Moving toward more mainstream sounds makes this album some of Autre Ne Veut's most distinct and confident music yet.

For those unfamiliar with Parenthetical Girls, it could be the perfect introduction to their fascinating music.

Thanks to the production, the overall strength of the songs, and the quietly intense energy the bandmembers put into their performances, Optica is a welcome return to form and solidifies Shout Out Louds' position as one of the best indie pop bands of their era.

Miracle Temple is gorgeous. Its songs contain poignancy, pathos, pain, and desire inside gritty yet artfully played Southern gothic rock & roll.

No matter how you feel about Pixies worship or Star Wars references, if you have an affinity for loud, fast, but brainy, punky pop that is fun and full of hooky jams that'll have you bobbing your head like a maniac, The Late Great Whatever is just what you need to make you happy.

The Raven That Refused to Sing and Other Stories is the best of Wilson's three solo projects; let's hope this particular group stays together awhile.

The album could have been pared down a bit, yet it's a drop in a bucket for Booth and Brown. Prior to this, their discography clocked in at 18 hours or so. What's another two hours?

As much as Mogwai are known for defining post-rock's sound, they're just as good at defying expectations, which Les Revenants does with an intimate, low-key brilliance.

Black Sun is an infectious, dance-oriented release that summons the new romantic spirit, if not the moussed hair and neon blush, of such '80s bands as Duran Duran, ABC, and Spandau Ballet.

Somehow managing to sound minimal and controlled even when claustrophobically arranged with ever-shifting sounds, Images du Futur improves on Suuns debut and goes even deeper into the dark sounds they've been developing and perfecting as they go.

In the main, the purpose is bedroom listening, though the tone is so bright that daytime play seems most suitable. The lyrics are packed with metaphors, yet they are expressed in a heartrending and inviting manner.

Halfway through, Girl Who Got Away sucks you into its sway, its comforts as alluring as they are elusive.

Golden Grrrls (despite actually having a bad name) made an album that embodies the best things about C-86-derived indie pop (warmth, innocence, honesty, community) and doesn't skimp on songs that make you want to get up and jump around the room with a big silly grin on your face.

While more accessible than most of his previous work, the three pieces here are just as tormented, in particular the septic relentlessness of the 18-minute title track.

Low give us a definitive chapter for where they are presently, and present it with more clarity and joy than we've heard from them in some time.

Fortunately for fans of their punishing past, New Moon smoothes out the edges without getting rid of them completely, leaving just enough rough patches here and there to remind listeners that there's still plenty of muscle hiding just below their languid façade.

The album sometimes amazingly sounds as if the Zombies had reunited in 1980 for an album produced by the Buggles' Trevor Horn, resulting in a joyful, 50-minute orgasm of chamber pop jubilation.

Welcome Oblivion is not an album that comes on forcefully, and by many measures, it's the most measured record of Reznor's career, yet it's also his most melodic, showing that this former angry young man has a design to grow old gracefully.

Honky Tonk is country facing forward informed by the past.

Hymnal's serene beauty may make it his most sublime music yet.

Added up, it's a departure for sure, but it's a swerve that's easy to follow.

Everything comes together perfectly on Lady, from beginning to end it's a dream come true for lovers of classic soul; if it had been released in 1970, it would considered a timeless classic, talked about in the kind of reverent tones reserved for Lady Soul or What's Going On.

The stories of grim wedding scenes, hospital visits, and the various disappointments of daily life are all harrowing and intense, but Crutchfield's deft arrangement of lyrical details and their slow-release impact keeps the darkness from ever coming off as self-indulgent.

This set is a stunner. Scaggs is in full possession of that iconic voice; he delivers songs with an endemic empathy and intimacy that make them sound like living, breathing stories.

What is clear, even through the sometimes heavier-than-necessary arrangements, is that Muchacho has some of Houck's best songwriting since his early days, seemingly tapped into the grainy pain, hard-living tendencies, and wandering muse of his subconscious with the most listenable results Phosphorescent has produced in years.

What's clear about Hurts on Exile is how skilled Hutchcraft and Anderson are at seamlessly incorporating their influences, so you can hear the bands' inspirations in every line even as you marvel that this album is like nothing you've heard before.

Eternity of Dimming is a beautiful, nostalgic (in the best meaning of the word) hymn to time and place, a long suite of songs that falls together like a wonderful quilt of memories.

No other artist combined such strong streetwise attitude with disarming warmth. She did it from start to finish.