Call it a wobbly when it comes to quality, or a showcase for the young that's stolen by the old, but it's best to consider it a simple roster-promoting label compilation that just happens to come with an EP or so worth of fire.

Despite its authoritative command of the languages it speaks, it carefully hews a meditative space for the listener at heart level inside the music; it is both inviting and enveloping.

The nine tunes on Piano Nights walk a line between the haunted beauty of Dolores and the more austere, glacial darkness of earlier recordings.

Bogguss has been quick to say that this is not a tribute album, but of course it is, both to the power and rough-edged beauty of Haggard's songwriting, and to Bogguss' creative and spiritual affinity to singing those songs. It's a match made in Honky Tonk Heaven, actually, although don't expect to hear any of these tracks on contemporary country radio.

The songs sound sad but each carries hope somehow, although a little jump and joy here and there might have given this set a little more spark. Life is lived in the sunshine, too.

It's a fine outing from a versatile band that knows what they do best, and man, they can rock.

While no one is going to accuse I Killed the Prom Queen of thinking too far outside the box, Beloved is an incredibly solid album from the Australian band, and is a fine return to the scene after a seven-year exile.

It's an album that holds plenty of rewards for those willing to take the time to explore its odd twists and turns with an open mind.

Glow is all inspired aces and a can't-miss release for funkateers or nu-disco fans.

The album is full of straightforward and jangly guitar pop, full of hooks and production turns that would feel at home on mixtapes of early-'90s underground alternative acts, the likes of which Pritchard himself belonged to and came up with.

Fans hoping that Evans will return to country music will be disappointed, but Slow Me Down is something that is rare in 2014: an unapologetic, big-scale adult pop album, constructed with grace and care.

Melancholy has always been Wareham's default musical disposition, here he delivers his sadness with a coy, charming half-smile.

The Take Off and Landing of Everything is better still [than 2011's Build a Rocket Boys!], demonstrating that the band knows how to seize the spoils of success.

Confessional and insular, Love Letters is the work of a band willing to take pop success on their own terms and reveal a different--but just as appealing--side of their artistry in the process.

While the album's brightness may take some getting used to, listeners who love her music for how well she expresses feelings that are universal yet hard to articulate will appreciate how vividly The Classic captures joy and what it takes to get it.

It remains as easy on the ears as a worn pair of slippers on the feet.

The Drop Beneath is another strong step toward Eternal Summers being a band like Bettie or Velocity Girl, the kind that other bands will look to for inspiration 20 years later.

Sure, no one is going to mistake this for an Einsturzende Neubaten or Jesus Lizard album (and most definitely not a Silver Jews disc), but the links to those acts can still be felt in the music here, making this self-titled debut an impressive collaboration between a trio of rather impressive collaborators.

Forget about shoegaze or metal or noise rock or any other genre; this is stark, dramatic music that comes from pain and has been crafted into high art that will move and inspire listeners lucky enough to hear it.

Twin Forks seems like a worthy vehicle for Carrabba's songs, but too much of this album panders to worn-out themes and clichés.

Much like our ever expanding universe, Yellow Ostrich's Cosmos is an infinitely listenable album that holds up to repeated scrutiny.

A beautiful and often brave-sounding album, Joyland shows how much can be gained by letting go.

It is searing, raw and lusty, tender, open and vulnerable.

Eagulls' density and intensity sometimes border on exhausting, but the album is an undeniably bracing beginning.

Working Out is an apt title, as Arthur Beatrice sound a little bit like they're in the late stages of development, where momentum is sometimes mistaken for maturation, but there's little doubt that they have the tools and the talent to carve out their own niche if given the room to grow a bit further out of the very populated one they currently reside in.

Ten tight songs and out, and the album feels like a mystery itself, but artists who nail that stoic sense of wonder, like Isaak and Orbison, don't come around often. Waterhouse is certainly of their ilk.

We Are Scientists make writing infectious, utterly listenable pop songs, over and over again, seem easy.

Looking at Major Lazer's previous releases, the whole Rasta zombie-hunter concept is applied the least to this one, but it's not missed, either. Apocalypse Soon is too fast and mean to be bogged down by any comic book extras, and besides, the music is weird enough and wild enough on its own.