In Leo’s case, it’s somehow comforting that every few years he’ll be along to inspire and cajole his fans with his dedication and passion. The Brutalist Bricks will let no one down in that regard.

Limited and a little patched together, but if cheap thrills are what you’re after, this one puts the dirty back in dirty south.

Call it Sigur Rós meets Supertramp in the end, perhaps most especially on the penultimate number, "Light Up the Night," with its keyboard-led opening moving into a slow sweet-sounding swagger of an arrangement thanks again to a big beat and guitar chug, but the signs of that kind of sonic grandness, if not full on grandiosity, abound.

While this album sounds like the Chieftains playing in fusion mode, it is so much more ambitious than anything they’ve attempted before. Some of the music here is contemporary, though much of it is over a century old; yet it reaches past its settings into the present day, telling of the indelibly rich meeting of two cultures oppressed by a third.

Think of Quarantine the Past as a cousin to Hot Rocks or the Red and Blue Albums: it doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, but as a primer, it’s hard to beat.

A Sufi and a Killer is nearly impossible to place or categorize, and this ageless quality is only embellished by Gonjasufi's vocal work, which at times sounds like a mystic channeling spirits from another dimension. Truly visionary.

Few songs from either record match the bombast of his work with Broken Social Scene, perhaps, but Collett’s albums are better viewed as part of a whole, and Rat A Tat Tat strengthens the country-fried side of his solo personality.

Shallow Effects is almost shockingly coherent. Instead of a big, sprawling mess, the arrangements — which incorporate everything from glockenspiel to Mellotron — offer complex but controlled layers of sound that never seem too thick or unwieldy.

Home Acres never breaks any new barriers and it's less cerebral than earlier outings, but it’s a good, consistent listen that showcases the band in their comfort zone.

Sour backpackers and over-scrutinizing fans that hold the Kidz in high regard may be disappointed by all the light-heartedness, but trim the fat and the party people will be rewarded with a vibrant, clever celebration.

Big Echo takes a page from Pet Sounds by allowing the production to shine on its own, highlighting the studio embellishments but never shifting focus away from the band’s own hooks.

As languid as the whole affair is, it’s hardly sleepy, as Dienel can switch from pixie crooner (“Moon Jam”) to sweet soul sister (“Begin Again”) at the flip of a switch, resulting in a collection of bedroom songs that not only engage upon first listen, but beg to played throughout the rest of the house, as well.

The result is a globe-trotting pop album that sounds like nothing he's attempted before, yet still retains enough of his signature arrangements to make Rouse’s multi-ethnic transformation a believable one.

The dividing line between these two types of songs is a subjective one, to be sure, but even devoted fans would probably agree that the bulk of The Bundles--the first recorded output from a longstanding though intermittent collaboration between these two leading lights of anti-folk--lands sadly but squarely in the latter category.

Allan had a hand in co-writing five of the songs on Get Off on the Pain, which will likely go down as one of the best albums of his career.

Several of the songs here are top-tier extrovert post-punk, neatly organized threshings as invigorating as any material from Mission of Burma or their farther-flung counterparts.

The directness and consistency of the album's production, vocals, and stylistic approach leave a great deal of the focus on the songs themselves, which is good, because songs are arguably Hands greatest asset.

Much of The Pursuit mines this fertilely mellow vein, producing a bunch of understatedly melodic music whose consistency only suggests that Cullum should stop dabbling with detours and just accept his strength as a soft rock singer/songwriter.

Black Swan is a definite sign of progress, though, and the band would do well to follow its path on future releases.

Ultimately, Hidden is the sound of an ambitious young band as eager to use every tool at its disposal as it is to avoid studiously doing what's been done before.

There's a clear focus to the record, too, virtually all of it centered on mainstream dance of the '80s hi-NRG synth pop variety.

The production, songs, and vocals are all perfectly in tune with each other, and the band has crafted a pretty impressive return to form. Permalight is still a far way from the bedroom origins of the group, but it’s also far from being a Coldplay knock-off, and anyone who’s been a fan from the start can certainly appreciate that.

Yet despite the gadgetry that went into the album’s production, Fight Softly is still a sunny piece of work, filled with gorgeous pop melodies that are complex but rarely challenging.

There are moments of impossible beauty (“Owl of Love”), dense, but structured dissonance (“Adages of Cleansing”), and of course, whimsical, classically minded, indie folk (“On the Edge”), that when consumed all together, feel like a perfectly executed mash-up of Aaron Copland, Dead Can Dance, Bill Frisell, and Shirley Collins.

Producer Carson Chamberlain's new penny polish and Corbin's traditional twang balance each other out nicely. Corbin's debut is jam-packed with the sounds of yesterday.

it's a formula contemporary country chartmaker: highly compressed dual lead guitars, layered acoustic guitars, good-time honky tonk lyrics, and big rocking drums. It’s a good-natured dig at city folks, and you can’t help but like Shelton, no matter how many cliché’s he spews.

With songs like “All You Can Hide Inside” revealing a flair for rough-around-the-edges ballads, Be Brave shows that the Strange Boys are growing--not in a self-consciously “mature” way, but enough to make them more than just purveyors of raffish garage rock.

Law of Large Numbers won’t sneak up and hit you over the head, but it will sneak up on you.