One of Laraaji's earthiest records, Sun Piano is a pure expression of his talents, as he projects spirited melodies straight from his soul.

Hales' acumen for production is on full display here, as 10 Futures is a marvel of meticulous engineering, and while the material doesn't always live up to the sonic grandstanding, it never suffers because of it.

Ultimately, one of the things understood is that for an album of cover songs, the result still feels entirely personal and held dear when hearing the father and daughter pay tribute to their inspirations together.

The album gathers songs of a more personal nature than were fitting for his band's fierier post-punk disposition, with a few actually predating Ought. Not that Saturday Night is a sullen acoustic-guitar record; rather, Darcy is more reflective here, sometimes channeling early solo Lou Reed and sometimes wandering into more experimental meditations.

Some of the band's most entertaining and most challenging music, >>>'s eclectic experiments prove that the greater-than symbol at the end of Beak>'s name isn't just for show--they keep pushing forward, and it's thrilling to go along on the ride with them.

It feels like the turmoil of the late 2010s has galvanized Spiral Stairs into making his most direct and stylistically adventurous (which is a quite different thing than experimental music) music yet.

The playing is solid, but one wishes Petty & the Heartbreakers had simply covered some of those old Chess classics rather than trying half-heartedly to write their own -- it would have made for an album closer to intent.

As a detour from rock & roll, Free is a fine and compelling study of the mind and mood of Iggy Pop at the age of 72, and if it's clearly the work of an older artist, that works to its favor, a pointed contrast to the abandon of his youth but with no less gravitas.

Recorded over a couple years and in various locations, the EP sounds like outtakes from "Emma," but not in a bad way.

Though Negativity bounces around a little, its tormented core and multifaceted musical approach make it one of Deer Tick's most consistent and enjoyable albums.

For all the excess and buildup, this exhibits Wayne on an upswing, lucid and invigorated.

These relatively dry songs lack the edge of the album's first half.

Tall Tall Shadow is easily the songwriter's most fully realized effort; it should expand her audience reach considerably--even if it leaves some of her more purist followers by the wayside.

Katy Goodman and Greta Morgan have made an album that's often beautiful and marvelously crafted with Take It, It's Yours, but past the surfaces, it's often hard to tell what it means and why they made it in the first place.

The revamping of style and substance on Yours Conditionally is also something special, helping it to become the best record they've made so far.

Each of the performances allows the singer's personality to shine through without obscuring Russell's inherent oddball nature.

She uses these songs as a statement of intent, pushing beyond the limitations of the interchangeable rap star persona to show her creative depth, and constructing an album environment where she's able to seamlessly transition between dominating the party and opening up about vulnerabilities.

Missteps prevent Voyage from being a triumph yet they are true to the rest of ABBA's catalog so, in a sense, they're welcome. If ABBA didn't have cheeseball moments, they wouldn't be ABBA, so it's reassuring that the group brings the lows along with the highs on this unexpected and delightful album.

The First Lady is terrifically balanced in its distribution of club tracks, midtempo grooves, and slow jams.

Goodbye to Language is a powerful, intoxicating album and one of Lanois' best works in at least a decade.

Woman + Country is somewhat of a grower--it's so purposefully hazy it seems to pleasingly fade into the slipstream upon the first play, but those repeated spins reveal the deep craft at the heart of Woman + Country, deep craft from both the songwriter, his producer, and musicians.

This feels modern but in a distinctly '90s fashion: the melds and mashups of club music and psychedelia forecast a future straight out of 1996.

The writing is nothing earth-shattering; in fact, it's rudimentary and formulaic almost without exception, although they still come up with a couple of winners ("I'm Coming Home"), and lots of tunes that would easily pass for understandably forgotten oldies.

Irreal's minimalism is an uncompromising and often riveting testament to Disappears' integrity, which seems to be the only constant in their music.

The Third Chimpanzee unmistakably feels like a side project. It's intriguing to hear what sounds and moods he can create outside of the context of his band, but even compared to the more fully realized MG, the EP merely sounds tentative. However, it's worth noting that the striking cover art was painted by Pockets Warhol, a capuchin monkey, which is fascinating.

Jacksonville City Nights still ranks as one of Adams' stronger albums, not just because he's returning to his rootsy roots -- after all, this isn't alt-country, this is pure country -- but because it maintains a consistent mood, is tightly edited and well sequenced, and thanks to the Cardinals, has the easy assurance of Cold Roses

Voice of Ages is a good Chieftains recording; its solid performances easily outweigh its duds, but it feels like something less than a 50th anniversary celebration.

Cronin could have just kept cranking out the same album over and over; that he chose to take a risk and go big showed some real guts. That he was able to make it work as well as he did shows some real skill and should make anyone who liked the first two albums really happy.