It's a varied yet unified set with lots of high points.

This is a superb album from a master of contemporary pop, and if you like a good melodic song well performed, you're going to love Hit Parade.

It's an album that never feels overstuffed, even at its most wandering.

Nearly everything on this typically fine set of work, sound like future fan favorites and live staples.

It's a melancholy but never depressing 50 minutes that proves what an under-the-radar talent Jeffreys remains, and indicates that his best work might even be ahead of him.

Banga is an event; it's not only provocative and expansive lyrically, but abundantly enjoyable musically.

While WIXIW might be a shade less ambitious than some of their previous albums, it's still fascinating to hear Liars wield beauty and delicacy just as formidably as they've used force and noise in the past.

A standout. What the World Needs Now welcomes back a sorely missed S3 with all the rowdy joy intact. Nobody plays it like this.

This one doesn't leave you feeling hungry or stuffed, just fully satisfied.

Generals, like What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood, may use the past as its foundation, but it was put in place by some forward-thinking engineers.

The album holds together sonically like it was bonded by super glue, yet there's enough variation between the tracks to make Manifest! a very enriching listen that takes listeners to the middle of an excitingly sweaty dancefloor, keeps them company on the long cab ride home, and soothes them on the quiet morning after.

It's an album only an old pro could make and it's one of the best this ever-reliable singer has ever done.

Here, he has crafted them into something startlingly new, although that '70s spirit of pimp-hand-up-top, bell-bottoms-down-below is intact the whole way.

This music is welcoming and accessible, underscoring the notion that Garrett's new compositions have that mercurial something in them that approaches the mysterious nature of song itself.

The Plot Against Common Sense shows that Future of the Left are still fighting the good fight, even if the ranks have changed a bit.

That Metric were able to follow up their best record with another just as good is quite an achievement, hopefully something they will do again and again.

An album that's just as vital as it is accomplished.

The Chris Robinson Brotherhood spends their time doing what comes naturally, and the music flows easily, even alluringly, as they jam with no care of when they began or where they will end.

On The National Health, Smith and the rest of the band seem revitalized by the time off, delivering some of their catchiest and widest-ranging songs since their debut, A Certain Trigger.

Instinct is a vivid and varied debut, and ultimately a more rewarding listen than if Niki and the Dove had just explored one facet of their sound.

This sparkling, streamlined display adds up to great headphone candy, but ultimately it's a record made for booming club speakers.

Do Things is a cool treat of a record, filled with catchy and sweet songs that have a relaxed and easygoing happiness that is impossible to resist.

A wandering, fuzz-cloaked journey that has fingerprints of the best qualities of their Austin music brethren -- the fiery energy of Trail of Dead, the druggy exploration of Charalambides -- as well as of classic rock and college rock favorites, and is presented in a way that feels familiar but has been thoughtfully crafted to obscure those fingerprints into something new.

Metheny and [sax player, Chris] Potter are free to sprint and they do; both dazzle with their lyric invention and knotty, imaginative, nearly boppish solos. The two front-line players are surely at their best in one another's company.

This is an absorbing and engaging album that shows Howe Gelb's vision to its best advantage.

Great Chicago Fire is that rare collaboration where both sides seem to inform one another equally and derive new strengths from teaming up.

This work reaffirms her status as one of the leading artists in contemporary folk.

When you strip back the eccentric arrangements and lush production, Watkins can still deliver.