These are dazzlingly collaborative performances that reveal Redman and Mehldau to be a highly intuitive and harmonically adroit team.

A bewitching album from an artist at the peak of her powers.

While the Frkwys series is known for its (mostly) consistent excellence, this volume is a clear standout within it.

As with any patten release, it takes a few listens to wrap your head around what they're doing, but taking the effort to decode their work proves to be incredibly rewarding.

This is the most pleasing Usher album in over a decade. In terms of ability, agility, and creativity, Usher's vocals still crush the commercial competition.

Personal yet inviting, If You See Me, Say Yes is a lovely debut and a strong addition to Wasner's growing canon.

It would be easy to say that I Had a Dream That You Were Mine rivals Rostam and Leithauser's past work, but it's better to say that it's the beginning of a great partnership.

At all times, Miller and his associates are on the same page. Another aspect that makes this the rapper's most fulfilling album is that all the lines about being saved and in awe seem to be expressed with as much ease as the anatomical references, like they're plain facts, not wrenching confessions.

ArtScience is an excellent step forward.

Assbring's discovery of the world of sounds, and the inspiration it gave her, has helped provide El Perro del Mar with a stunning upgrade, and KoKoro stands as one of the best works of her already pretty great career.

Secular Hymns feels like you are sitting in the front row of an intimate Peyroux concert.

Heads Up proves that the quick turnaround suits them; instead of seeming rushed, the album feels spontaneous and fearless.

Impressively, Krell continues to find new approaches within his style; even though Care's clarity is the polar opposite of Love Remains, it feels equally true.

The album's overall effect is one of strolling along a seaside path, maybe with a stray dog and a straw hat, in a less-frequented village somewhere far from home, and it's one of Banhart's most satisfying.

It's a tough act to consistently maintain, but they've delivered another artful, well-crafted release.

Iit's the assemblage that delivers the difference, and that's enough. Given its relative brevity, it's among the few albums in their catalog that doesn't leave the listener exhausted (not a bad thing by any means), but wanting more.

Ultimate Painting may not reach the commercial heights of either guy's main band, but it is fully the equal and in some ways more interesting. Certainly if you're a fan of Veronica Falls or Mazes, you'll want to check this out right away.

It's an impressive feat of reinvention that manages to keep Vernon's emotional core fully intact no matter how far the music strays from established Bon Iver territory.

Ultimately, with Young as the Morning Old as the Sea, Passenger has crafted an album that, not unlike the oceans, fields, roads, and relationships that inspired it, remains with you, calling you to return.

American Band is an op-ed column with guitars, and it presents a message well worth hearing, both as politics and as music.

Easily Forma's most ambitious work to date, Physicalist is a winning expedition.

On Orphée, Jóhannsson expresses the need to let some things and people go to let new ones in with remarkable nuance, as well as the affecting beauty fans have come to know and love.

The colorful textures and lush arrangements are a change of pace. Some fans may miss the heavier guitar attack of Commune, but the band carry off this new approach like the true sonic explorers they are.

Comforting but never dull, it's a reminder that the familiar can be just as inspiring as the foreign.

It's easily the most accomplished work yet from the mighty S U R V I V E, who tower over the majority of other synth-wave revivalists.

While it goes further musically than their two previous outings, it contains enough of the past to exist in a new space that claims the terrain between Watershed and Heritage. Brilliant.

Banks packs enough energy and zeal at the starting line to duly lay waste to whoever was foolish enough to break her heart.

Though Never Enough certainly succeeds in providing classic infectious rock that sidesteps the often formulaic glaze of contemporary pop, above all else, it's just great fun.