody who has made a practice of walking in boots three sizes too big for so long that they finally fit, and it delivers enough promise to inspire big ideas about what could happen when he outgrows them.

Silver Bullets fits together as a whole and doesn't need a pop hit, heavenly or otherwise, to be interesting or worthwhile. It's enough that The Chills are back and just as good as they were when they left off.

With a more engaging set of songs, Barnett might easily transpose herself into the mode of introspective singer/songwriter, but alas, Things Take Time, Take Time just feels a little too dull.

Owens' album seems a bit scattered and all over the place, but its sense of dream logic is intriguing, and its best moments are captivating.

Compared to the grander constructs of their latter-day Oh Sees albums, A Foul Form is a hit and run job where the music jumps in, leaves everyone stunned, and splits before the cops can show up. It's a manic blast of pure energy with lots of smarts if you're looking for them, and demonstrates Osees are never short on daring, ideas, and the skills to make them work.

Growing up is working out well for Chastity Belt, and I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone is clever, satisfying proof.

It's packed with stuff, but there's enough space here, and wonderfully warm atmospheres, to bring the listener right into the deeper sonic dimensions that Black Mountain is trying to create.

Highly desirable for Currensy fans who like his material at its most loose and free, just don't start here.

Langford may have lost a tiny bit of ragged glory, but he's gained plenty along the way that makes this album a must, whether they're longtime fans or not.

Boots No. 1 plays less like an expansion of Revival than a document of a fertile period of creativity in the life of Gillian Welch, and while fans of the original album will revel in it, you don't have to be familiar with it to be dazzled by the subtle passion, intelligence, and eloquence of this music.

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

Even if the album is more comforting than exciting, it's still an enjoyable portrait of Friedberger's artistry: warm, genuine and a little mischievous.

In its musical muscle and sweeping, politically charged narrative, it's something of a masterpiece, and one of the few -- if not the only -- records of 2004 to convey what it feels like to live in the strange, bewildering America of the early 2000s.

Hovering in the shadows comes Apse's Spirit, a mesmerizing album where the shrouded world of Gothic gloom meets the outer stratosphere of space rock.

Intimate without being voyeuristic, and approachable without being patronizing, sparse without being cold, Barchords manages to balance all of these elements beautifully, merging plaintive folk and bluesy soul with just enough pop to make the whole thing go down smoothly.

Their clichéd soundbites aside, there's much to enjoy on this typically ballsy and no-nonsense follow-up to 2011 breakthrough Pressure & Time.

Ultimately, with Last of the Great Pretenders, Nathanson turns his memories of the city by the bay into a universally relatable metaphor for coming of age, reminding us how a place can hold sway over your identity long after you've moved on.

The result is that We Were Here, while still sounding fresh and inspired on its own terms, is imbued with much of the lyrical passion and melodicism of Turin Brakes' past work.

By the time Wheeler reaches a place of acceptance, the listener has as well, and while both parties may be a bit ragged, they're both better for the experience.

Fortune certainly counts as one of their excellent albums, and if it doesn't seem to reach for the same sonic heights as some of their recent efforts, it surpasses them on an emotional level.

The closest thing here to a track that one could imagine being played through speakers instead of headphones is "Where to Put the Pain," which fashions a skittering ambient pop still very much in line with the rest of the album's design, for a set that's very unlikely to disappoint established fans.

At turns incisive and deeply felt, Ensoulment is more than a welcome return for Johnson and The The.

If Moonlight Concessions doesn't quite hit the heights of Clear Pond Road, Sun Racket, and Black Pearl, it's still a worthwhile listen -- and reaffirms just how high the bar is when it comes to Hersh's music.

It may not be flashy like their early work, experimental like some of their mid-period albums, or punchy like Words and Music, but the album takes in elements of everything they've done along the way and repurposes it in a lovely, extremely satisfying fashion.

On a strictly musical basis, Earthling is the most varied project Eddie Vedder has ever released, and it's also his lightest album: there's a palpable joy to his free experiments here that's infectious, even fun.

Her charm holds together The Loneliest Time's whirlwind of daydreams, confessions, and decades of pop allusions, making it another strong album from an artist who knows her niche and how to grow beyond it. At its best, it's pop written by and for those who dream of something, and someone, real.

Let's Turn It into Sound is a complex, angular construction, yet it's not a demanding, impenetrable work, as Smith invites the listener to join her on a spirited, boundless journey.

Mountain Moves' whimsy often feels like a party that just happens to be political, but it's this sense of joy that makes protest--and Deerhoof's career--sustainable.

The light touch Powell has with deeply felt emotions on this album is a rare combination that grows richer with each listen; she sounds older and wiser but also happier, suggesting that Life After Youth is just the beginning.

On I Barely Know Her, the 20-year-old star takes a magnetic first step.

None of this is going to sell enough records to bother Jay-Z, and a track or two veer too close to MF Doom for comfort, but Fluorescent Black is easily one of the best rap records of the year.

Just after returning from a European tour in support of their breakout debut, Girls upgraded their recording equipment and chose six of their favorite new songs for the surprisingly conventional-sounding Broken Dreams Club EP.

Merritt's kitchen produces pop confections that can rot teeth, but the bitter aftertaste owes more to Randy Newman than it does Belle & Sebastian.

With Fan Dance, Sam Phillips has made an album that proves modesty is one the rarest and most welcome virtues in pop music today.

Best of all, it all feels effortless, from the production to the songwriting.

Clinic is still one of the most intriguing acts around, and while this isn't the masterpiece the band has the potential to deliver, an interesting disappointment from them is still better than a successful but boring album from a less-inspired group.

A spellbinding tribute, with a commanding presence and sustained intensity that most songwriters can't manage even with their own material. Like a reverse version of Bob Dylan and the Band's The Basement Tapes, 'What's Next to the Moon' turns songs that were loose, irreverent, and even silly or one-note in their original readings into songs of timeless beauty and depth, their passions, pains, and torments made agonizingly palpable.

It is among DiFranco's best records, and along with Sam Phillips' "Don't Do Anything," one of the only singer/songwriter albums to really push the envelope in new directions in 2008.

There is enough variation from song to song to keep listeners engaged; plenty of thoughtful, almost heavy ballads to balance the jumpy, uptempo tracks, lots of different instrumentation in the arrangements, and an assortment of moods from quiet melancholy to slightly louder melancholy.

Musically and sonically it's well above average, even if there are three generic cuts in the middle that keep it from rising to the next level.

For Beans' nightmarish spoken narrative, Pritchard makes like a member of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with intensifying patterns of organ filigrees and electronics that blip and swarm.

The supplemental voices are used to positive effect, whether they contrast with or echo Ejimiwe's plaintive surveillance of personal and societal ruination.

More than either 1989 or Reputation, Lover seems fully realized and mature: Swift is embracing all aspects of her personality, from the hopeful dreamer to the coolly controlled craftsman, resulting in a record that's simultaneously familiar and surprising.

The seven tracks represent different, curious branches extending out from the seeds planted by Some Rap Songs, each reaching for new ideas and switching gears when another thought arrives. It continues Sweatshirt's streak as an innovator and as one of the more compelling artists of his time.

Warbled, atmospheric electronics eventually expand the sound design, as do subsequent tracks, like the bright, harmonic full-band pop of second track "Unready" and the lush, shimmery "Limits," whose arrangement includes scuttling electronic drums. The sparer tracks are where Gordi really excels, though.

As a whole, The Width of a Circle doesn't quite add up to much more than an odds-and-sods collection, but then again, that's its appeal. It allows listeners to live within Bowie's 1970, a strange, weird, and absorbing year when he was figuring out his strengths and weaknesses.

The 12-song set ends with the dialogue-heavy "Home Movies (1989-1993)," which, like much of the rest of the album, is full of affection. If there's a knock on Rarely Do I Dream (and it's a light rap), it's that Rarely Do I Dream sometimes seems like an album for an audience of one, like a personal collage of photographs and cards on a pinboard behind the laptop monitor in the den.

Different Rooms is a nebulous haze of semi-familiar melodies and half-heard voices, forming an abstract dreamscape.

Call it sustainable punk--the kind that doesn't need to burn out or fade away.

Pure Heroine seems to hint at the truth... but the truth is, Lorde is a pop invention as much as LDR and is not nearly as honest about her intentions.

There's nothing really new or earth-shattering about this album, but that's not a prerequisite for great rock & roll.

No Color is a welcome return to form, and a nimble balance between the extremes of Dodos' previous work.

The only shortfall that could be noted is that Trials & Errors is a touch long, clocking in at 72 minutes, but fans of Molina, along with the audience, who you can tell had a wonderful time at this show, will feel that this is a bonus.

Even if Slugger might appeal more to Speedy Ortiz fans than Top 40 diehards, hearing Dupuis seek intimacy and independence is never less than pithy, fun, and thought-provoking.

The album is easily the most solid offering from the Woods camp to date, besting even the production of its incredibly strong predecessor and presenting the songs with even more clarity and interesting choices than ever before.

In the end, there's something amusingly kooky and undeniably likable about a band that can evoke both the acid house, Rolling Stones spirituality of a band like Primal Scream just as it can, perhaps unintentionally, summon the ghost of early-'90s Duran Duran.

The whole album is pulsing with both those elements [energy and emotion] and comes across like the group's most important album, only without the kind of pretension that kind of thing often entails. It's more that Formentera captures the warring emotions, steady fears, and crushing uncertainty of the era it was made in and delivers it all wrapped up in triumphant and true songs that one will want to spin again and again.

The stories of grim wedding scenes, hospital visits, and the various disappointments of daily life are all harrowing and intense, but Crutchfield's deft arrangement of lyrical details and their slow-release impact keeps the darkness from ever coming off as self-indulgent.

Worth the three years it took to materialize, this is a strong, assured debut that shows Factory Floor can build on their influences in a way that feels fresh.

NMA's version of Junior Kimbrough's "Meet Me in the City" here almost sounds like power pop, but filtered through a rustic moonshine filter. Every track here is like that, roaring into the 21st century sounding big, urgent, and huge, but so grounded in the local folk-blues tradition that each track seems to carry imprinted DNA that says boogie all over it.

All these happy concessions, along with the strong emphasis on instrumental interplay, give Mudcrutch the feeling of a true band effort, and even if it's not perfect--it is indeed possible to amble and ramble just a little bit too much--it's thoroughly winning because of its imperfections, as this is music that's all about cruising down the back roads on a sunny nostalgic day.

With Richard Formby and the MC himself on production, Ghostpoet remains the most aptly named rapper in the game with his excellent sophomore effort.

The production on II is cleaner than on Fuzz's first studio album without ironing out the nooks and crannies of the band's sound (the report of Moothart and Ubovich's amps is just as fierce and buzzy as ever), and listeners who resonate to Iommic frequencies will get a righteous shake from this music.

He launches into bristling pop-punk after the intro, and elsewhere offers honeyed hip-hop, convincing retro-soul, and a touching corrido, among other styles, refining his R&B-rooted bedroom pop throughout.

There's a heady joy in his bile that's infectious, and Every Loser is a weirdly joyous celebration of life from someone who knows why you shouldn't toss it aside.

Sometimes suggesting a cross between Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade and Bruce Springsteen's The River, The Most Lamentable Tragedy is as big, smart, and heartfelt as either of those albums, and a striking example of what Titus Andronicus can achieve.

Spiritual Songs is not a casual listen and can be emotionally overwhelming at times, requiring complete attention in order to fully enter the intimate world of these star-crossed lovers. Once inside, Spiritual Songs for Lovers to Sing is as intoxicating as falling in love for the first or last time.

Taken without context, Snow is a gorgeous collection of slow-burning, neatly groomed songs and perspectives, always introspective but never without joy. When viewed as another chapter in the ongoing lineage of the Kadane brothers, it takes on a deeper gravity.

As lovingly recorded and meditative as it is, Island of Noise doesn't break much new ground for Modern Nature. ... That said, there is much to enjoy within this latest chapter.

As good as the songs are, the distinguishing characteristic of Electric is its atmosphere, how the music jumps and breathes, how Miller has given Thompson his liveliest album in years and, on just sheer sonic terms, his best in a while, too.

Barwick has always celebrated the sheer beauty of voices joining together and likely always will, but she's never done it exactly the same way twice. With Healing Is a Miracle, she once again manages to evolve and remain true to what has made her music special since the beginning.

Bemis and Conley may wield the most power here, but Two Tongues debut is a collaborative effort through and through, with the band taking measures to prove its debt to past traditions and present friends.

Proud to Be Here adds to Adkins' well-deserved reputation as a stylist and an artist who stands apart.

If conviction and quality are the measure of a songwriter and musician, the songs and performances on Brother Sinner & the Whale are the very measure of both.

Goin' Your Way catches two top-notch artists in grand form, giving their best for their fans and seemingly having a lot of fun doing it, and this is an engaging souvenir of an inspired meeting of the smart pop minds.

While Vulnicura Live may not be the most fun of Björk's concert albums, its powerful performances still make it a joy for fans to hear.

That one track ["Canna-Business"] aside, Brotherhood of the Snake is not only on par with Testament's best records during the millennium thus far, but ever.

Whether the duo plan to work this way in the future or not, 2016 Atomized documents a year when they successfully rebooted their sound and opened up their future to all kinds of possibilities.

The amiable quality of his lyrics and his enduring melodicism are in full effect on The Last Rider, which is notable in the Sexsmith canon for being the first record to employ his long-tenured touring band, a whip-smart quartet of tone-savvy sidemen who for many years have faithfully adapted the minute details of his many releases for the stage.

The approaches, from improvised noise pieces to concise electronic pop songs, are almost as numerous and far-flung as the represented outposts. A significant portion of the tracks appears on compact disc for the first time.

Brain Candy is still rock indie pop first, with a garage rock sidecar. Most of this is an up-tempo blast, and Stephenson's vocals are excellent while the guitar work and drumming is expert and fully engaged. Brain Candy isn't kid's stuff, but rather the word of two guys determined to make adulthood work for them without spoiling everything, and Hockey Dad hit that target with flying colors.

If you share the same perspective (as well as the same sense of humor), Floor It!! is a blast: it sounds like your favorite classic rock playlist kicking up forgotten favorites as it cycles through a perpetual shuffle.

More than 50 years after its release, it seems there isn't much new to be said about The Velvet Underground & Nico, and I'll Be Your Mirror doesn't challenge that notion. But it does allow a number of worthy artists a chance to see themselves reflected in these songs, and it's a labor of love that's engaging and from the heart.

While sincerity emanates from Finnigan in every song before it ["Crash & Burn"] -- the singer's empathy enables him to personify characters convincingly -- the words and emotion here pour out, like they had to be released, requiring no imagination.

Peace...Like a River is a labyrinthine trek through original songs that nod at the band's classic rock influences, creating an album that sounds like it was written and recorded during the 1970s.

I Only See the Moon's more diversified approach is an engaging one that, frankly, evades the potential slog of some of the Kids' prior LPs without surrendering heartache, nostalgia, or slow tempos and grace in the process.

Shires has a relaxed, natural rapport with Nelson that gives Loving You a genuine sense of warmth: this wasn't intended as a tribute or a goodbye, it was merely a relaxed session between two kindred spirits and its inherent modesty makes it quite satisfying.

There Is No Space for Us sounds more holistic than its trilogy predecessors, with leaner production, deft arrangements, and extremely inventive songwriting.

The slightly dubby and distorted "What We Are and What We Are Meant to Be" is the band's own acknowledgement that they're challenging themselves and pushing themselves forward.

Pushing the quartet onto yet another exciting path of artistic and creative evolution, Silver Bleeds the Black Sun is a fully committed, thematic foray into the darker corners of the AFI experience.

Crucially, the band brings just the right touch to these performances, their obvious fondness and reverence for the material never getting in the way of a loose, expressive feel, with some very fine bits of soloing and lots of enjoyably breezy ensemble playing.

Tim Hecker's elegantly inventive way around sound art moved into a full decade of released work with An Imaginary Country, one of his most serene and, from its striking start "100 Years Ago" forward, uplifting albums.