Sonic Soul Surfer is an album that doesn't need to be 57-minutes long, and the final third features more than one moment where the record feels like it should coast to a close, only for another slow number to jump up and keep the show rolling. When Seasick Steve is laying out a fiery groove, Sonic Soul Surfer more than delivers the goods.

The Scene Between isn't the Go! Team's best, but it is an impressive new start that consolidates most of their strengths in a bright shiny ball and sends the band shooting off in a brilliant new-ish direction.

Freedom Tower: No Wave Dance Party 2015 isn't quite the best album of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's career, but they've never made one that documents the frantic energy and atmosphere of their live show as well as this.

As exciting as the promise of the band going full Albini is, For All My Sisters shows that a cleaned-up Cribs can also be pretty thrilling.

If it's a long way from a triumph, it's a solid, heartfelt work from a veteran artist who isn't about to give up the ghost.

Here, he makes his own form of dream pop, one that is inspired by stark realities yet filled with hope for a brighter future.

It may lack the cohesion of her last outing, and her steadfast derision of anything resembling a hook can be taxing, but it makes up for its meandering with a strength of character that eludes many of her contemporaries.

Ultimately, it frustrates because the listener doesn't get much in the way of reward for the chore of endurance.

To Pimp a Butterfly is as dark, intense, complicated, and violent as Picasso's Guernica, and should hold the same importance for its genre and the same beauty for its intended audience.

All These Dreams, much like Combs' expressive voice, feels lived in and authentic, and while it may lack some of the gravitas of his heroes, it certainly never does them a disservice.

Lost and Found is better served as a companion volume to the painstakingly curated Buena Vista Social Club album than as a general listener's introduction to the various musicians. That said, for anyone who ever wished there was more music in the can, this all-killer, no-filler program is indispensable.

Where My Weekly Reader shines is on the quieter moments.

Often compared to Ed Sheeran and Ben Howard, Chaos and the Calm shows James Bay has the style and the ability to stand on his own, and it's the work of a new performer with an impressive potential.

Depending on what aspect of the band the listener pays the most attention to, Chastity Belt can be either brazenly hilarious or mysterious and moving.

Fortune certainly counts as one of their excellent albums, and if it doesn't seem to reach for the same sonic heights as some of their recent efforts, it surpasses them on an emotional level.

It's been a long time coming, to the point when it seemed it might never happen, but Soft Connections announces the reappearance of a major talent, one whom all fans of indie pop owe it to themselves to discover or rediscover.

With We Fall, Haynie puts all of his eclectic skills and stylistic tastes together, showcasing his studio prowess and compositional talent, as well as his knack for bringing disparate talents together to create new and serendipitously effective songs.

Summer Bones, the band's fourth studio long-player and first outing for Pure Noise Records, effectively seals the deal, offering up an 11-track set of slickly produced, earworm-heavy, festival-ready singalongs shot through with enough good old-fashioned punk/hardcore spirit to make the transition easy for old-schoolers looking for a respite from breakdown town.

The duo's desire to strip the music of all energy leaves the songs limp, unable to make an impression in an age when songs are screaming for attention everywhere you turn.

Their new sound might scare off some of the psych lovers who dug their debut, but for anyone looking for some weird heavy rock noise, Golem fits the bill.

Though it may not be quite as consistent as Forget or Confess, Eclipse still reflects Twin Shadow's dedication to atmosphere and hooks in engaging ways.

There's not much one can do to deny the emotional weight or the eerily '70s character of Goon; it's probably best to settle into the La-Z-Boy, flick feathered hair off of your polyester lapel, grab a box of tissues, and let it be.

There really are spaces everywhere, and most would be better served if they were filled with Monochrome Set albums.

Madness is their most consistent and well-crafted set list to date, and while it may move them further toward the pop end of the hardcore spectrum, it does little to dampen their combustible core.

Strangers to Ourselves is an album where the trees matter more than the forest: song for song, it demonstrates the exacting nature of Brock but put it all together, it sprawls.

This skillful interweaving of Knopfler's personal past helps give Tracker a nicely gentle resonance.

The experience of this album is to have listened to an Elliott Smith record and not an Avett project or to anyone else--a testament to Smith, certainly, but also to Avett and Mayfield's tasteful if fail-safe renditions.

Houndmouth have the right touch and impressive chops, but this album makes it clear they needs a songwriter who can make their music seem fresh even as it's modeled on the past.