Joseph Raglani's brief but quite enjoyable five-song effort isn't some sudden new stroke of artistic genius--instead it aims to hit certain strong points and does so well enough that his future work will be worth investigating.

Capping it off is the giant, bright soul that fuels "Sidewalk Memorial," and while that's a worthy exit for a project so impossibly huge, everything between the bookends is thrown about.

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.

Moh Lhean sounds a little more mature, but only relatively speaking. The project remains a creative burst of sounds, grooves, and stylized observation that's uniquely refreshing to those open to its quirky complexity.

If you are patient, there is more than enough here to hold your attention and take you on journeys through love, lust, tragedy, and longing and bring you home again.

The album is a sharp, thrilling experience, and easily one of Funk's most focused works.

Maybe there's a touch more swagger than solutions on the set, but Minneapolis' secret weapon really should have saved the title of his previous set, Never Better, for this one.

A LA SALA is Khruangbin's most stripped-down effort since their debut, but it isn't threadbare, and fans of the group should find it worthwhile.

A Mudhoney album through and through: no outright surprises sonically, but beneath the roar it's hard not to admire how their perennial piss-takes are subtly deepening and how their saturated superfuzz always sounds so good.

One of her best studio albums.

The album does what all great art does: guides its audience without giving them concrete answers (or even directions), forcing them to think for themselves instead of blindly following others, and eventually leading them, hopefully, to some kind of greater, albeit more complex, understanding of things.

Nothing here is flashy, which is keeping in a long tradition of Hunter's and is yet another reason why he's often called underrated, but when he's making records as rich and resonant as Man Overboard at the age of 70, it's hard not to listen with not a small degree of wonder.

Make no mistake, the beats are coming, as is the dread synth (that sounds like The Terminator reborn), but it's all done in the context of music that is as engaging as it is experimental.

As it stands, the album will at the very least provide a better measure of closure to Saint Vitus' turbulent but heroic career than the aforementioned, despairingly pitiful, mid-'90s demise managed to, and the group's important legacy certainly deserves that much.

While Payback's status as a concept album makes it a rarity in the hip-hop world, even rarer for that realm is an album that's more focused on a continued narrative than creating a breakout single, making the album something that's to be experienced in its entirety.

What comes out of him sounds exactly like pure expression, despite the fact that he can sing his behind off as his violin saws, stings, and flutters with considerable grace and force.

Black Dog Barking is like a safe haven for hard rock purists, offering up a safe place for people to wear jean jackets and pump their fists without irony or judgment.

Now, Then & Forever demonstrates the lasting value of the band's classic sound.

Winter and Benge often seem to be living out their fantasy of being Cabaret Voltaire members as the bloops, the bubbles, and the time-rips are all familiar devices, but so be it, and more please, and another listen for this one as well.

They may be one of many, many neo-psych bands out there in 2015 whipping up retro-flavored noise, but this record proves that they are one of the best and most imaginative.

The artist makes a convincing argument here that he too belongs in Houston's pantheon.

The slowly paced synth waves and soft bass pulsations of "Breath" close out this enjoyable album.

Like contemporaries Daya, Steinfeld, Bebe Rexha, and Dua Lipa, Larsson delivers polished R&B-influenced pop gems that shine bright like diamonds while maintaining a too-cool-for-school factor that helps to distinguish her from the bubblegum.

Clipper Ship feels like a standalone statement, one of powerful simplicity and masterful control. In stripping away almost everything, Toth's songs reveal cores of sometimes blinding beauty and unsettling honesty.

The album may take an unexpected tone, but it's not without its seductions. David Metcalf handles the majority of vocals with a haunting, Nick Cave-like quality that comes with an air of noir-ish suspense, and arrangements that highlight ensemble vocals and animated percussion without encroaching on the realm of stomping banjo folk are, at the time of release, a novelty.

It's a cozy sound, one that feels as intimate as a front porch but is delivered with the precision of seasoned pros, and having old tunes--including sweet covers of the Everly Brothers' "Walk Right Back" and Tom Petty's "Wildflowers"--threaded in between the excellent new tunes from Hillman helps make Bidin' My Time feel like an understated summation of everything Hillman's accomplished in his long, varied career.

This music is still monstrous in its unrelenting pound, and for stamina and impact, this is as satisfying as anything to come down the alternative metal highway in recent years.

Cumbia Siglo XXI is easily Meridian Brothers' most satisfying outing to date. While no less insane than its predecessors, its musicality is as abundant as it is adventuresome. Further, it pays tribute to cumbia even as it exaggerates and satirizes it with almost familial warmth and affection.