Occasionally, MassEducation borders on being too stark for its own good, but the songs hold their power in this unvarnished setting.

Created in a time of turmoil, Fighting Season is an album that always reflects the era that informed it, and while Thalia Zedek never pretends to have all the answers, her musings are brave, literate, and full of heart, and this is an important statement from an important artist.

Cherry's songs here are deeply meditative, often implying or directly expressing sorrow regarding planetary afflictions rooted in fear.

Hiatt's band (Yates McKendree on guitar, Patrick O'Hearn on bass, Kenneth Blevins on drums, Kevin McKendree on keys) lays a lean but eloquent groove behind his performances, and the audio is rich and clear. One hopes for his sake that John Hiatt's life is happier than The Eclipse Sessions may suggest, but either way he's given us a dark night of the soul that's compelling and beautifully crafted.

Pink is the work of a band in love with music, doing it for kicks alone and not worried at all about being cool or cute. It's refreshing and fun and some of the best pop music anyone is likely to hear in the late 2010s.

Its six anthems burn with Ilunga's desire to prove himself, and the years he spent refining Noirwave paid off: His vision of a proud pan-African culture is in clearer focus and more relevant than ever.

Lyrics like the closer's "No more listening today" and "No one left here today" may apply to some returning fans, but the invigorated approach to production, arrangements, and, in many cases, performances makes for a still highly listenable set that's at least as likely to excite as to challenge.

Five albums in, Cloud Nothings version of maturing is to go harder and louder than ever--and they sound all the better for it.

On ["Love Means Taking Action"] and throughout The Anteroom, Krell sounds revitalized; by revisiting his noise-drenched past with the experience he's gained since then, he delivers an album that's just as impressionistic as his early work, and possibly even more adventurous.

Wasteland is another example of Uncle Acid's genius, and more evidence that they are the best metal band (apart from Black Sabbath) of the early '70s.

Blasting through 11 songs in less than half-an-hour, Pre Strike Sweep never settles into one mode or frame of reference for long. Instead, the album drags and scrapes itself into being for its entire duration, angry and bleeding and looking for new angles with every new riff, crash, and tortured scream.

While familiar-sounding, the soundtrack brings something new to the table instead of being a pointless retread, and in general, it just sounds amazing. Definitely worthwhile for any Carpenter or Halloween fans.

Few bands have the courage to trust fully in it and/or in their ability to not only maintain but give heart and texture to it, but Cave do, and the result is riveting. Allways is their warmest-sounding record to date, and its Delphic charms are a pleasure to get lost in.

This may be familiar to the dedicated whose allegiance never wavered, but for those who believed R.E.M. faltered after Berry's departure, R.E.M. at the BBC is a gateway into the band's last act.

Her most varied and generous LP yet.

At its best, which it often is, Here If You Listen plays like a hybrid of Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell and CSN, a combination that is soothing and surprising in equal measure. It's an album that confirms that Crosby is at an unexpected and satisfying latter-day creative peak.

On Aviary, Holter answers the chaos of 21st century life by following her bliss; the results are a constellation of moments that celebrate the fullness of her music and, as always, make for fascinating listening.

This is a Western album where ghost towns stand silent and the stars shine bright at night, but the heroes don't so much ride off into the sunset as sink into a shimmering haze of a late-afternoon mirage.

A thoughtfully curated soundtrack, Bohemian Rhapsody offers a compelling narrative of Queen's storied arc into rock legend.

Self-aware and unrepentant, the Struts succeed where other artists who look to the past often fail, in large part because, like the Darkness before them, they possess both pop smarts and considerable amounts of moxie.

In looking to capture the ugliness of humanity and parse through the despair that slithers malevolently in its wake, Daughters have crafted their most vital outing to date.

Segall didn't write any of the songs on Fudge Sandwich, but these performances are as much his as anything that's come from his pen, and if you still need to be convinced that he's one of the freest and most adventurous minds in contemporary rock & roll, this might just do the trick.

Although not for the casual music listener, the song ["Legacy of Neglect"] and the album work not only because of Leonard's good melodic and dramatic instincts, but because he is equally charismatic with both quiet acoustic song and outraged, off-balance rock. In this way, the album's riveting album rock-slash-exasperated art rock is reminiscent of figures like Bowie and Reed while remaining completely idiosyncratic.

Steeped in the lurching, groove-laden thrash attack of the band's late-'90s/early-2000s heyday, Ritual evokes the savagery of Cavalera's tenure with Sepultura, eschewing some of the more overt world music predilections that have come to define Soulfly over the years with something leaner and more uncompromising.

Unlike similarly conceived recordings, this doesn't act as a pleasant backdrop for engaging in other activities; instead, it quietly refuses revelation without active participation from the listener.

Through a Wall is as smart, powerful, and articulate--or simply as good--as punk rock gets in the 2010s.

She Remembers Everything is a challenging and rewarding set from an artist who is at the peak of her abilities, and if anyone needs to be reminded that Rosanne Cash is one of America's best and smartest songwriters, all they need to do is spend some time with these songs.

As an unofficial soundtrack for ritual madness, religious ecstasy, sex, winemaking, and song, Dionysus excels.