If Dave and Phil Alvin want to crank out an album like Lost Time every year until the sun finally sets on them, no one who loves blues and roots music would have any room to complain.

Face Your Fear ups the ante for Harding, bumping him from promising newcomer to major artist, and if you like good songs played and sung with true conviction, you won't want to sleep on this.

Claustrophobic yet adrenalized, Another Life is a goth-rave nightmare transmitted from an apocalyptic future.

These are the strongest and most immediate of Prekop's electronic songs, feeling more meaningful and intentional than the interesting experiments of earlier albums. It took him a few records to get here, but with Comma, Prekop finally affixes his distinctive melodic sensibilities and songwriting voice onto his electronic compositions.

By probing the heart's most vulnerable places on Meditations on Love, Susanna uncovers new angles on well-worn feelings and her music alike.

Its eight songs containing no masterpieces and Lanois' moody noir production reining in Young's messy signature. So, Le Noise winds up as something elusive and intriguing, a minor mood piece that seems to promise more than it actually delivers.

The Power of Negative Thinking isn't the whole JAMC story, but it's the whole story behind the scenes and A-side singles, and sometimes the B-sides. Even better.

Swisher may not be as immediate as Blondes was, but these ambitious, accomplished tracks offer ample proof that restraint can be exciting.

Tones of Town cements Field Music's place as one of the best pop bands of any kind operating in 2007.

Let the Good Times Roll is definitely the second coming of the rock & roll savior that fans prayed would follow Signs & Signifiers. And as the title implies, it's also one hell of a good time.

It has a rustic elegance stabilized by workmanlike drums and lively acoustic guitars.

Dirt Farmer is a hard-edged but compassionate and full-hearted set of roots music from a master of the form, and it's a welcome, inspiring return to form for Levon Helm after a long stretch of professional and personal setbacks.

The Morning Star is at once brave and solitary, gentle and bracing, provocative and spiritually resonant. It extends Bachman's reach, allowing him to paint the innermost dimensions of the world he perceives and cleave it open for light to flood in and illuminate it for us.

Everything sounds so precise, crisp, hard-hitting, and indomitable. For that exact reason, Bottomless Pit is an ideal effort for longtime fans and newcomers alike. Needless to say, whatever the type of listener, it won't be forgotten.

Her most varied and generous LP yet.

Even as PinkPantheress explores her deepest, darkest emotions, her songs are vibrant, hook-filled, and wildly inventive, making Heaven Knows just as worthy of repeated listens as To Hell with It, and confirming her status as a pop visionary.

It's a collection of moments, just like From a Room, Vol. 1, but that's the charm of From a Room, Vol. 2. Stapleton isn't crafting a major statement; he's knocking out a bunch of songs that work on their own terms--and when the two records are combined, it's clear he's the lifer he intends to be.

A Beginner's Mind is intelligent and well-crafted, and will appeal to fans of either Stevens' or De Augustine's recent work, but it somehow feels less distinct than the music they create on their own.

Anyone over the age of 40 should recognize most of what they're singing about, and even if you don't, the sweeping melancholy and epic presentation should be enough to make this deep dive into relaxed angst a journey worth taking for the third time.

Their sound is dustier, more evocative of the landscape they wander; Tassili is as desolate--and as timeless--as the desert itself.

Night Falls Over Kortadela is witty, pretty, silly, and wise; and filled with instantly memorable melodies, thrilling moments of surprise in the arrangements, and laugh-out-loud lyrics.

The only problem with the record is that there are no stand-out tracks.... That could be a fatal flaw except that the overall quality of the record is so high and the sound is so perfect, you don't feel like there is something so terribly important missing.

While Smith fans no doubt have everything contained here -- of the 18 tracks collected , each album is represented -- this disc serves as an excellent introduction to Smith's ever evolving, non-compromising art which combines high-stakes poetry with rock & roll.

Give My Love to London is as complete a portrait of the artist--at least from the late '70s on--as we've ever had. In total, it reveals no abatement in her creative renaissance.

Ultimately, the album's message is one of fearlessness and self-empowerment, and it's the most inspiring work Lotic has crafted.

The unheard tunes are all first-rate, but what's really notable about A Treasure is that it offers a compelling document of how good the International Harvesters were and, in turn, makes sense of a somewhat murky period for Neil Young.

Believers sounds much more like Bondy has simply followed his own muse for a change, and the results reveal his confidence was well founded.

With repeated listening it earns shelf space with their finest records.