A gorgeous showcase that brings together everything you've ever loved about Wareham's music, Emancipated Hearts isn't just a mini-album, it's a minor masterpiece.

Free Humans is a dense album, with sounds stuffed into every available space and fields of ideas painstakingly arranged on each song. Both precisely calculated and boundlessly imaginative, Free Humans creates an expansive world in which Hen Ogledd can continue to sculpt their bizarre brand of pop music.

Like most odds and ends collections, The Fine Print is uneven and doesn't match the consistent quality of the Drive-By Truckers' usual work, but nearly all of these tracks are too genuinely good to have been left to gather dust, and even the DBTs' scraps can make for a pretty satisfying meal.

All in all, this is a rare sophomore album that widens the band's sound without narrowing its appeal.

While there are moments of quiet reflection and affection here, Paul still embraces dissonant alt-rock textures on parts of the album, including on opener "My Blood Runs Through This Land," a noisy, borderline shoegaze-metal entry with menacing chords and barely intelligible lyrics.

Whiteout Conditions shows they're already brighter and more satisfying than just about any of their peers.

There is undeniably something almost romantic about the duo's newfound acceptance of relationships, even if the main evolution is that they now view them as a necessary evil, rather than simply evil.

Hypnotic Underworld is a new high-water mark from one of rock's most interesting bands.

Aereogramme combines abrasive guitars, feedback, and distorted vocals into rock that, in its own way, is as crunchy and dynamic as Weezer, though as decidedly outsider as Mogwai.

Radian created a record that listeners have to let envelope them slowly -- and, if patient enough, Juxtaposition will reveal treasures from an aural dig that are a wonderful, satisfying surprise.

Tyrannosaurus Hives might be a little more complex and polished than the Hives' earlier work, but it's not overthought at all; even though they've evolved, they know how to keep it simple, stupid.

While the band still needs to develop more of its own sound, there's enough promise in stellastarr* to suggest that they might.

On Trouble in Dreams, Bejar and Destroyer have also shown that they can continue to write the literate, complex songs they and their audience love and expand and explore new melodic territory successfully.

How exactly these songs fit together with "Holes"' delicate plucking and the title track's pixelated folk might be locked in Fol Chen's brains, but even if there are more pieces of their puzzle-pop missing here than there were on John Shade, Your Fortune's Made, The New December is never boring.

Revelation Road is the quietest record of Lynne's career, but it feels like her rawest, too, even as it offers, in small bits and pieces, the varying shades, complexities, and pleasures in her musical world.

A few of Liam Finn's fans may be a bit puzzled by the more outré experiments on The Nihilist, but he's still writing great tunes and bringing them to life in an exciting way, and that--as much as the musical shape-shifting on these sessions--is what makes this album worthwhile.

For a band that has consistently switched up their direction with each successive album, the biggest surprise is not that To Be Everywhere Is to Be Nowhere once again manages to add fresh ideas to the Thrice catalog, but that a band 17 years into their career still has new directions to travel.

[The] spirit of fun and togetherness carries even the heaviest moments of the record, making it another valuable example of the unique magic Neil and Crazy Horse keep tapping into, even so many years on.

Nobody's Girl is sometimes tough to listen to as Shires pulls no lyrical punches, but it's never less than compelling, fearless, and brilliantly crafted. As an act of musical exorcism, it's breathtaking.

While they're too nonconformist to be a traditional punk band, they continue to define themselves as something more challenging and encompassing.

Even if The Night Is Young could have been improved by better editing, it's still a welcome return from one of dance's most endearing acts.

Whether or not these songs are ever played next to the latest dance music sensation at a club, Salon des Amateurs is a bold, accomplished work that ranks among Hauschka's most exciting albums.

Despite the overwhelming emotions, Never Let Me Go is an exercise in control and expert execution that finds Placebo on another level of songwriting and point of view, a welcome surprise at this stage in their careers.

Richly layered and emotive even by Hercules & Love Affair's standards, Omnion is equally committed to moving hearts and bodies.

More tonally diverse and thoughtfully arranged than the Bottoms' previous output, Going Grey is still wily enough to please longtime fans while adding new layers to their sound.

The Limiñanas sound like they're too cool and nonchalant to even have a phone, much less use one to make a less than great record.

That Magdalena Bay also augment their capital "P" pop melodies with industrial textures, shoegaze flourishes, and plenty of funked-out bass grooves means that Mercurial World offers both sugary melodic highs and deeper sonic layers to explore.

JPEGMAFIA's confrontational personality can be overbearing at times, especially to listeners who don't consider themselves to be chronically online, but his production is always stellar, and his sheer creativity is unparalleled. I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU is up there with LP! as the artist's most accessible work to date.