The match of songs and sounds on Singing Saw delivers on all the promise of his earlier records, while firmly establishing Morby as one of the best singer/songwriters going.

Throughout, the star of the debut remains Kirby's inviting voice and hummable melodies, and, at less than 30 minutes, Cool Dry Place will leave many fans of the singer/songwriter tradition eager for more.

Although Wings are augmented by an orchestra on occasion, One Hand Clapping feels rough, free, and immediate, lacking the polish that gave Wings Over America its sheen. The loose feel isn't limited to the performances themselves. McCartney punctuates the rockers with vaudevillian throwaways, alternating between classics like "Baby Face" and originals like "I'll Give You a Ring," not so much concentrating on smooth transitions as indulging his every whim.

Electric Dirt sounds fresh, emphatic, and as effective as anything Levon has cut since the mid-'70s, and one can only hope he has a few more discs in him just this good.

Walker may tip his hat to Chicago's experimental underground or prog behemoths like Genesis, but with this release, he's very much his own man.

This is rock music at it's most exciting and meaningful from a band that's doing their level best to keep the form alive and thriving.

It should not take the seasoned listener too long to grasp that Serena Maneesh transcend the narrow boundaries of shoegaze.

Kelly and the Cairo Gang may have started out plying a quirky, inward-looking brand of folk; now they are the brightest, shimmery-est, most impressive folk-rock revivalists around and Goes Missing is as good as guitar pop gets in 2015.

This is elsewhere music one can feel eternally at home in, no matter your place of origin.

Before the Dawn is an album just as special as she is, a remarkable and expansive creative statement full of wonder and magic that rivals the best of her LPs.

While most of these songs are rife with anxiety and isolation, the open-hearted lyricism and wide-scoped productions, put together by an artist in peak form, make them immensely engrossing. Frank Ocean, Pharrell Williams, Kali Uchis, Syd, and Estelle are among 11 supporting cast members, not one of whom is inessential to the whole.

An absolutely crushing listen, and every bit as powerful as the previous three TTA albums.

It's a record where the sum is greater than the individual parts.

This is most easily recommended to casual fans and folks looking for an introduction to the group's music.

It's the way they bring their pop skills to the fore that makes The Great Pretenders solid evidence that Mini Mansions should be as well-known as the company they keep.

His sweetness and melancholy are as palpable in the composition as they are in the performance and, ultimately, that's why the live-in-the-studio recording of Out of Silence cannot be dismissed as a stunt: such a simple, yet kinetic, production is the only way to do justice to songs are rich as these.

Tantabara puts on an ever fiercer show than its two predecessors, its wild polyrhythmic grooves and ebullient group vocals lending an unyielding sense of vigor to every song.

Throughout their hour-long set, CCR sound ferocious, tearing through their hardest material, playing "Born on the Bayou," "Green River," and "Bootleg" with a nasty edge. The hardness of their choogle is a bit of a revelation, as the band sound fiery in a way that they don't on any of the officially released Creedence live recordings.

The album creates beauty out of fear and uncertainty, and it's among Laura Veirs' most personal and satisfying works to date.

Razzmatazz is a masterful debut, one that shows promise for a pair of musicians who proudly wear their influences on their sleeves.

Impera is the most unabashed exercise in exultant pop/rock sheen Ghost has issued to date; it establishes an exquisite front in their own quest for global rock domination.

London Brew is wonderfully eclectic, strange and beautifully realized. In keeping with its inspiration source, it's a vanguard electric jazz album, abundant in communication, immediacy and imagination.

Afro Futuristic Dreams sums up Ackamoor's career and leaps forward, exploring myriad traditions, styles, and harmonic and rhythmic combinations that further musical conversations to an as-yet-unseen creative horizon.

At the center of all this are Nascimento and Spalding, whose smiling interplay helps make Milton + Esperanza feel like both a capstone to a monumental career and continuation of a musical legacy.

Tindersticks sound like they are fully invested here and anyone still listening will be glad of that, as will anyone just checking them out for the first time. They are a band with a catalog worth getting lost in and Soft Tissue stands as one of their finest moments.

This is not just ecstatic music, but cosmic soul music. If you buy one archival recording this year, let this be it.

Love's Crushing Diamond is a title that captures the hope and hardship in these songs, and the album's kindness and calmness make it the musical embodiment of a friend whose shoulder is ready to cry on at a moment's notice.

As a major development from Duffy's early, solitary bedroom recordings, it might be reasonable to expect a bit less of that meticulous complexity here, but they manage to retain that sensibility and arguably bring it to new levels by including the participation of instrumentalists like Blake Mills; Daniel Aged (Frank Ocean, FKA twigs); Tim Carr (Perfume Genius); and Gregory Uhlmann, Josh Johnson, and Anna Butterss from the improvisatory supergroup SML.