This feels fuller, richer than any Chesney album in recent memory, but it's also unhurried and light, an ideal soundtrack for a long, lazy summer.

LL sounds rusty and a bit under-rehearsed as he belts out his iffy punch lines and motivational anthems, but he pours his heart into the pop numbers and sounds at home during the nostalgic throwbacks.

Although it's more admirable than it is enjoyable, Sing to the Moon marks the arrival of a unique and major talent--one with a commanding voice seemingly from another dimension--who should be worth watching for many years to come.

A lot of the sounds they try on Love Triangles Hate Squares fit them, and their polish and savvy suits them as well as the slicked-back pompadours they wear on the album's artwork.

As for English Little League, the three records the band did in 2012 are all stronger collections, but this is hardly a failure. One just has to search a little harder to find the good songs this time.

Cheery in the moment but with a lingering poignancy, Bigfoot is a soundtrack to shared memories of summer, first love, and all the bittersweet things that can happen when those two meet.

It's still a verdant, imaginative, lush, and occasionally unsettling work that hits the sweet spot more often than it misses its mark, and while it may not shake the rafters, it most certainly fills up the room with sound.

Mellow, abstract, and alluring, this worthwhile journey also offers Underworld fans a clear picture of Hyde's artistic contribution to the group.

Here on The Still Life she has begun to solidify and challenge her undoubted songwriting ability.

This is a wonderfully entertaining collection of pop songs that just happen to be well-versed in history and political and economic theories.

At the end of the day, The Melvins know what they're all about, but with Everybody Loves Sausages, listeners get the chance to roam around in their heads, if only for 50 minutes or so.

Even if their meditations on heartbreak and death can be overwhelming occasionally, If You Leave proves that Daughter can channel a single mood over the course of an entire album with often exquisite results.

Sub Verses offers such a disciplined sense of exploration, multivalent nuance, and commitment in its production and performance; it stands out in an already very distinguished catalog.

The new looseness that runs through the grooves, the variety the additional voices bring, the very strong songs, and Eno' perfect production all add up as the album plays, and as a result, Thr!!!ler ranks as the band's best work to date. That also makes it one of the best modern dance punk records to date, right up there with LCD Soundsystem's best.

Liberated from the weight of their history, they're just ready to rock while they still can, and that's why Ready to Die is, against all odds, a terrific Stooges album.

Still entrenched in disciplined modal drones and repetition, the group existing as a duo adds new color and dimension to its meditative sounds, giving the listener a sense of real mystery and excitement in what once felt simply obscured.

That Oblivion resembles a blockbuster soundtrack more than an M83 album may disappoint some of Gonzalez's fans, but it means that he and Trapanese succeeded in making the film's music what it needed to be.

Bye Bye 17 feels less gimmicky than a lot of his other work. For perhaps the first time, Tillmann is coming at the songs from an angle that doesn't depend on the cognitive dissonance created by his sexual boasts played against his Ron Jeremy-esque appearance.

This is a sweet-sounding album with subtle depths, not really bluegrass, but a precisely gentle folk album that grows more graceful and revealing with each listen.

If anything, it feels like alt-country's answer to stoner metal (and a decidedly healthier one at that), providing the listener with a soundtrack that's as tailor-made for hazy summer afternoons as it is for the inky black curtain of night.

With New History Warfare, Vol. 3, Stetson explores scorched landscapes and heavenly scenes alike with his stylized playing.

This is just one of those albums that works great either as a stoney throwback or a party-starter.

Dramatic and sweeping, the Las Vegas band works in the same vein as pop giants Coldplay, offering up track after track of hooky and emotional midtempo jams.

This focus on ambience really makes Sky Burial feel like it exists in a very specific, and very secluded, space, and while you probably wouldn't want to live there, it's amazing to visit.

Raw Solutions is a smooth and occasionally stirring continuation that switches tacks with such frequency that pigeon-hole evasion seems like a conscious goal.

It's classic pop music for people who have never bothered with classic pop, which is reason enough to check this out.

To Dust is body music for the spirit, a celebration of all that is human. It is the record that should finally put her over to a mass audience.

X'ed Out is more fleshed-out, listenable, and revelatory than one could ever expect.