As they reclaim the sounds of their roots on Send a Prayer My Way, Baker and Torres bring out the best in each others' music.

I Can't Imagine is confident, assured, and fiercely independent.

It is a more stripped-down affair compared to Broken Social Scene's more ambitious material.

Bajas Fresh is a masterful union of the group's jazz, Krautrock, and new age inspirations, and another rewarding chapter in their saga.

With Love Hates What You Become, Lost Under Heaven hit you in the heart right out of the gate, but then spend the rest of the album building you back up, hammering a crack into reality to let the light in. The album sticks with you even after coming to its crashing end.

It's an amazing, cool, and filling mix, and with Homeboy himself being that right mix of persuasive and challenging, First of a Living Breed is an easy recommendation for any lyric-loving hip-hop head.

T.I.'s fourth album isn't the leap forward he's been threatening to make, but it does carry the best set of productions he has been given to work with, and it guarantees that he won't be leaving the singles charts any time soon.

Like most live albums, Dream Attic is more about the playing than the material, which is a bit different from the way a new Richard Thompson set works, but when it captures a band this good playing with this authority, that's hardly anything to fret about.

Even with thirty-plus years behind them, Corrosion of Conformity can still reach the nosebleed seats without sacrificing any integrity. It may all feel a little familiar, but it still burns going down.

Californian Soil is a standout in London Grammar's catalog and a significant step forward in the trio's artistic maturation.

Not many bands are able to rekindle their fire when the flame goes out as drastically as in Wavves' case. V shows that they're one of the few to pull it off, and they even sound better than ever.

While Root for Ruin isn't the creative reawakening that Let's Stay Friends was, it might be the band's tightest and most polished album yet.

Celebration, Florida is a brave step forward for the Felice Brothers, but one taken with care and confidence, and it's a powerful achievement from a talented and genuinely important band.

While there are definite left-field aspects to Life Fantastic, fans of crossover-indie rock groups like Modest Mouse and Spoon should be able to get behind the angular pop of "Shameless" or the backwater bluegrass-rock of "Life Fantastic."

The nine songs here represent her most ambitious and daring experiments yet, while retaining the considerately dreamy core that sets her work apart from any number of other soft-spoken spaceheads.

"Awaken, My Love" is a stone-cold blast from beginning to end.

Spacy yet grounded, cosmic yet physical, Insides is a satisfying journey and Fort Romeau's finest music yet.

Origami Harvest may not work for everybody, but for those who take the time to explore the unexpected bends and folds in Akinmusire's construction, a wealth of discoveries can be found.

Dear is proof positive that this trio are far from running on empty; hopefully, the rest of these sessions will see release soon.

As familiar as the psychedelic reference points may be, Jennifer Gentle are able to distill them into something contemporary, or at least make listeners feel like contemporaries of a psychedelic era, both past and present.

On their sixth album, the Caribbean find themselves in perhaps their strongest sonic mode yet.

Arty tropes aside, with Undivided Heart & Soul, McPherson continues to pull all of his varied stylistic influences together into his own vibrantly coherent brand of visceral, emotive rock that grabs you by the collar and demands your passion.

Rushing through in a cloud of distortion and broken snares is fine, but a little subtlety goes a long way to making a band stick around longer. Beach Bunny and Lili Trifilio seem built for the long run and it will be fascinating to listen to them grow.

Emotional Mugger is a stiff shot of raw, cocky joy that hits its target beautifully.

Three Easy Pieces is the sort of reunion album that happened for the right reasons - because these players still work well together and have good songs to share - and anyone who ever cared about this frequently underrated band will want to hear them in this impressive return to form.

The Tree of Forgiveness is autumnal John Prine, but it's also a potent reminder that his remarkable skills as a songwriter and his rough-hewn excellence as a singer haven't failed him yet.

Time will tell, of course, but in The Calling, Carpenter may have her finest moment yet; it also feels like an artistic rebirth.

The Hard Way, his debut for Hear Music, is a tad tougher--the horns are more prominent and sharper, Hunter's guitar has more bite to it, and the rhythms cut deeper--and quicker; at times Hunter veers closer to soul-rock than he has in the past, but he's still working well within his favorite genre.