While the constant need for creative freedom and instrumental variety means that Drunk Tank Pink begins to meander towards the record's back end, a handful of sprawling epics showcase Shame's enviable talent for vivid storytelling.

Unlike some of Will Oldham's previous collaborative albums, this one really works.

Intensely frantic and intimately vulnerable, Girl with Fish proves that sometimes letting things run off the rails pays off, so long as you have hands to grasp onto.

Love What Survives is a grower for sure. Mount Kimbie may never return to the height of those first few releases, but we'll still be here for another while yet.

Though Short n' Sweet falls a few inches short of the masterful pop its singles suggested it could be, it's buoyed up by its incredibly high highs, and establishes Carpenter's identity in a pop landscape saturated with next-main-pop-girl hopefuls.

With this album, they've proven that they're a band with substance, staying power and the ability to question everything--and that's worth a lot.

Instead of digging up coal like the miners grippingly depicted in these new songs, the Hardcore Troubadour and the Dukes unearth anthemic gems for America's marginalized.

Painted Ruins is best enjoyed when you let each song carry you through its many twists and turns. And are there ever twists and turns.

Not everything here works--Shahid Mustaf MC's needless reworking of Parliament's "Getting To Know You" simply doesn't improve on the original--but exclusive mixes like Joey Negro vs. Horse Meat Disco's "Candidate For Love" should ignite the dance floor.

If this isn't Jacques Greene's magnum opus, we'll be very curious to hear what is.

Nothing Is Still is an excellent demonstration of what Leon Vynehall is capable of when he emerges from the confines of club music.

With Reunions, Isbell unites the disparate aspects of his craft — soothing acoustic and fiercely electric; Hemingway's word economy dashed with Oscar Wilde-worthy asides, relatable details and otherworldly allusions. ... For listeners immersed in similar bittersweet nuances on a daily basis, there's no better musical accompaniment than Isbell's latest.

Lyrically, Brown is still one of the best we have. .... Charismatic guests like Bruiser Wolf, Overall and MIKE manage to make their respective marks without taking up too much space — This is Brown's story.

Emotionally tactile and blossoming with feeling, The Kid is a stunning record that demands attention, absorption and meditation, two LPs rich with wisdom.

Vampire Weekend have never taken themselves too seriously (they've had plenty of critics to do so instead), and now that they're mostly unburdened from the narratives of their past, Father of the Bride finds them at their most relaxed, jovial and inviting.

It's not often to encounter music this conceptually sophisticated and well executed that also, in its most secret depths, simply hates you.

This string of downtempo songs, while soothing and catchy, will leave fans of Shovels & Rope's more upbeat fare feeling restless. A more balanced reshuffling of the track list would have solved this issue, and might have made this already excellent album a classic. But as is, Little Seeds is a fantastic LP that showcases Shovels & Rope's uncanny ability to both rock out and rest easy.

Feel Your Feelings Fool! is an energetic, empowering romp of a debut that would feel more rebellious if not for the overly safe production.

She's quite literally found her groove, nicking pieces of '70s and '80s pop and R&B to give the tracks, performed once again by producer Matthew E. White and his Spacebomb Studio's crack house band, a bit more swing. Though they lack the natural funkiness of say, the Dap Kings, the crew once again deftly evoke the past without ever inhabiting it, creating a record that, while conceivably could exist in any moment in time, still feels modern.

It's a super-charged R&B record, laced with throwback Motown/Philly grooves, that hits hard but fails to land a knockout blow. It seems to be a case of not being able to fully satisfy the hip-hop heads, the R&B fans and the amorphous genre-less Venn diagram in between.

It's not perfect – there's a spoken-word bit tacked on to the end that is less than satisfactory, but the lyrics aren't really the point here. This is a record that fills up a room and begs to be turned up loud.

This hodgepodge of ideas, irregular pacing and abrupt transitions are oddly compelling; though it can be tough to make it to the end of the hour-long work, Elverum makes it worth it.

Fans put off by Blake's perceived sentimentalism won't have their minds changed by Overgrown, but that's hardly Blake's worry; he's too busy establishing himself as a consistently rewarding songwriter.

The album doesn't quite match their punishing live show, but neither does it betray their purpose or message: to fiercely silence the white noise of psychosocial oppression. It is one missive they convey without ambiguity.

Experiencing the music of OOIOO is an incredibly satisfying series of sensations that seems to form an exclusive bond between creator and listener. It's a plunge into unbridled creativity that is the true essence of psychedelia.

Virgin is the kind of album that makes you realize something you hadn't really before: until now, Lorde was operating at an emotional distance. .... Virgin feels like a rebirth.

Final Transmission feels like an intimate farewell letter to a lost friend, and a fitting tribute to former bass player Caleb Scofield.

Much has been said about jazz in the new millennium, and alongside names like Kamasi Washington, Flying Lotus and Robert Glasper, Yussef Kamaal should now be considered in that conversation.