All of the transitions are perfectly timed, and the whole is a narrative through which minute but thrilling discoveries become regular events as each listen exposes them. This may not be the game changing statement The Ship was almost two years ago, but it demonstrates a fruitful inter-generational relationship in the making.

Faithful Fairy Harmonies often sounds like a song hunter’s discovery, a forgotten cache of preindustrial songs left behind on wax cylinders in someone’s dusty attic. Yet there’s something very modern about the idea of Josephine Foster being able to create this work almost entirely on her own and driven solely by her own artistic preferences. An old-fashioned voice singing exactly what it wants is not old fashioned at all.

An album that, without lyrics, tells its stories with many voices and in a poetry that feels tangible, even as it transforms in front of us, catching more light in its sound as it blooms.

Chemical Chords is more compact, true, but they’ve not lost their character through economy.

Rock that soothes and sears at once is a rare thing, and Heron Oblivion has made a whole album that makes the contradictions feel like an ancient tradition.

Taken as a whole, however, OH consists of more stellar stuff from a band that’s always taken the tortoise’s view of the race.

Despite its uneven presentation, Someday is Today is a beautiful, evocative record, whose charms invite and reward repeat listens.

Lesser artists might fall prey to pastiche, something Murcof artfully avoids. Instead he pulls off a remarkable feat--he makes the forgotten sound formidable, and the contemporaneous sound credible.

Full Upon Her Burning Lips isn’t Earth’s best record. ... However, it might be the definitive Earth record, the one that, in its mystery and directness, comes nearest to whatever it is Carlson has been seeking in the drone and riff for almost 30 years.

Exuberantly weird ... The opening songs feel a bit thin, returning to trippy terrain that GT Ultra had already adequately investigated. ... The album’s second half, however, is terrific. The mix thickens with idiosyncrasy, glimmering electronic flotsam and some assured singing from Carlson. She doesn’t have enormous range, but she conjures compelling presence.

Arguing Frisell’s stature as a national treasure is nearly effortless with albums like this one.

Irreversible Entanglements are looking forward, stepping up from the shoulders of the giants to shape a body of work that demands attention.

In the relentless, rampant pursuit and procurement of new musical product, it’s easy to lose sight that a return to and expansion of what’s worked previously can prove just satisfying for both artists and listeners.

“Is it making you feel something?” the band asks, in the song of the same name, and yes, yes, yes, all kinds of things. That’s what’s so great about it.

Listening to the album, the weirdness is never off-putting, and the pop elements don't feel like concessions to a wider audience.

Listen to the second album next to the first, and it’s like when the eye doctor finds the right lens strength and all the letters become legible.

This latest recording is assured and full of intent, seamlessly integrating acoustic guitar blues with a rushing undercurrent of electronic noise, backdropping stark self-revelation with sleek synthesizer arrangements.

For Mahalia, with Love, like Jesup Wagon and Lewis’s “Molecular” releases, is fairly high-concept, but the music is spunky and easy to enjoy, with plenty of groove and intensity.

She swoops and swoons and growls like Kristin Hersh but more country, and it’s worth a listen just to hear what she’ll do next.

Unfidelity never feels derivative or retro, Edwards displaying an alchemist’s touch as he drags all these influences into a potent melting pot.

Backed by a chorus of backing singers clearly having the time of their lives and giving her further wings, Sangaré is poet and storyteller, moral guide and denouncer of injustice all wrapped up in one singular, beautiful voice.

The reason this album is such a remarkable feat is because they've willingly entered some of the most tired territory in rock over the last decade and still manage to make it sound as fresh and exciting and invigorating as the first time you or anyone else you know heard music like this.

Love & Desperation is one hell of a good time. A testament to both the cathartic, healing power of rock, as well the undeniable joy to be found in an arena-sized riff, Sweet Apples’s debut makes for excellent listening.

Jazzy horn breaks? Twinkling bar-room piano? Doo-wop backing vocals? All this and more crops up in ways both unusual and satisfying. Rutili is also in fine lyrical form. Many of the songs begin with strange and imaginative opening lines.

Skullsplitter is ultimately that: comforting, even more so than it is odd.

In combining antiquated influences with their own postmodern sensibilities, Broadcast and the Focus Group have together created an evocative and imaginative work that is in many ways more challenging and rewarding than the former’s own proper albums.

At 16 songs over 74 minutes, Interior Live Oak is surprisingly low on filler for an artist who seems to take mischievous glee in tripping up listeners.

Tooth, with its sharp title, minimalist drum attacks and hauntological synth textures, represents the antithesis of such plurality, reducing dance to its most antagonistic and unflinchingly bare-boned aesthetic and coming up with a new language from familiar idioms, sometimes from other genres.