Last is not the sort of music you'll want to play at a party on a Friday night, but if you're looking for the proper accompaniment as you ponder life's twists and turns on a rainy Sunday afternoon, the Unthanks will give you all the deeply shaded wisdom you could use.

At this point, EDD will probably never get the recognition they deserve, but those in the know are sure glad they're still at it.

In a word, Scandalous most certainly is; it's a party record that bleeds Saturday night into Sunday morning and beyond.

It's safe to say no one was expecting a mid-career renaissance from Cervenka when she signed to Bloodshot Records, but with Somewhere Gone and The Excitement of Maybe she's made two of the strongest and most impressive albums she's recorded outside of her work with X, confirming her status as a one of a kind talent with plenty of welcome surprises up her sleeve.

Potent stuff, any way you slice it.

This strong, satisfying, often stunning third release proves he can deliver the goods.

Stripped down, punishing, and more aloof than the two previous albums, the lack of any unifying theme makes Scurrilous a less inclusive outing, though the quintet's penchant for crafting impossibly precise breakdowns, staccato leads, and unpredictable melodies is far from diminished.

Last of the Country Gentlemen is a demanding listen; its wandering pace, startling, emotionally jarring terrain of uncalculated honesty, and obsession can be uncomfortable. That said, it is a recording of surprising originality and great beauty.

Like the trio's eerie, 2010, eponymous debut, 2011's Nightingale feels like a relic that's been spruced up, remixed, and then planted back in the earth for some future generation to stumble upon, crack open, and germinate a scene with.

Even without many fast songs, it's a well-paced album.

Nothing here's likely to attract new converts quite the way those tunes did, but this is still a very easy Mountain Goats album to like and to recommend, whether it's your first or fourteenth.

What the Obits do reasonably but not remarkably well isn't as important as where they excel on Moody, Standard and Poor, and when the pieces mesh just right, this band does guitar back-and-forth as well as anyone since Television, and rocks a whole lot harder to boot.

Really, they show a lot on Belong -- that they can take their sound to the next level, that they haven't lost any of their good-natured band-next-door charm, and most of all, that they can make a great-sounding modern rock album without selling their souls.

The photo of the band in the CD booklet shows three guys in a tight circle playing heads-down intense, and it feels like this camaraderie and dedication has paid off in a record that may not save their career commercially, but will prove that they are still vital and exciting.

As it is, Yelle will have to settle for having made a merely awesome album instead of double awesome one, which is still pretty awesome when you get right down to it.

Mind Bokeh is a masterful, thoughtful album, and even if it's not quite the dazzling leap Bibio made before, its subtler gifts are just as rewarding.

Thanks to the hooky and familiar songs, the exciting performances, and the perfectly executed aesthetic, Too Young to Be in Love is simply and truly a great rock & roll record.

It's a stronger and more satisfying piece of work than most of his other post-millennial albums, and it's the closest thing he managed to a truly effective rock & roll collaboration; it's an impressive finale to a genuinely remarkable career.

Blood Pressures is a darker, slower ride than Midnight Boom, but it shows the Kills can make subtle innovations as well as bold ones, and make them fit their signature sound to boot.

Raven in the Grave may not be what you expected going in, but by the time it's through the powerful emotions transmitted through the words, voices, and sound will win you over completely.

A Dream a While Back is an essential additional document in Higgins' legacy and adds to, not diminishes, Red Hash's legacy.

If you're looking for some great lo fi fun, WWII delivers, but anyone who wants to hear some top-shelf pop-centric rock & roll really owes it to themselves to give this a listen.

It's all quietly dazzling, a sinuous fusion of jazz, dub, and techno that pulls from German, African, Jamaican, and Latin forms without the slightest hint of stuffiness.

936 sounds like being nestled in a warm basement during the coldest winter in recent history, or the feeling of waking from a dream, somehow suspended all day.

With its slow, even pacing and spaciousness, As High as the Highest Heavens and From the Center to the Circumference of the Earth is a fantastically understated piece of headphones-ready post-rock goodness that will draw you into its depths with deceptively simple arrangements before trapping you in its sludgy melodies, making for a fantastic follow-up from this promising band.

Keys to the Kingdom may have been recorded in response to death and birth but it is, more than anything else, a celebration of all that Jim Dickinson held dear in life and music, which are, after all, the same thing.

Apocalypse is a song cycle that places the usually extremely inward-looking Callahan in the unlikely role of observer and interpreter of various American myths; myths both externally held and culturally self-referential, that inform the interior world of the protagonist.

Whatever the reason, it's a great-sounding record.