While every bit as spare as some of his previous work, the slow-motion spaciousness of the album feels more rewarding and lasting, ultimately feeling like a guided journey through one soul's season of heavy times and beautiful resolution.

The most impressive thing about Love is Dead might be that as big as its sound gets, Chvrches never lose touch with the humanity that's at the core of their music.

Less immediate than its predecessor, Let's Try the After still manages to engage the listener with its innovative instrumentation and serpentine melodies, and as a bite-sized sampler of where the band is headed, it more than suffices.

It's an engaging delight that will grow on old fans and likely win Flasher plenty of new ones.

Nugent may not distinguish himself from his influences on Night Vision, but, like fellow guitar slinger Ryley Walker, he couldn't care less. He's only interested in playing the music he likes and growing from what he learns in doing so. In the process, we get a killer rock & roll album.

While Cook's credentials are undeniably impeccable, they don't outshine her talent, and she just keeps getting better.

As with the band's previous albums, Souljacker bristles with pop euphoria and cracking production... but just like those previous albums, Souljacker ultimately falls a bit flat over the course of its extended running time.

It finds Mellencamp at a kind of peak, turning out vividly socially conscious roots rock that works not because of the message, but because the music is seductive and sinewy enough to deliver the message.

Stirring, unpretentious yet powerful, Halos & Horns effectively continues Parton's glorifying of her mountain roots.

It all blends together a little bit too much to be distinctive and, as such, it has a faint feel of product, a slow seduction record for the Timbaland-worshipping hipster set.

In some ways, Riot Act is the album that Pearl Jam has been wanting to make since Vitalogy -- a muscular art rock record, one that still hits hard but that is filled with ragged edges and odd detours.

With an inspired cast of co-producers and guest vocalists, Movement in Still Life takes on electro-funk and breakbeat techno with plenty of room for nods to the kind of epic trance that made his name on dancefloors all over the world.

Everything is predictable and sounds like something Cave has done before. The Bad Seeds' edges are smoothed over by the too-slick production; Cave's lyrics are not provocative or funny or much of anything worth hearing.

Bette is a tasteful album that showcases Midler's expressive singing but avoids her excesses.

You get a lot of elastic, post-punk guitar explorations (à la Mission of Burma)--as evidenced by such standouts as the album opening 'Your Movement' and 'Tremble.' But then just when you think you have the Shackelton lads figured out, the Joy Division-ish 'Soft Heart' comes peaking around the corner.

by Tony Brown, Call Me Crazy underscores his greatest strength: getting the essence of a vocalist across in a mix; but also his greatest weakness: the seeming inability to leave a musical backdrop until it's cluttered to death.

The tone stays consistently buoyant, and a catchy chorus or a tasty guitar solo is never far away.

Songs are allowed as much time as they need, but the album as a whole is economical and right-sized at 11 tracks. This is highly enjoyable weekend music from the underground, nothing more, nothing less.

For a style of electronica (chillout/downtempo) that's grown decidedly dusty over the past decade--even though Bonobo is clearly striving to move well beyond such staid genre divisions, and in many ways succeeding, that's probably still the best place to slot him if you gotta--Black Sands is a welcome infusion of life and warmth.

Dubstep's increasingly Americanized impact can be sensed in the bass wobbles of "Black Nails," while trance's long shadow in turn crops up in "Real Is a Feeling." Not to mention the title and feeling of "Trancegender"--but why not go all out, after all?

The Russian Wilds is Howlin Rain's most accessible recording, but enormous ambition and musical mastery of rock & roll's mighty past make it an essential one, too.

As with the first album things follow a basic title format of band name and number, giving the sense of installations in a larger process. Sometimes that results in things that steer away from re-creation to new inspiration.

Throughout its just-over-30-minute runtime--very punk--Graffin and company take on everything from gospel, Americana, and bluegrass to Crazy Horse-esque pre-grunge and breezy Laurel Canyon country-pop, and that they do so with such gusto makes Millport feel like less of an outlier, and more like guys making the best of a power outage.

Recalling contemporary debuts by names like Anna Burch and Madison Cunningham in terms of its polished sophistication, consistency, and fault-finding lyrics, Trophy introduces a songwriter fully formed.

Those days are far enough in the past to make this entire MTV Unplugged an exercise in nostalgia, a sentiment underscored by the rose-colored solo song "Once," but Liam is still in fine form, making this record an endearing and entertaining listen for anybody who shares fond memories of the glory days of Cool Britannia.

This is a return to the epic 12-minute suites of releases like Truant and Rival Dealer, flashing back to some of the same samples and themes. Second side "Boy Sent from Above" is the more soul-searching of the two, with lonely vocals calling out from the fog of vinyl crackle and spray can shaking.

While there's a sense that Moroney is well aware of her pop star status, on Cloud 9 her music soars, but her heart and her charm are as grounded and relatable as ever.

Wolf's Law, the second studio album from The Joy Formidable, finds the Welsh trio building upon its already gargantuan sound with remarkable aplomb.