Trouble is a grand survey of deconstructed rock which achieves its greatest highs via the winding routes it travels. Not all those who wander are lost, indeed.

It's a difficult accomplishment, encompassing pop and the avant-garde while also featuring a particularly striking element (in this case, Hegarty's voice); all three are well-represented here.

On Your Own Love Again is something else again, at least a personal landmark and maybe a classic. Simple, straightforward, but more than it seems, this is one of the best albums of 2015 so far and marks the emergence of a very distinctive songwriting talent.

The Psychic Paramount's music lacks words, but not a voice. These songs have a lot to say, and I'll be surprised if I hear a rock album this year that packs as strong a punch as II.

Wavering Radiant is strong enough on musical merit that decade-strong devotees deservedly ought to join new converts in welcoming the latest Isis album into the world.

Out of the Shadow's blissful indie-pop tunes are as affecting as they are catchy.

It’s hard to know what to make of such attention to individual moments in an album so devoted to the overall spectacle; it’s harder because those privileged moments are spread so sparsely throughout.

The songs are abbreviated, but nonetheless complete, coherent and fully-fleshed.

As Long Island is the most attractive and consistent Boog release to date, it is still a difficult proposition to say “hey, this band is for you.”

Contradiction proves mesmerizing across Space Heavy’s tightly executed 45 minutes.

Too many records are boring. This one is visceral and scary, which is an improvement.

The spiraling, distortion-drenched guitar solos, the cracked and ruined moan of Mascis, the passive-aggressive romanticism, the relentless beat, the pedals, the sheer turbulent volume...it's just like Where You Been? all over again, with all the positives and negatives that the comparison implies.

Vertigo may be the Necks’ best studio album yet, but they are still far from recreating the magic of their live shows.

As often, Dulli brings the devil into lurid though realistic scenarios of decadence. Sex, drugs, damnation and witchcraft, along with ruminations on lust, aging, memory and oblivion, live in disturbing proximity and maybe account for the daunting scale of In Spades. It’s the right amount of too much.

It has a warm, uncertain humanity that its predecessors, for all their depth and beauty, did not: it scans as genuine, music made from necessity rather than from the impulse of an extraordinary showman.

The songs are simultaneously more richly detailed and more succinct than those on Segundo and Tres Cosas.

For the first time in his career he has made an album that is clearly not a product of “Beck”, the single-syllabled entertainer, but rather that of “Beck Hansen”, the person.

An intriguing record that never repeats itself.

There are certainly more fun moments than not, at the very least rendering The Grey Album enjoyable, but it’s hard to argue for any reason other than its novelty.

They have built up a group of songs so restless and unsatisfying that a group of teenagers with the proper training could have made them, or likely something better.

The world is crawling with Fahey-loving acoustic guitar players these days--in large part thanks Tompkins Square--but ones as good as William Tyler are rare.

With no connecting thread or great songwriting, I Am Very Far is difficult to engage with. It has its moments, of course, but the more I listen, the more I think of it as a creative palette cleanser -- a chance to try out a few ideas while planning the next big song cycle.

So while In Prism at least sounds like a Polvo record, it’s not until the second half, starting with the eight-minute opus “Lucia,” where it actually begins to feel like a Polvo record.

Unlike the dark, industrialized beats currently populating many dance music playlists, Woo is light on its feet--more the soundtrack to an evening of beachside serenity than a 5 a.m. scream from some Mancunian warehouse.

The results may not be as jarring as its predecessor - the excitement of their original experimentation is gone - but ultimately they’re more satisfying, indicative of a duo much more comfortable with their vision.

While Sky Blue may have the most appeal for those who are already immersed in Van Zandt’s work, it’s good enough to rank among his studio albums. It distills what makes Van Zandt a compelling figure and shows him using his delivery to match the strength of his material.

There’s a minute-to-minute emotional immediacy here that, even if you don’t understand completely, you can feel like the weather, always changing.

There is an aura of immanence, of something more than banjo, bass and drums, that infuses these mystic tracks. Many things are possible, too, when you put together three such capable player and give them time and space to transcend themselves.