With 15 songs clocking in at just shy of an hour, Cosmic Wind lingers, but stops short of overstaying its welcome. Instead the album sprawls out in a relaxed bliss, Lion Babe moving confidently through their wide spectrum of laid-back moods and smiling sounds.

Easily as satisfying as The Tower, The Crucible builds on its predecessor's achievement with brilliant composition, inspired performance, and consummate musicianship. It is an excellent example of how to mine rock's past in order to discover its future.

Whether he's performing an ode to tequila, juke joints, or covering Johnny Paycheck's "Old Violin," Strait sings with humor, tenderness, and ease, qualities that lend the deliberately nostalgic Honky Tonk Time Machine grace, resonance, and depth. Perhaps this isn't a new trick for Strait, but it's one to be cherished nonetheless.

As it is, it sounds like a brave experiment and a sincere effort to explore new creative avenues, but it's a long way from a rousing success. However, its high points leave one hoping that Farrar doesn't stop speaking his peace next time around.

Longevity is one thing, but sticking around without going stale is a trickier matter, and Deserted demonstrates that more than four decades on, the Mekons are as fresh and challenging as ever.

The execution isn't quite as strong as Earle's good intentions on Guy, though if he wanted to either remind old fans on the greatness of Clark's songs or convince new ones to explore his body of work, he makes his case will eloquence and affection.

Though it's wildly excessive and indulgent, it's also inarguably among the most inspiring, thought-provoking, and accomplished of his works.

As different as it is from anything else in her body of work, Henryk Górecki: Symphony No. 3 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" is an affecting example of Gibbons' willingness to take her music in unexpected--but ultimately winning--directions.

Essentially, Side Effects showcases White Denim's knack for making '60s- and '70s-style psychedelic garage rock that feels authentic but retains the modern punk energy that made their early albums so engaging.

It's easy enough to be moved by Edwyn Collins' recovery and continued progress; he's truly an inspirational figure. What his continued presence in the recording studio even more wonderful is that his albums keep getting better and better too; deeper and more fully colored and nuanced both in melody and sound.

While it's true that all this music is easy to find elsewhere, it's also true that Coltrane '58: The Prestige Recordings sounds sterling and is presented with thought and care, so anybody looking to dive into these classic recordings will find this a fine intro.

Deforming Lobes feels like Ty Segall's answer to the MC5's epochal Kick Out The Jams, and if it lacks that great album's sense of lysergic experimentalism, the Freedom Band's ability to graft garage punk noise onto a sonic onslaught worthy of Blue Cheer more than compensates. Play this one loud.

With When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, she demonstrates that she can do it all, hinting at a bright future that could truly go in any direction, as messy and hopeful as youth can get.

Garcia Peoples are well-known for their dynamic live shows, and a jam-oriented cassette-tape community has since coalesced around them. In the studio, though, with just two LPs to their credit, they've already forged an unexpected creative path that feels like it could go any number of ways.

Even without any previous background information, there's lots to enjoy about being immersed in this warm, optimistic sound bath. Presented with a deft talent for flow and transition, Floating Points' Late Night Tales captures the feeling of after-hours reflection brilliantly.

The brooding, hymn-like closer "Care" and the resplendent coming out anthem "He Came From the Sun" hew closer to the sonic intimacy that was generated on 2015's Architect, but even they feel larger than life, signaling not so much a stylistic shift for Duncan, but a maturation of his ability to build worlds out of sound, and in his overall confidence as well.

Lavelle's trading on past glory and continued sifting through fallout can be wearisome, but his high level of enthusiasm can be sensed throughout.

Appealing ideas and sounds, but the songs tend to be rather blah, suggesting that the LP's cancellation had more to do with the fact that Gaye had yet to find an album within his sessions than anything to do with it being too controversial for its time. Still, it's worth a listen to hear Gaye stretch out and figure out how to move forward: surrounded by Detroit and L.A. studio pros, he's making supple soul, even if it's not especially deep.

The unpolished feel of Agora is a bit striking for a Fennesz release, but it's clearly just as carefully considered as his other albums, and makes a welcome addition to his catalog.

In shifting gears to stoke their creative flames, Within Temptation have created an immersive--if not wholly original-sounding--set of songs that play to both their strengths and weaknesses.

Aan invaluable resource for aficionados of this very weird, very exciting period of music. The set is certainly the equal of the essential junk shop glam collections that have come before it, and the care and thought put into it might even make it better. Either way, fans of the sound and era should be glad that this sound is being dug up again.

Rather than issuing directives, Bird, like most of us, is struggling to figure out what to make of trying times without reducing himself to the level of the worst among us, and the process has helped him create an album that is likely to stay relevant and satisfying for a long time to come.

Patty Griffin is a remarkable portrait of the artist and the experiences that informed these songs, and even by the high standards of her body of work, it's something special and is a potent reminder of her status as one of America's signature singer/songwriters.

Ancestral Recall is a stylistically and culturally dynamic album borne out of Scott's deep awareness of his New Orleans roots and African American history, and his ability to push his forward-thinking post-bop skills into musical traditions far beyond jazz. However, the real revelation is that the album also manages to feel intensely personal, imbued throughout with a deep sensuality and romantic creative vision that feels distinctly his own.

Ultimately, Fool isn't as satisfying as Jackson's more straightforward work of the '80s, but if this sometime suffers from too much ambition, Jackson clearly is good enough to come close to what he's aiming for, and in the moments where he connects, it's a truly impressive piece of work.

Juice WRLD is wrecked, angry, and using drugs to cope, and even though his appeals come through at times, much of Death Race for Love transforms the listener into the shoulder that Juice WRLD is crying on.

Foals have always been deft wielders of unease, and the shambolic Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost feels certain in its uncertainty. Whether or not all of these stylistic shifts find some common ground with the release of volume two remains to be seen, but there's no denying the vitality that runs through this ten-song set, nor the inescapable feeling of doom.

As expected from Apparat, LP5 is an ambitious, inventive album which runs on its own intuition, fusing studio wizardry with honest expression to frequently thrilling results.