Most of the songs on The Traveler pass muster, and a few are excellent, but it's Miller's interaction with Black Prairie that really makes the album work.

Banditos are one of the most promising roots music discoveries in quite some time, and this album is a genuinely impressive introduction.

All these years on, Soul Food may sound as revolutionary as its predecessor, but it is stronger and far more adventurous musically.

On this album, Della Mae expand their roots-and-groove quotient, and extend the margins in their writing without sacrificing either the virtuosity and sparkle in their performance or the root persona in their sound.

He reaffirms his connection to hip-hop and remains distinctive from the scores of beatmakers who have followed him.

This more polished and tuneful exercise in modern-day folk-rock is effective and engaging music that speaks from the heart and soul.

Surfer Blood have regained their freedom with 1000 Palms; next time, they need to do something interesting with it.

For the most part, Ours Is Chrome sounds like it arrived pristine via a tramp-stamped, nicotine-stained, Puget Sound time capsule.

Though Moonlust is pleasant, it so actively tries to re-create the feel of its inspirations that it is more a distracted reverie than anything else.

The input of all three musicians can be heard from front to back, through swirling layers of ever-shifting sounds and trance-inducing sequences that escalate, expansive and borderline theatrical, with shifts between light and heavy that occur gradually more often than abruptly.

Hairless Toys [is] a welcome return and Murphy's most satisfying album yet.

A danceable memento mori, Dumb Flesh is mischievous, poignant, and quite likely Sacred Bones' most accessible release of 2015.

In the end, Love Songs for Robots is well represented by its title: weird, heartfelt, haunting, stimulating, and unexpectedly sultry; it holds much for humans to appreciate, too.

They don't appear to be aiming for a masterpiece; instead, they wanted to write some good songs and let them shine in the studio, and on that level, The Traveling Kind is a rousing success and a deeply satisfying work.

Boys is where they solidify that position and really start to have some fun with it.

Good as his bandmates are, on Can't Forget, Cohen is the star, and he's as strong, as witty, and as willing to lay himself emotionally bare as ever; it's anyone's guess how much longer he intends to keep going, but there's nothing here to suggest he needs or wants to quit now.

Accept Bush as a delayed dank disco triumph, and then drop it like it's hot, one more time.

Blade of the Ronin comes shockingly close to the sound and the excitement of their 2001 effort The Cold Vein, and offers the same kind of combination of street knowledge and sweet punch lines, all delivered over rickety yet compelling beats.

He may be prolific, but he certainly isn't spread too thin, as The Good Fight is inspired, infectious, and artistically grand.

Ultimately, Deeper's most important location is his heart; by looking within it, he's made his most relatable, and compelling, music to date.

Throughout, It's All Just Pretend is infectious, warm, and bright, offering positive but not airheaded guitar tunes for a melodic, feel-good fix.

The album is a true meeting of mood, melody, and sound that any of the bands Death and Vanilla so clearly take inspiration from would be proud to call one of theirs.

The group's self-titled second album cuts down on the group's more excessive tendencies, with only "A Pleasure to Burn" surpassing the five-minute mark, and seems to have more of a stripped-down songwriting style as well.

I Can't Imagine is confident, assured, and fiercely independent.

Within the context of a playlist, any one of a dozen songs here could bridge '50s bop to '60s MPB, or '70s art rock to '80s boogie, or '90s neo-soul to 2000s dubstep. Equally remarkable is that none of it seems devised. It's like these musicians simply radiate the stuff.

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.

Building on the strong foundation of their last album, Anxiety's Kiss adds even more sonic and emotional variety to Coliseum's sound, and is easily their most interesting album to date.

Solo work, if he can keep making records this special, should be where he focuses his prodigious talents.