Love Streams is easily Hecker's most accessible work to date, yet it's also one of his most challenging, as it finds him pushing his sound into new directions while he explores the possibilities of the human voice.

Even the album's weakest cut, "It's a Jungle Out There," works in context, and the two numbers about the bonds of family, "Lost Without You" and "Wandering Boy," are thoughtful and genuinely moving. And the easy, endlessly reliable stride of Newman's piano remains one of popular music's most underrated pleasures.

A.A. Williams' ambitious blend of post-rock, folk, goth, metal, and classical ingredients deserves as wide a hearing as it gets, and Forever Blue is a uniquely effective debut album.

Wounded and graceful, both in its music and messaging, the writer's eponymous album is one for headphones and private moments.

The 14-song set is as bright and moving as the band's previous efforts, but Broken Social Scene holds more charisma, more depth, and surely more complexities.

The polished finish on the production, from Fuck Buttons member Andrew Hung, is also notable on this great effort from Zun Zun Egui, an album conducive to many repeat listens.

The sheer dynamism of When I Have Fears threatens to derail the album, but a dedication to themes makes it cohesive, with the softer moments highlighting the louder counterparts and vice-versa. It's captivating from start to finish, heartbreaking in its delivery, and intense in all the right ways.

Fresh and exhilarating, Nothing Great About Britain firmly establishes slowthai as one of U.K. rap's most relevant artists.

While the album might be "business as usual" for Murs, that's purely a good thing. Two decades into the game and he's endearing, insightful, and sharp as ever.

Polymer is one of Plaid's most successful hybrids of organic and artificial sounds, matching its ambitious themes and concepts with enlightening music.

It may not be as consistent as some of their other albums, but there's still quite a bit of Sparks' witty tale-spinning for fans to enjoy.

For all his weariness, Gibbs remains compelling and cogent. This time, JID, Larry June, and Anderson .Paak are the guests, and the track with Paak is (no surprise) both the hookiest and most in tune with Gibbs' heavy ambivalence.

On Hard Headed Woman, Price might be a stubborn artist who doesn't feel like she owes "the bastards" anything, but she feels like she's keeping a promise, both to her fans and to herself.

The whole thing is designed for instant pleasure (or immediate repulsion), even when the titles evoke treacherous levels of a fantasy video game.

Incredible communication and playing are the strong points of the record, even if the pieces themselves might be too lengthy and punishing to digest in one sitting.

Viva Las Vengeance is Urie's amorous declaration to everything sumptuously mythic, exultant, tragic, and yes, even silly about loving and aspiring to be a part of the rock'n'roll world. That Urie is completely self-aware about his place in that world makes Viva Las Vengeance all the more delicious.

Protector comes across as less lonesome than her debut, though the hushed mystique that is one of her hallmarks remains.

Taken together, the album is an engaging and rousing affair with more than enough down-to-earth awareness and poignancy to keep it grounded.

DÍA is the work of an artist who isn't looking back. With these cathartic, expansive, resilient songs, Ela Minus is just becoming more expressive -- or as she puts it, "I'll keep writing melodies to sing."

Woman King is too short to be considered the high point of Iron & Wine's career -- it certainly points in that direction, though.

While simple and often musically somnolent, its heart-wrenching effect is ultimately hard to shake.

Build a Rocket Boys! knows when to push forward and when to pull back, and its songs find the accessibility in out-of-the-box thinking without alienating either side of Elbow's audience.

Les Voyages de l'Âme is a great record; self- defining and alluringly elusive.

The album has a nice, gentle sway and Pickler has expertly modulated her diva moves so she's now a skillful country singer.

For longtime fans, Volume Two: 1987-1989 is an impressive and well-assembled study of one of this band's more interesting periods, and if you're looking for a way into Half Japanese's catalog, this a good place to start despite the heft of this collection.

While The Waiting Room is a mixed bag, it's far more relaxed and sure of itself than Across Six More Leap Years was.

Through musical discipline, a poetic sense of self-expression, emotional honesty, and rigorous intellectual curiosity, Ulver reveal not only what remains possible in synth pop creatively, but the aesthetic abundance that was there all along.

Front-loaded with a trio of deceptively powerful singles ("Smoke Signals," "Motion Sickness," and "Funeral"), the ten-track set loses some focus near the end, but Bridgers remains such a compelling presence throughout, that even her less immediate material bears weight.