File this one next to C-Murder's Truest $#!@ I Ever Said as it's a gripping prison album that is embracing freedom upon its release, but know that this is a much more polished effort.

Small Town Dreams is at least as strong as 2013's fine Never Give In and more sharply focused. His gifts as a lyricist and melodist are prodigious, and his confidence and ambition find equilibrium here.

Even more than on their first release, Girlpool feel like a unit, totally locked into each other musically and emotionally, and their stark presentation remains a boon to their risky and appealingly human songs.

Last of Our Kind is the sound of a band unencumbered; it's an album that was probably as much fun to make as it is a joy to listen to.

Algiers, both band and album, offer musical and topical intensity alternately malevolent and passionate in searching and affirming truth, human and otherworldly. All of these seemingly disparate historical musical elements are distilled in such a startling manner, they carve something new from the fragments.

Gunnera is bound to appeal more to Menomena fans than to casual fans of the National, but while it's unconventional, it's even more so enthralling, loaded with worthwhile atmospheres and grooves.

Consider it the slow and softer Major Lazer album that's built for headphone listening, but most of all, consider it.

Hs brilliant musicianship and guitar playing combined with his fascinating storytelling skills ensure that his music is as poignant and life-affirming as ever, and the album is yet another success in his remarkable catalog.

Transporting and pastoral, Nature is a beautiful culmination of Owens' artistry.

One Lost Day's songs may offer commentary about life's rough adventures but they also express openness, willingness, and tenderness as a result of them.

Nozinja Lodge is a gleefully frenetic album that continues to broadcast Hlungwani's singular vision to fans of otherworldly dance music across the globe.

Full Communism would be the perfect soundtrack for the victory celebration--you'd have to go back to the MC5 to find a band that combined purposeful rage and passionate rock & roll energy as well as Downtown Boys.

Musical sophistication meets the gritty danger of live performance; execution matches ambition with crackling energy and soulful expression.

A near-perfect blend of Sparks and Franz Ferdinand's skills, FFS is a collaboration that works very well and offers just about everything a fan of either band could want.

This is an exceptional addition to Goatsnake's catalog; it's a doomsday boogie album for the ages.

At first, Wild Nights' shifts from song to song could give unsuspecting listeners whiplash, but even if it isn't as cohesive as Girls Like Us was, its moments of brilliance show how much they've grown.

Both strong and vulnerable, I Don't Want to Let You Down is a concise and angst-packed set delivered with emphasis in all the right places.

The lack of urgency is also welcome, with Alternative Light Source slowly unfurling as the most natural and comfortable Leftfield album to date.

Ultimately, The Bad Plus Joshua Redman sounds less like a collaboration between two separate entities and more like the assured work of a unified band.

This may be Prinz and Horn's most minimalist music yet, but it's also some of their most rewarding.

It may be a side project but Dwyer really put all his formidable talents into Cold Hot Plumbs.

These songs capture an outstanding band hitting its stride, and growing more comfortable with the craft of record-making along with singing and playing great, passionate music.

While they're certainly not the first band in 2015 to reference the swirling dream pop of Cocteau Twins or bleak sonic themes of Portishead, they are far more original and daring than your typical experimental bedroom pop act, using their inspirations as a stepping-off point en route to their own adventures and inventions.

Souther's command of both his music and his voice on Tenderness is total; he makes it all sound easy. But that's deceptive: it takes a lifetime of commitment and hard work to deliver a gem like this.

The lyrical content, along with the album's constant energy, make this Everything Everything's most focused effort thus far, one that bundles brawny indie rock with 2010s Zeitgeist.

Adam Lambert demonstrates he's in perfect control of his style and sound and knows how to combine both into a sterling modern pop record.

One reason that High on Fire don't get accused of resting on their laurels is that they always come out hungry, anxious to refine their sound and remove anything that is not absolutely essential to their purposes. Luminiferous accomplishes that as well.

It carefully builds--creatively and emotionally--on everything Baird had accomplished so far and ascends to another level entirely.

Tamia does not to attempt to hit those high notes that Williams and few others have been able to reach, but she gets the feeling across. It's a fine finish to her best album yet.

Ahe stumbles when she gets lighter, particularly on "Family Is Family," where it seems like she can't wait to be rid of those leeches--but it's hardly enough to prevent the album from being a rich, enchanting collection of stories, confessions, and the occasional joke.

Politically charged punk rock can be an exhausting and overtly self-righteous affair in the wrong hands, but Oberst and company temper their outrage with unadulterated melodic might, resulting in that rare protest album that rewards both the condemners and the condemned.

Bones is inventive, unsettling, imposing, and utterly arresting.

As with the album's first two cuts, it incorporates several movements, yet it's hip-hop much more than techno and never fades into the background like a fusty Mo' Wax scrap.

This set is welcoming, open, and warm: it invites fans of all of his musical pursuits along for the ride.

The news (good or bad) is that Tweedy helped Thompson make just the sort of album that's made him one of our greatest legacy artists, and it's an example of why Thompson is still worth hearing 43 years into a career that shows no signs of stopping.

Holistic in breadth and deep in vision, it provides a way into this music for many, and challenges the cultural conversation about jazz without compromising or pandering.

That bifurcated sentiment is best laid out on prime cuts like "1999," "Too Late," "These Arms," and the luxurious title cut, all of which ooze atmosphere and vulnerability, but are denied oblivion by the grounding force of Grossi's remarkable voice.

While the reduction in lucid hooks and the uptick in wince-inducing lyrics diminish the album's appeal, the charms are hard to repel.

Freedom sounds as furiously principled as this group has ever been, and it's a liberating, hard-hitting exercise in punk for smart people.

Splitting this weighty and rich effort into digestible chunks, the album's physical release comes on two separate discs, making Summertime '06 an artistic triumph wrapped in conceptually fitting package.

An extension of their ever-evolving canon, The Sovereign Self is possibly Trembling Bells' most colorful journey yet, with a wayfaring rock & roll spirit and a madcap zeal that keep it sounding fresh.

That the band never lose themselves in the process of these myriad digressions is impressive to say the least, but what's most notable about Found in Far Away Places is how fluid the ride is.

With equally quirky lyrics and coming in at under 30 minutes, Teen Men is a tight little ten-track parcel of kooky sweetness where head bobbing is unavoidable.

Odds are strong that no like-titled album is as cold as this one.

It's the sound of someone coming out the other side of personal upheaval, and even if there are a few missteps, Williams connects in a very human way, providing plenty of allure for an album that feels very much like a debut.

Bleeder is one of the best outsider metal albums of the year.

If you're willing to get on board with Ezra Furman and the beautifully messy world that he celebrates here, Perpetual Motion People is a ride worth taking.

Ultimately, Working Girl plays like Little Boots' own biopic, a cinematic feminist synth-pop manifesto set to a pulsing Giorgio Moroder-esque soundtrack.

McAlinden knows how to wrap sadness, joy, heartache, and nostalgia into simple box with a ray of sunshine for a bow. Rest and be thankful, indeed.

While that [Divide And Exit] was the album Sleaford Mods needed to make to gain a wide audience, Key Markets is the one that tells their listeners that they'll never stop raging against stupidity.

In the end, the street-worthy effort seems more influenced by Maybach Music than Minaj, as it forsakes the paparazzi and gossip pages for the better and continues on the path first laid out on the man's mixtapes.

Ultimately, Years & Years are so passionately in touch with their influences, they've transformed them into something new and full of the light.

Like the films Superman 2 and Aliens, the concept LP Twelve Reasons to Die II meets, and for action junkies exceeds, the high standard set by its predecessor.

Southeastern was a triumph from a talented songwriter and vocalist who stepped up to a new level; Something More Than Free shows Jason Isbell knows he just got there, and is still making use of that hard-won knowledge--it confirms his status as a major artist.

Ghost Notes is their most consistent--and consistently enjoyable--album yet.

Instrumentals 2015 feels like a successful reinvention after such a lengthy absence, but at the same time, it could've been beamed in at any point during FSA's existence, as its elemental, bare-basics construction isn't beholden to any trends, and therefore it feels timeless.

The majority of Ego Death is tighter. Bennett has refined her songwriting without reducing the candid approach that colors her past compositions. Additionally, the tangents are fewer and more substantive.

Low on drama but high on seemingly effortless jangle pop brilliance, Calling Out feels like a long-lost classic and an exciting discovery.

Magnifique doesn't show a ton of artistic growth or progression; it's more of a rebranding that tightly focuses on their strengths and passes them to the consumer like a sharp, swift punch to the brain and feet.

Any and all of the bands they draw influence from would be happy to add them to the noise club; if they keep making records as good as Distractions, they may end up ruling the club someday.

The album offers a fresh perspective on minimal techno, keeping things energetic and more than a little bit apprehensive.

Best Friends have arrived fully formed on their debut, ready to take their place among the best practitioners of noisy garagey pop around.

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.

This possible soundtrack takes a more abstract route while offering the same love and reverence, and it's also an almost-solo album from Lauryn Hill, the driving force behind six of the album's 16 tracks.

Their album is all thriller, zero filler.

The sound on Decency is truly an adventurous move for the group, and one that's paid off with possibly their best album to date.

All of Container's recordings are amazing, but this one is his most concentrated burst of energy yet, and it cements his status as one of the most exciting and inventive artists in the underground American electronic music scene, as well as one of the most successful in merging noise with techno.

It's kaleidoscopic but crisp.

These songs find the group's leader on more comfortable ground, and the tone of Star Wars is that of some good friends tossing ideas against the wall and discovering that a surprising number of them stick.

These performances mark the apotheosis of a creative journey that began at Newport two decades earlier.

The CD edition is especially nice--a fold-out cardboard package with sharp, true-to-the-era artwork for each disc. It tops the double-vinyl edition, a truncated and smart selection made by the Roots' Captain Kirk Douglas, released months earlier for Record Store Day.

Works for Tomorrow stands alongside their best albums.

With the release of the album DS2--Dirty Sprite 2, named after his hit mixtape -- he becomes a hip-hop version of Lee "Scratch" Perry, a strange and yet in command figure standing at the center of a slick, inventive swirl of music.

Throughout it all, co-founders, producers, and arrangers Ben Ellman and Robert Mercurio sonically map out a NOLA that's as vibrant and forward thinking as it is steeped in the region's rich culture, cementing the band's reputation (20 years in) as both innovators and stalwart defenders of tradition.

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.

The notions of conflict, turmoil, and regret are certainly well-worn staples of the genre, but with Sturm und Drang Lamb of God have accrued a significant amount of experience in all three, and have distilled those concepts into pure unfiltered adrenaline.

An already impressive album that's quite an improvement over his previous effort and on par with the best chilly, spacy avant pop around in 2015.

This work leaves the debut, impressive as it was, in the dust.

Bittersweet is a strong, satisfying album from one of the best and most distinctive singer/songwriters of her day, and this confirms she can move in any number of different directions and still offer her listeners something remarkable.

Some of the most accessible and personal music of Hammond, Jr.'s career with or without the Strokes.

As a stage experiment, Watkins Family Hour has thrived for 13 years, and now with a fine record to document their efforts, they've hit on a format that could offer boundless possibilities for years to come.

Early Public Enemy was formatively innovative, but on this latter-day record PE explore and deepen that signature not unlike master jazzmen -- or the Stones, for that matter--and that's not only worthy of an album, it's groundbreaking in terms of hip-hop.

This beguiling little album is another feather in DeMarco's baseball cap, and will live on in his growing catalog, but you might want to head over to Queens for that cup of coffee before it's too late.

Kelly and the Cairo Gang may have started out plying a quirky, inward-looking brand of folk; now they are the brightest, shimmery-est, most impressive folk-rock revivalists around and Goes Missing is as good as guitar pop gets in 2015.

The cheekily-named Greatest Hits, Vol.1 is both a refreshing blast from the past and an ardent kick in the teeth.

More than ever, Abyss proves that she knows when to unleash her full fury and when to rein it in, and the results are stunning.

Perhaps it's the geographical aura of Cornwall's windswept shores or the musical and emotional support of his bandmates, but the overwhelming tone on Tender Gold & Gentle Blue is of woolen, seaside warmth.

Living Legend is a non-stop gangsta party connected to the street, offering a more approachable alternative to Ross' grandiose LPs.

What sets Romano apart is the natural, ineffable blue mood of his sad songs, which hit the heart dead-on without ever sounding forced, as well as his impressive studio techniques, all of which are on display on Romano's fourth solo album, 2015's If I've Only One Time Askin'.

Gwenno is firmly in charge of her sound and presentation from the beginning, and Y Dydd Olaf is wonderfully assured throughout.

Listening to the beautiful, restful and balanced sounds of Green Lanes, one hopes that they do indeed continue to work together for years and years.

Acknowledging that Night Beds' strict chamber-folk fans are bound to be disappointed if not horrified, taken on its own Ivywild is sonically rich, adventurous, envelopingly wistful, and undeniably stunning.

Armed with several strong songs, Georgia is an impressive, inventive debut.

While Meridian continues on logically from Dream Sleep, and even Barn Owl's V, it is at another level, one more inherently focused and more overtly compositional. This is Caminiti's most holistic project to date.

Dark in tone and intimate in presentation, The Trackless Woods is unique in DeMent's catalog.

It's both quiet and grand, sad and sweet, and undeniably human.

River is not only the work of a master guitarist, but also that of a sophisticated composer. Bachman's confidence in interpreting his own musical ideas on the fretboard is now equal to his skill in playing the lineage music that inspires him.

Piteous Gate is a gripping, suspenseful audio thriller, and along with 2015 releases by Fis, Lotic, Rabit, and Amnesia Scanner, it provides an eye-opening overview of how certain corners of the electronic music underground push club-derived sounds into confounding, challenging new directions.