There is a one-take charm to the performances on A Letter Home, an album that’s more of a tribute to Neil Young’s ever-loving idiosyncrasy than to any of the artists covered.

The sheer quality of the songwriting and performances were sharpened and refined over many months yielding a set that’s impressively catchy and immediately satisfying.

She hasn't sounded quite so free and engaged as she does on these songs, where her vocal and lyrical mannerisms come through more forcefully and confidently.

A few more upbeat tunes along the lines of the pop worthy "Summer Child" might have upped the energy, but for established Williams fans, her ninth studio set is another classy entry that gets better with repeated spins.

There aren’t many hooks to latch onto, his emotional tenor is difficult to gauge, and although his four-piece band works hard to vary its sonic palette, no amount of electronic drums, thickly-layered synths, Spanish guitars and theremins can cover a humdrum set of songs.

The sometimes heavy quality of the concepts never overwhelms music that takes Dusty in Memphis as its stylistic template and moves it into a contemporary, but not slick, setting.

It is 1989 reimagined, with often startling results.

Somewhere in between the high times and the death throes lies Out Among The Stars. The songs contained are mostly simple pleasures, but they’re pleasures nonetheless.

Harris' vocal approach to her folk-based songs, ballads or mid-tempo, is infused with the presence of a time-traveler, visiting modern America from a pre-pop-culture place where music is in the air rather than the airwaves.

Yeah, it's the new OCMS album and, not surprisingly, it's simple and great (and simply great).

Best Coast might not have totally shaken the frivolity on California Nights, but it’s hard to care when it sounds this good.

There are moments of levity on Riser, like the fratboy-ish “Pretty Girls” and “Drunk on a Plane,” but those songs betray what works so well everywhere else on the record.

Earle is far too musically adventurous to linger too long in any one genre, and kudos to him for that, but Terraplane is such a standout that we can only hope he makes his way back around to the blues relatively soon.

These songs are refreshing, loud, fun and thoughtful.

You just need to listen and enjoy without reading too much into the material. That is easy to do here.

They still craft songs as if they’re assembling a robot, and they make sure to throw so many of these short tracks on the album (25 in 45 minutes) that you’re bound to find a few that will hit the pleasure buttons just like the old days.

Overall, the playing and singing are well above average, which helps put across even the weakest material like the closing “Congratulations” ballad, the only non-original.

It all coalesces into one of the more impressive, duskier (Am I living in a nightmare daydream? she asks in the mid-tempo title track) guitar-driven albums of the year.

Brother Johnny should send blues fans, or those new to his catalog, back to the initial recordings to appreciate the legendary guitarist’s talents at their most inspired.

Both haunting and harrowing in equal measure, The Love Still Held Me Near finds the bond that connects those emphatic emotions clearly and convincingly.

On Delta Spirit the record, the band capitalizes on its hard-fought inertia by presenting their cleanest and most sonically homogenous record to date.

At turns witty, sarcastic, evasive and chilling, Dylan's mercurial song-cycle takes listeners from the exuberant opener, through the sarcastic jibes of "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" and into the bleak sorrow of "Ballad of Hollis Brown."

Despite his relatively young age—he’s barely 25—he conveys a remarkable sense of self-awareness, and if he seems especially vulnerable on some of these songs (I love myself but that’s alright, he insists on the album opener “The Funeral”), one gets the sense that he’s speaking for others that imagine themselves in a similar scenario.

It’s encouraging that Seger is expanding his boundaries, especially this late in life. But a few more representative tough rockers interspersed in the album’s disappointing second half would have helped what starts out like a revitalized return to form from--here’s that car/Detroit metaphor again--running out of gas.

Lissie’s latest record, one the year’s most consistent, sprightly indie-pop albums, is a well-rounded introduction to the young singer.

A mixed bag, although one that those who have loved Tea for the Tillerman since it came out might appreciate. Perhaps not surprisingly, the new one doesn’t exude the magic that made Stevens a worldwide star five decades ago. Those who haven’t heard it should start there.

All in all, then, the record showcases a dynamism present but not fully realized on their critically acclaimed (and still excellent) debut.

Band of Horses have embraced a more mature, laid back kind of rock on Mirage Rock, and it's a comfortable, cozy fit.