Hospital Handshakes offers tarnished but steely hope forged from an extended period in a personal and spiritual wilderness. Its determination marks the end of this transition (and trilogy) and exposes a new and open road that will likely serve as instructive to the listener as it did the songwriter.

If the title suggests a concept that isn't quite there, the music speaks for itself, and what it says is eloquent and deeply pleasing.

The appeal of Down to My Last Bad Habit feels more Memphis than Nashville: it's Vince Gill's soul album, which is a welcome thing indeed.

Even if it's not as full of surprises as the original album was, E-MO-TION [Side B] might be even more cohesive--and should delight fans of perfectly crafted pop just as much.

Transit Blues isn't a jarring turn for the Dayton, Ohio band, but it provides enough newly inspired touches to warrant attention in the group's catalog.

Overall, Pollie presents a wistful and warm little microcosm that subtly builds on the foundation of his debut.

Wobble has been on a creative tear for decades with a few significant breaks. The Usual Suspects reveals its scope with sophistication, savvy, and humor. Essential.

Vibras is more consistent and varied than Energia. Its songwriting, performances, and production are truly inspired, making for an utterly compelling listen and one of the essential soundtracks of summer.

Lines, Vols. 1–3 continues to look to the past for inspiration, yet it does so with a contemporary flair, deftly utilizing the airy, chamber pop stylings of musical arranger and producer Adrian McNally.

The result is one of the brightest and most open-hearted LPs of Sexsmith's long career; his vocals in particular have always felt chronically pensive, but he sounds comfortable in a new way on these songs, not exactly outgoing but with just enough playfulness to be easily noticeable.

Thoughtfully conceived and crafted, Baudelaire & Piano is another bewitching example of what a sensitive and creative interpreter Susanna is -- she lets all the nuances of the poet's words shine through while remaining true to her own muse.

It's an impressive, filler-free debut that manages to be both uplifting and poignant, almost from beginning to end.

The Bats' ability to achieve beautiful new results by returning time and again to the same specific set of sounds and inspirations remains one of the best things about the band.

Willie sounds younger here than he has in years. He seems to be singing with a smile, as buoyed by his band as he is by these standards, a quality that gives That's Life an endearing kick.

Wide-ranging without seeming scattered, PostHuman is an effortlessly accomplished work.

It's Not Them. It Couldn't Be Them. It Is Them! is superior work from a great rock band. If this is going to be typical from this point on, we're all pretty fortunate.

The live performance here by the Ensemble Intercontemporain (a group that once upon a time would have had little to do with Reich) is sharp, and the Salle Boulez at the Philharmonie de Paris serves the work well acoustically.

At every turn, Diablo puts pleasure front and center, and it's a lot of fun to hear Gurnsey reimagine what gets the dancefloor moving.

There is no question that The Bootleg Series, Vol. 7: That's What Happened 1982-1985 will cause controversy among jazz fans. But it isn't for them. It's for Miles Davis fans and presents an unvarnished taste of him -- from the cutting room floor no less -- attempting to reinvent himself one last time.

Anderson's gift is less about her technical virtuosity, than in her ability to contain complex moods and emotions in even the sparest of parts. Aptly titled with its comma-assisted double meaning, Still, Here is indeed a meditation on both resilience and stillness of the mind.

The Soft Struggles is a delightful addition to the Field Music-adjacent family with plenty of its own personality to set it apart.

Stewart, Seo, and Kendrick make every tragedy and outrage feel fresh, and those who thrill when Xiu Xiu are willing to go to the places many artists won't will be awed by Ignore Grief's ferocious empathy.

While Of Tomorrow might not seem too wildly removed from the rest of the band's body of work on first listen, the space it carves out for subtle details and bleary emotional expressions makes it an album that requires closer inspection to grasp its full scope.

Toil and Trouble's themes of trauma, denial, and redemption bear some of the hallmarks of Terry Gilliam's 1991 fantasy-drama The Fisher King, as much like Robin Williams' homeless knight errant, it's both meditative and mad.

If the individual songs don't quite differentiate themselves, that's not precisely a detriment, as King is on an explicit interior journey, ensuring that his music mimics his moods. He doesn't avoid darkness, but he chooses not to wallow, finding instead a measure of peace in the emotional expression itself.

The laid-back "Time Will Tell" is bound to prompt comparisons to certain late-'70s soft rock hits but has a lonesome if sanguine character all its own. Even lighter in touch, "Dime" ("tell me") is a lush, Tropicália-inspired duet with Chilean singer/drummer Cancamusa that flashes back to when Frazer's romance was blossoming.

On Limits of Language, they specifically utilized a handful of synthesizers to craft their intricate songs. What's particularly engaging about the band's production here is that, rather than trying to get the keyboards to stand in or mimic other instruments, you can really hear them drawing inspiration from the specific sounds of each synthesizer.

Ecce Homo registers as strong, wildly creative, focused, and vulnerable. It may be his solo masterpiece.