Chamber Music, with all its throwback collabos, only faintly reminds the listener of yesteryear, but track by track it satisfies with the core Wu members sounding purposeful and sometimes even united.

To be sure, this is recognizably within his comfort zone--as always, when you do it as well as he does, there's no need to change--but beneath that supple exterior there are a few surprises, chief among them the re-emergence of Strait the songwriter.

No longer young upstarts, they wear their years proudly on this terrific album, sounding like the veteran roadhounds they've always aspired to be.

It's not that he's become Sinatra, but over the nine songs of the release he brings his ruminative, elegant creative ear to some excellent partners in the Magik Magik Orchestra.

Genre-hopping, Indianapolis-based singer/songwriter Liz Janes' fourth studio album for Asthmatic Kitty plays fast and loose with traditional indie pop themes.

James Farm offers real compositional depth and spirited, sophisticated improvisation, making for a deeply satisfying listen and a promising debut.

Had it not been for the underground releases, this disc would be one of 2012's best debuts.

Everybody's Talkin' is what every live album should be: an accurate, exciting reflection of a band at its peak, playing full-throttle and providing plenty of surprises.

This collection is proof that Kylie is arguably the best pop singer of her era and more importantly, is fun from beginning to end.

Rather than offer anything new, they instead focus on re-introducing the band as a creative unit whose capacity for musical excellence is undiminished.

Forget the limiting rubric of country-pop: this is one of the best mainstream pop albums of 2012.

He's made an album that sounds so good and authentically psych-like, and one that wraps the listener up in a warm embrace of misty melodies and cobwebbed arrangements.

In the end, it's still just a live album, but this sideline release is a must for fans, recommended for the casual techno head, and worth checking if a pumping, hypnotic, and otherworldly journey sounds attractive.

A lot of the sounds they try on Love Triangles Hate Squares fit them, and their polish and savvy suits them as well as the slicked-back pompadours they wear on the album's artwork.

Quite a bit bluer and calmer, where her previous music featured the four-on-the-floor pep of traditional house, this album falls closer to witch house and the rainy gloom associated with trip-hop.

Nothing Can Stop Us is a triumph for the backing band, but Campbell's number has been due for years, and now that it's been pulled, it's time to wake the town and tell the people.

Perhaps it can be too sweet, too cloying at times, but it's warm and ingratiating, suggesting The Blow Monkeys can ease into a convincing middle age.

The album is full of straightforward and jangly guitar pop, full of hooks and production turns that would feel at home on mixtapes of early-'90s underground alternative acts, the likes of which Pritchard himself belonged to and came up with.

The Soul of the Hour confirms that Gallon Drunk are bloodied but unbowed, still raging against the world around them and just as powerful as ever.

It makes the album a true pleasure to listen to, and Physical World gives Game Preserve a run for its money as Davenport's best stuff yet.

Cook's second full-length, 2014's Twice, follows in the same path as her debut, featuring nine tracks dominated by Cook's smooth, slyly sexy voice and arrangements that keep the grooves light but dance-friendly at once.

Bright Side of Down should resonate with Gorka's fans and those of modern American folk music.

Real is a rare metalcore album with enough depth to demand repeat listening, which definitely won't disappoint the band's die-hard fans.

It's a nifty record: a double-edged throwback, evoking the singer/songwriters of the '60s but sounding like a different part of that decade, which is why its retro-ism winds up as invigorating.

The surfaces of Overjoyed might surprise a few longtime Half Japanese fans, but at heart this is still the passionate expression of a man who has embraced this life and its many curious possibilities, and that certainly fits with this group's narrative while allowing just a bit more room for new explorers to consider his world view.

Even if Museum of Love sometimes comes across as a sampler of DFA sounds past and present, it's an album that those who enjoy the label's output will almost certainly like, and a promising debut in its own right.

The only disappointment here is that the album is basically only five songs, so here's hoping it's just a taste of more to come.

Though Papich sometimes captures the state of an overloaded attention span almost too well, No No's fragments of meaning add up to some of his most fully realized music.