He acknowledges and celebrates musical difference, allows for those tensions to reveal themselves inside his music, and creates a dialogue that uses rhythm and harmony as unifying signifiers in his political language. Brilliant.

Much like Deftones, NIN, and Tool successfully coexist alongside their respective sibling projects, Puciato, Eustis, and Alexander have created a refreshing entity to foster an alternative outlet for their emotions and creativity with satisfying results.

It's an aural lava lamp, kicking up slow-bursting explosions of texture and sound.

The album is charmingly pretentious, confounding, and a good time all at once. Closer "Pebbles" is the only song here borrowed from their debut EP, Gothenburg, released six months earlier.

Austra may have traded some of Feel It Break's compelling rawness for a more polished approach on Olympia, but Future Politics' rare balance of poise and intensity makes it their most accomplished and emotionally satisfying album yet.

They are just as vital, exciting, and necessary as they were in the beginning and this record stands with their best work.

It just feels like a lively, deeply felt Pretenders album, one that has better songs and better performances than usual.

Fans will find that Key to the Kuffs goes from confusing letdown to intriguing mystery after just a couple listens.

Even if People or the Gun does nothing to break new barriers musically, fans of their early work will be pleased to hear a return to form.

While Midnight Soul Serenade may not be the best Heavy Trash album (their debut takes that honor), it's still some of the best rock & roll around. Anywhere, anytime.

Once it's clear that anything can happen, the lack of a common sound makes each track an exciting new proposition, allowing the listener to feel a sense of discovery despite the fact that they've been listening to Quasi for as long as two decades now.

Houndmouth have the right touch and impressive chops, but this album makes it clear they needs a songwriter who can make their music seem fresh even as it's modeled on the past.

The cumulative result is a messy, colorful modern pop record that is greater than the sum of its parts.

His ideas are expressed in a far more succinct manner, but they offer similarly powerful commentary, and the album's starkness works to its advantage, driving the tracks' points so they hit home.

It has a similarly big-screen and disparate, primarily beat-less approach to ambient music [as 2016's Under The Sun]. Each track evokes a distinct scene.

Compared to the debut, the songs are a little tighter in structure, communicate more, and bounce from style to style -- whereas Lost & Found presented an evolved, commercially minded brand of street soul -- with introspective R&B always somewhere in the mix.

The style of music being obscure to modern listeners makes this project's viability a good one, and La Llama reveals material of quality from a great ensemble of musicians.

Nude Beach aren't starting a revolution with II, but its well-crafted songs and raw-edged execution are just too damn joy-inspiring to deny.

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.

With the Mountain Goats, John Darnielle has created a vehicle where he finds ways to surprise the listener in fine ways each time out, and Bleed Out is more proof that he's one of the best storytellers indie rock has ever produced.

It's their seamless and agreeable blend of rock & roll, country, and Roky Erickson-style psychedelia, matched with a keen lyrical wit, that makes them fascinating to both sides of the pond.

The soundtrack to the Notorious B.I.G. biopic Notorious is a welcome surprise. Selections from the past (a bunch of old hits plus some wonderfully raw demos) and the present (Jay-Z's infectious collabo with Santogold) along with a hint of the legacy's future (an appearance from Biggie's son, Christopher "CJ" Wallace, Jr.) are sequenced in a way that avoids any of the bombast or misguided majesty of Born Again or Duets.

While Far is far from bad, it doesn't quite live up to expectations, either, based on all the talent involved in making it and how fully Spektor expressed herself on "Begin to Hope."

For her second solo album, the Dresden Dolls' Amanda Palmer slapped together an album-full of songs about Australia and New Zealand to coincide with her 2011 tour of the Australian continent.

All of this is worthy of re-visitation or discovery.

It's hard to argue against the use of the 2009 remasters, as this is the best the Beatles have ever sounded. And not only does this sound good, it looks good, so it's a handsome way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Beatlemania, although anybody who owns the 2009 boxes in addition to the 2004 and 2006 sets may find it hard to justify another purchase.

Despite its varying sonic proclivities, Modern Ruin is a punk album at heart, but that Carter ends this latest salvo with hope for a better, more empathy-driven future for his child shows that he's capable of more than just mosh pit-inducing invective.

More a gentle expansion than a reformulation, The Mighty Thread should appeal to established fans and other daydreamers.