REV is the Reverend Horton Heat's strongest rock & roll album since 2000's Spend a Night in the Box, simply because it shows the Reverend and company to their best advantage: they do this stuff better than anyone, and they don't have to apologize for playing to their strengths when they can still wail like this.

It's a must for any Bloomfield fan, and hopefully will open the gates to a renewed appreciation for this brilliant, manic, and groundbreaking guitarist.

It's the Haden Triplets and their untouched yet effortless harmonies, the kind that can only be derived via the preternatural harmonic instinct shared by siblings, that provide all of the chills (the good, non-flu kind).

Vast, clamorous, and curiously beautiful, Cheatahs recalls a time and place that isn't necessarily 2014, but does so with such skill and élan you'd be a fool not to meander through time and space with these sounds.

The different textures and timbres at work on Emmaar reveal Tinariwen's evolution; one derived from the need to grow musically, as well as respond to adversity with creativity.

It is a seamless blend of Finn's longstanding popcraft and latter-day adventure, and it satisfies on both counts.

Working in long phases of slow development, Death After Life manages to pull energy from the darker corners of several splintered fields of techno to craft a strange and menacing hybrid that reaches dizzying places of both ugliness and resolution on almost every track.

Neither a denial nor a rehash of Persson's past, Animal Heart is a welcome reflection of her changing life and art.

To say that the album sounds like Hatori and Honda picked up right where they left off downplays its specialness, but there's no denying it sounds like Cibo Matto had never stopped playing together.

Exciting and moving, the songs on True Love Kills the Fairy Tale would work just as well stripped-down and spare as they do in the intricately produced electro-pop forms presented here.

The Lights from the Chemical Plant is an inspired, mercurial record, by an artist who cares deeply for tradition, but refuses to be bound by it.

It's hard to argue against the use of the 2009 remasters, as this is the best the Beatles have ever sounded. And not only does this sound good, it looks good, so it's a handsome way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Beatlemania, although anybody who owns the 2009 boxes in addition to the 2004 and 2006 sets may find it hard to justify another purchase.

The album seamlessly strolls from soaring numbers like "Lights Out" into a more stripped-down second half before ending with the gorgeous and inspired "Windows."

Rushing by with a distinct sense of economy in less than 40 minutes and heavy on counterpoint between Pollard's robust fantasy rock and Sprout's careful sentimentality, Motivational Jumpsuit is easily the most satisfying full-length of GbV's reunited, overproductive 2010s phase.

As her most satisfying, artful, and accessible album yet, St. Vincent earns its title.

Present Tense isn't as flawless as Smother; it's slightly top-loaded, and occasionally the spare instrumentation borders on monotonous. Still, it's a compelling album that shows Wild Beasts can build on their breakthrough in satisfying and challenging ways.

Mary's revelatory, palpable desire and seemingly newfound strength permeate all of The Brink, leaving you with an impression of the Jezabels as a band that's (in spirit) one part singer/songwriter, one part stadium rock god, and, ultimately, all woman.

Kin (<-->) proves that the Unity Band is the next evolution of what Metheny -- and Lyle Mays--began with PMG. Musically, this unit's musicality derives as much from feel and freedom as it does sophisticated form and function.

It's anyone's guess where Loveless will go from here, but she's already made an album that's genuinely dazzling, and Somewhere Else sounds like a real contender for best album of 2014.

Word has it that Roberts wrote these songs, not solely in his Montreal basement studio, but primarily in a sun-soaked house on a hill in Andalusia, Spain. True or not, it's certainly a warm, brightly hopeful album.

With Past Life, Lost in the Trees have risen to the occasion and crafted a record that's no less haunted, but decidedly more open to interpretation.

It's too easy to call Blame Confusion a solid first album; nevertheless, it's still a consistently entertaining and impressive debut.

Despite the album's daunting length, Harte rewards listeners with some of his most affecting and expressive music yet.

The way they join the organic and the electronic, the cerebral and the emotional on Close to the Glass makes it the most thoroughly rewarding and enjoyable album of the Notwist's career to date.

The album is one full of highlights, with a sad beauty surrounding it that makes these songs immediately deeper, more connective, and more exciting than anything Death Vessel has brought us before.

Slough Feg have always been the heavy metal equivalent of Guided By Voices (minus the supernatural prolificity), and Digital Resistance does little to tarnish that reputation, as it plays as fast and loose with the genre as it does venerate it.

While fans will appreciate a self-aware look behind the curtain, there's enough raw energy and emotion here to hook in plenty of newcomers.

Blue Film is an often unforgettable introduction.