Get Your Heart On! is every bit as tuneful as the group's debut.

That hint of edge, of literal weight, adds to the collage of tones on a piece like "Canyon Meadows" or acts as an undertow on the flow of "New Pures," helping to transform that feeling of contemplation while not actually crushing it in any sense.

It could use a couple throw-you-around-the-room rockers in the vein of Turn Me Loose's "Runnin'" and "Knockin'," although some listeners will be so struck by the sustained high level of confidence and grace that it won't be an issue.

Ultimately, What's It All About is an intimate work revealing Metheny's investigation of composition itself. The notion of song is inherent in everything he does, and he reveals that inspiration in spades here.

Nothing here feels the least bit overdone. Marissa Nadler is a sensual, provocative, enticing work of vision and maturity.

With folks like Currensy and French Montana lending features, along with a producers list that goes from Lex Luger to Lee Majors, the album is stuffed as it could be, but Ross has always been a wizard when it comes to picking high-profile friends that deliver.

It's rare for a band to keep getting better over time, especially after 15 years, but the Ladybug Transistor have done it, and whether you've been a fan the whole time or you are just discovering (or rediscovering) them with this album, there is enough good stuff here to make even the coldest-hearted music snob admit that there is music being made in 2011 that's just as good as anything made in 1965 or 1977, or any year.

Gimmicks abound on this dark carnival of an album, and if you can't hang with some murder talk and misogyny, it's best to stay away, but this fat, epic effort is still a swift thrill ride and doesn't bore despite its size.

When Art Department stick with their signature sound, even though it might not be exactly unique--it's easy enough to trace a lineage through seminal Chicago jack tracks, early-'90s disco house and the sleeker end of electro-clash to contemporary peers like Soul Clap and Benoit & Sergio--the results are nothing short of mesmerizing.

Basically, Woods have put it all together on Sun and Shade, matching inspiration with performance and crafting their best record yet, one that will stand with the great folk-psych albums of the past 40 years, from the Notorious Byrd Brothers to the Rain Parade's Emergency Third Rail Power Trip to Either/Or to now.

Stoned to the bone with Was at the controls means this is one of the more humble and cool offerings in the Ziggy Marley catalog, but those are the same reasons it's an album to return to, delivering that satisfying Rastaman vibration whenever listeners crave a mellow mood.

This album works both as music that can take you over and take you up on a cloud of pop, and as mood-enhancing tunes that can fill up the empty room with happy ambience. Either way, it's an enjoyable, sometimes beautiful, album, one that Vetiver have been working toward since they began.

If you've been looking for someone to merge the huge sound of melodic hardcore with a strong dose of narrative depth, search no further.

Despite being from different albums, the songs all work together remarkably well, giving the album the kind of natural flow that one expects from an album, never giving away the fact that the songs are all from different EPs.

Throughout his career, Mr. Mathers has given props to his Detroit hip-hop clan and spoken of his interactions, but his discography has been somewhat light on examples. Past the Mars cut, Hell: The Sequel helps right that wrong, providing the welcome sound of Shady meets the streets.

For all the sonic shimmer, not much exposure is needed to realize that the album concerns an embittering relationship.

Guitarists Jake Pitts and Jinxx are the showstealers here, riffing in constant harmony, and incorporating the speedy guitar pyrotechnics of similar-minded bands like Dragonforce and Escape the Fate while throwing in showy Zack Wilde pinch harmonics, and Yngwie Malmsteen sweeps.

The 12 songs on All Things Bright and Beautiful, Owl City's third album, certainly demand the audience's imagination -- or at least their willingness to go along with the world Adam Young dreams up, a cartoonish place where the skies look like alligators, the rivers taste like fruit, and emeralds poke their heads out of every rock.

The unheard tunes are all first-rate, but what's really notable about A Treasure is that it offers a compelling document of how good the International Harvesters were and, in turn, makes sense of a somewhat murky period for Neil Young.

Sonically, it's the Submarines' most interesting record to date. Melodically, it's a bit spottier than usual, relying heavily on a handful of highlights to shoulder the weight of the saggier numbers.

The conclusion of Oneida's Thank Your Parents trilogy got some initial attention when word emerged that Kid Millions' signature drum drive wouldn't be featured, but such is the strength of the band that Absolute II functions both as conclusion and its own distinct release.

In many ways, In Light splits the difference between the peppy pseudo-Afro pop of Vampire Weekend and the percussive, improv-heavy dance rock of Local Natives. That might be a bit of a knock against In Light if it wasn't such an accomplished, ambitious debut.

Creep On Creepin' On is the sound of Timber Timbre fully coming into its own, with romance and strangeness to spare.

My Morning Jacket are clearly having fun, and they're learning how to be "out there" without being outlandish.

Castlemania does sound like the product of several happily productive days in this band's life; this album sounds less sinister and more playful than the bulk of their previous output, and if a lot of this is still going to seem chaotic and off-putting to anyone not flying a similar freak flag, it's an easier way in to Thee Oh Sees' curious musical world than any of their albums to date.

Loud Planes Fly Low captures fragmented moments instead of formless dreams and random wishes: the melancholia that lingers throughout feels like one of experience rather than self-conscious ennui.

Mysterious and subtly beguiling, Canta Lechuza begs to be listened to in the condition in which it was made: solitude.

It was inevitable that as his skills matured he was going to move away from the strictures of reggae as a musical style. That maturity is fully in evidence on Light the Horizon, and the songs have indeed spread out into new stylistic territory.