Written in Chalk is a welcome return by one of American music's great--if under-recognized--duos.

Hazards of Love won't convert anybody who already wrote the band off as overly precious bookworms with a Morrissey/Victorian ghost story fetish, but fans who have dutifully followed the Decemberists since their 2002 debut get to take home bragging rights this time around.

First off, a warning: the best way to encounter Mastodon's Crack the Skye for the first time is with headphones. Reported to be a mystical -- if crunchy -- concept record about Tsarist Russia, this is actually the most involved set of tracks, both in terms of music and production, the band has ever recorded. "Ambitious" is a word that regularly greets Mastodon -- after all, they did an entire album based on Moby Dick -- but until now, that adjective may have been an understatement. There is so much going on in these seven tracks that it's difficult to get it all in a listen or two (one of the reasons that close encounters of the headphone kind are recommended). It may seem strange that the band worked with Bruce Springsteen producer Brendan O'Brien this time out, but it turns out to be a boon for both parties: for the band because O'Brien is obsessive about sounds, textures, and finding spaces in just the right places; for O'Brien because in his work with the Boss he's all but forgotten what the sounds of big roaring electric guitars and overdriven thudding drums can sound like. The guitar arrangements on tracks like "Divinations" and "The Czar," while wildly different from one another, are the most intricate, melodically complex things the band has ever recorded. There are also more subtle moments such as the menacing, brooding, and ultimately downer cuts such as "The Last Baron," where tempos are slowed and keyboards enter the fray and stretch the time, adding a much more multidimensional sense of atmosphere and texture. Still, Crack the Skye rocks, and hard! Its shifting tempos and key structures are far more meaty and forceful than most prog metal, and menace and cosmological speculation exist in equal measure, providing for a spot-on sense of balance. Some of the hardcore death metal conservatives may have trouble with this set, but the album wasn't recorded for them -- or anybody else. Crack the Skye is the sound of a band stretching itself to its limits and exploring the depth of its collective musical identity as a series of possibilities rather than as signatures. And yes, that is a good thing.

Parish and Harvey's idea of fun might be very different than that of many other artists, but hearing them cover so much musical and emotional territory is often exhilarating.

It is perhaps a seminal new chapter in Callahan's oeuvre of higher yet lo-fi outsider music.

Poseidon and the Bitter Bug is not only solid all the way through, it feels fresh, clean, new, and chock-full of beauty.

The slower tracks don't match up to their opposites, or even the bittersweet midtempo cut 'Alienated,' but they're not enough of a snag to prevent the album from being one of 2009's most replayable R&B releases.

If Peter Bjorn and John keep putting out albums as challenging, intelligent, and emotional as this, there is no reason for anyone to get off the bandwagon any time soon.

A wild funhouse of an album, Jewelleryis more challenging and idea packed (not to mention more fun) than a lot of self-proclaimed experimental music.

It's a fantastic album, and one of the standout metal records of the year; it's just too bad that it's kind of embarrassing to admit that you're a fan.

The Blue Depths is an album first and foremost and is assembled as one. Therefore, it should be listened to that way; because the aura it creates around the listener--particularly through headphones--is nothing short of spectacular.

Success has always been Jones' revenge, and while his ringleader ways allow this autobiographical album to sometimes go wildly off concept, it's clearly his most inspired set of songs to date.

Defying Gravity builds on the skill set that gave listeners "Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing" and takes it further, seamlessly combining hook-laden crafty songwriting with a pop sensibility in the modern country vernacular that blazes a new trail and underscores Duke Ellington's dictum that there are only two kinds of music: good and bad. This is a shining case in point for the former.

Dark Days is vibrant and alive, an ever-flowing, ever-shifting, carousel of sound--some might miss the emphasis on song, but it's a ride that's hard to resist.

Perhaps fate forced Leonard Cohen's hand to stage the tour documented in part on Live in London, but it seems that fate knows just what it's doing, and this album eloquently demonstrates how much Cohen still has to offer, and how clearly his music still speaks to him (and us).

The second helping from Montreal's Bell Orchestre holds true to the Canadian instrumentalists' penchant for melodic/atonal slabs of cinematic chamber rock, but this time around they've reigned in the jerky, less-developed aspects of their work, allowing for a smooth, though still volatile blend of post-punk, classical crossover, and straight-up experimental rock.

The tone stays consistently buoyant, and a catchy chorus or a tasty guitar solo is never far away.

Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead reveals a greater maturity and lyrical polish than much of his previous work.

This is still a bright record, however, one that finds catharsis in the gloomier songs and strength in the tracks that resemble Lost Souls' measured anthems.

As immediate as Life and Times isn't nearly as diamond-hard as "Copper Blue," which is a great part of its appeal: it flows naturally, the music never pushes, it settles, comfortable in its own skin.

Yonder Is the Clock is the band's most nuanced effort to date, an effortless piece of Catskills folk and narrative know-how that shows just how far a band can grow in one year's time.

A debut that largely lives up to all the surrounding hype championing the group as one of the hottest new indie up-and-comers.

There's nothing small or careful about Fantasies--it's a full-on bid for pop glory and it's a smashing success.

His singing is of a piece with the music, at once clearer and more conventional than ever before and still touched with the reflective spoken-to-oneself melancholy that defines his work.

You Can Have What You Want falls a little short of the last record, Can't Go Back, just because it isn't as jaunty or light-hearted, but it is still an impressive work that should go a ways in providing some proof that the band has more depth and power than one might have thought if they just stuck to the surface

Forays into medieval trip-hop ("The Last Laugh") and reggae-influenced indie pop ("Jelly Bean") stretch the boundaries of the album's bedrock, but it's fun to see folk music take such unexpected turns, especially when the destination sounds this enchanting.

Where the latter two releases felt like "Hail Marys" tossed into the musical ether, Ocean serves as a return to the kind of sharp-tongued, Beatlesque retro-pop that fueled 2005's "Novelist/Walking Without Effort" and the aforementioned "Letdown."

Loud guitars, gritty vocals, and more soul than a Sunday morning sermon best sums up Carolina.