Sometimes suggesting a cross between Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade and Bruce Springsteen's The River, The Most Lamentable Tragedy is as big, smart, and heartfelt as either of those albums, and a striking example of what Titus Andronicus can achieve.

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.

The relaxed, hypnotic nature of the piece [Post Encounter Effect] is a little surprising coming after the ecstatic first side, but it's calming and welcome nonetheless.

The majority of Ego Death is tighter. Bennett has refined her songwriting without reducing the candid approach that colors her past compositions. Additionally, the tangents are fewer and more substantive.

Fingers, Bank Pads & Shoe Prints is another thrilling, occasionally confounding collection that demonstrates why RP Boo is one of Chicago's most unique, innovative producers.

These songs find the group's leader on more comfortable ground, and the tone of Star Wars is that of some good friends tossing ideas against the wall and discovering that a surprising number of them stick.

The EP leads with a pair of sludgy pysch jams, decelerates for the slightly abrasive "drumless space" of "Coma," and closes with the side-long "Radial," which begins and ends with shifting drones that flank seven minutes of searing menace that recall early, "the Can"-era Can.

While the songs are sturdy enough to withstand such gentle rocking, this is a vibe record, the sound of an old pro playing not because it's necessary but because it's fun.

Early Public Enemy was formatively innovative, but on this latter-day record PE explore and deepen that signature not unlike master jazzmen -- or the Stones, for that matter--and that's not only worthy of an album, it's groundbreaking in terms of hip-hop.

As a stage experiment, Watkins Family Hour has thrived for 13 years, and now with a fine record to document their efforts, they've hit on a format that could offer boundless possibilities for years to come.

Bittersweet is a strong, satisfying album from one of the best and most distinctive singer/songwriters of her day, and this confirms she can move in any number of different directions and still offer her listeners something remarkable.

Bahdeni Nami's greatest appeal will be to newer fans who may prefer more contemporary production to the gritty lo-fi dabke aesthetic. That said, despite various flourishes, these producers try hard to remain true to Souleyman's spirit and, with only one exception, succeed in spades.

Ultimately, Music for Drifters ebbs and flows with the documentary, moving from idyllic seaside splendor to foreboding mid-ocean swells and back again.

It's not unfair to say Strange Wilds are a bit derivative, but they also do right by their influences, and they unleash a cranked-up onslaught that's tight and ferocious, with a judicious use of dynamics and an effective application of the traditional cheap Fender guitar run through the right effects boxes.

It's kaleidoscopic but crisp.

An already impressive album that's quite an improvement over his previous effort and on par with the best chilly, spacy avant pop around in 2015.

The notions of conflict, turmoil, and regret are certainly well-worn staples of the genre, but with Sturm und Drang Lamb of God have accrued a significant amount of experience in all three, and have distilled those concepts into pure unfiltered adrenaline.

A streamlined ten-song effort that, at the outset, feels like a very meat-and-potatoes, suburban pop-punk affair. But simple suburban pop-punk is Spraynard's bailiwick and their unpretentiousness is part of their charm.

It is their most holistic, inventive recording to date and ups the ante for anyone trying to follow them.

The CD edition is especially nice--a fold-out cardboard package with sharp, true-to-the-era artwork for each disc. It tops the double-vinyl edition, a truncated and smart selection made by the Roots' Captain Kirk Douglas, released months earlier for Record Store Day.

Sirens is a step up from their debut.

Throughout it all, co-founders, producers, and arrangers Ben Ellman and Robert Mercurio sonically map out a NOLA that's as vibrant and forward thinking as it is steeped in the region's rich culture, cementing the band's reputation (20 years in) as both innovators and stalwart defenders of tradition.

With the release of the album DS2--Dirty Sprite 2, named after his hit mixtape -- he becomes a hip-hop version of Lee "Scratch" Perry, a strange and yet in command figure standing at the center of a slick, inventive swirl of music.

Splitting this weighty and rich effort into digestible chunks, the album's physical release comes on two separate discs, making Summertime '06 an artistic triumph wrapped in conceptually fitting package.

Young still doesn't do darkness as well as light but Mobile Orchestra shows a willingness to grow and change that makes it the most complete portrait of Owl City's music yet.

Southeastern was a triumph from a talented songwriter and vocalist who stepped up to a new level; Something More Than Free shows Jason Isbell knows he just got there, and is still making use of that hard-won knowledge--it confirms his status as a major artist.

A diverse set of songs but the key to Monroe's appeal is that she seems neither showy nor calculating when she expands beyond her classic country roots. She rolls easy, luxuriating in that exquisite sound, her soft touch making the heartbreak and the humor seem equally alluring.

It is recognizably the album in its form but not quite in feel.