"An Evening with Dusty" further reveals why Dunn's work is so consistently enjoyable.

The Riverboat Gamblers have shown they can evolve without losing the plot, and if The Wolf You Feed isn't their best album, it's smart, ambitious, and rocks with authority, sounding fresh and exciting in ways you might not have expected.

This "less is more" approach shows off the wealth of songwriting these two have cultivated in their other projects, and makes Criminal Heaven a beautifully blissful debut that is warm, comforting, and typically Swedish in the best way possible.

Ultimately, in I Was a Cat from a Book, Yorkston has delivered a measured, wise, and life-affirming record, which has the power to inspire.

White Lung make their case as one of the best bands of their kind anywhere with Sorry, picking up where they left off two years ago almost seamlessly while innovating just enough to ready them for a larger stage.

Swallow this album whole, letting the peaks and valleys of its cinematic reach melt into one another as it moves forward toward its soft sprung conclusion.

For now, Dark Roots of Earth improves upon 2008's comeback The Formation of Damnation and, in tandem with those rejuvenated live performances, promises a well-deserved second act for a band that so narrowly missed grasping the golden ring their first time around.

Billy Joe Shaver is one of a kind, and this set proves it; it makes an excellent introduction for anyone not familiar with his singular talent.

This open-minded vision was already quite evident on prior Ihsahn solo albums, of course, but on Eremita it arguably flowers more confidently than ever before.

A surprisingly compact album, Tracer covers a lot of musical ground in under 40 minutes, and on the whole it feels like a love letter to electronica's formative days (or like an album they might have sampled from in the past).

Foxygen has made something that reaches out for so many possibilities it ends up reverting inward, ultimately sounding insular, like a highway of endlessly firing synapses in someone elses' brain.

Suffice to say that In the Lair of the Sun God delivers from start to finish, and can't even be marred by Dawnbringer main man Chris Black's strained singing, which falls somewhere between Lemmy, Slough Feg's Mike Scalzi, and frequent collaborator Blake Judd of Nachtmystium, but fits right in with his band's lo-fi aesthetic.

His sound was a forward-thinking and richly engaging blend of African roots music, the makossa (urban popular music) of his native Cameroon, and the then-emerging electronic music movement.

Dear's vocals are at their most expressive, imposing, and sinister.

En Yay Sah is easily the most auspicious--and original--debut album of 2012.

The mood is thick and cloaking, and the album represents a continuing development toward the best and most captivating material of Caminiti's expansive body of work.

While A Thing Called Divine Fits might be a shade less eclectic than Boeckner, Brown, and Daniel's other projects, it's hard to find fault when the results are this consistently catchy.

Four may not be as cohesive as Silent Alarm, but it just might be more vital.

Antibalas is a welcome return; its slight shift in direction and production nuances reveal just how sophisticated this ensemble is, expanding the Afro-beat sound in the 21st century without sacrificing its heart.

The result is an album not only more interesting, but far more enjoyable.

The approach is dubwise, but the result is unique -- it simultaneously pushes familiar musical buttons and sounds like nothing else that has come before.

Sun lives up to its name, but its album cover is more revealing: like the rainbow crossing Marshall's face, these songs are the meeting point between a stormy past and optimism for the future.

Hot Cakes is definitely worthy of throwing more than a few devil horns the band's way.

Ten tight tracks, and that includes the epic "Intro," puts this on the man's top-shelf, where it sits next to The Reason as the album's flashy little brother.

This is the worthy sequel to the group's Madlib collaboration In Search of Stoney Jackson, and that's meant as high praise.

It's a return to form and just what fans of Cliff's early work could ask for, but it's vital too, putting it on the man's top shelf, somewhere in the vicinity of The Harder They Come soundtrack and Wonderful World, Beautiful People.

Nude Beach aren't starting a revolution with II, but its well-crafted songs and raw-edged execution are just too damn joy-inspiring to deny.

Breakup Song is fresh and addictive enough to make listeners fall in love all over again.