The catchy country-pop rhythm of the title track, buoyed by a twangy electric guitar solo, wouldn’t have sounded out-of-place in between Clint Black and Dwight Yoakam on Country Music Television in the 1990s, but Childers frequently channels a vision of the genre that predates the video era.

Her third album in eight months, is a statement of self-definition—one that encourages you to be at peace with all your insecurities. It’s this propensity to let the irregular feel like second nature that makes Fratti so magnetic. Sentir que no sabes is a summons to make your own rawness a home.

Sometimes extended improvisation carries with it an expectation of drama, where you think about what just happened and what might come next. This exceptional record fixes your attention on the present moment.

Fabulous and melancholy.

Her precision never feels overly technical or stiff. Tether is as intuitive and loose as it is intentional.

Like those on their last album, these songs reveal themselves gradually but surely, building to the inevitable moment when they hit you in the gut. It's the rare album that gives back whatever you put into it.

The project is distinctly rough around the edges, to great effect; there’s the sound of dust popping off vinyl and cassette hiss throughout. ... His uncle and father are gone, but Earl is still here, carrying on their artistic legacy--and, with the help of his collaborators, building his own.

Where “Damascus,” “The Manifesto,” and Sparks-assisted pinger “The Happy Dictator” play to their unlikely collaborators’ strengths, the bombast of songs like “The Plastic Guru” and “The Shadowy Light” teeters into folly.

If it doesn’t quite show the knack for experimentation and variety hinted at via Inspiration, Wings is a quietly amazing document of Otis’ doggged determination over the quarter century between leaving the business and the first Inspiration reissue.

Brown meets JPEG’s tempos with alacrity, flashing a singsong flow on “Orange Juice Jones” and mirroring the jittery horn fanfare of “Burfict!” The short bursts don’t provide space for Brown to stretch his limbs, yet he remains a virtuoso in miniature.

The album’s best and most revealing tracks are those where James herself takes the mic, though she’s careful never to give away too much.

What’s remarkable about It’s the Long Goodbye is that even in these moments of consuming anguish, the album doesn’t feel oppressive. The musicians’ interplay and MacFarlane’s exquisitely sculpted production balance Graham’s grief with consolation.

The songs sound as fresh as morning air through open kitchen windows.

Still inventive and imaginative, still grounded in his dexterous picking and robust vocals, it’s his most bittersweet album, with a melancholy lingering in each song, no matter its subject matter.

The album finally makes good on the post-punk and metal influences that have forever lingered at the edges of Wovenhand’s output.

The new-stuff disc offers few hints as to where the label is headed next, which is unsurprising, but the variety on display is only matched by the quality of the tunes themselves.

He has his handful of obsessions, his rules, his limitations, and once in a while he returns and gives us a record like this, something that will be sounding good five or 10 or 15 years from now, or whenever the next solo record comes along.

White Blood Cells doesn't veer far from the formula of past White Stripes records; all are tense, sparse and jagged. But it's here that they've finally come into their own, where Jack and Meg White finally seem not only comfortable with the path they've chosen, but practiced, precise and able to convey the deepest sentiment in a single bound.

Like all of Cohen's albums, Popular Problems sounds slick but slightly off-kilter, like someone trying to imitate music they've read about but never actually heard.

That idea, the notion of music as a cheapened, battered object, touches nearly every aspect of Ravedeath, 1972, a dark and often claustrophobic record that is arguably Hecker's finest work to date.

The vibrant, expressive songs on Curyman II return often to this theme: how Brazil's unique cultural identity is a product of its diverse ethnic populations.

Whereas Murphy once took on all of these influences lightly and cleverly, they feel heavier across much of American Dream’s 70 minutes, with the lingering responsibilities of a disappearing history becoming more apparent. On paper, that might sound like a bit of a slog, but this is not the case.

Though the album can be quite funny, it delivers the goods with no funny business—16 songs and not a throwaway among them, each an example of what works, rather than an experiment in what might.

All Hands on the Bad One finds the Northwest power-trio at their most melodious, playful, sarcastic, and punchy-- both musically and lyrically.

Yes, it sounds quite a bit like The Books' debut, but it also sounds like nobody else. The Books remain more or less a genre of one.

A strong experimental record that draws on Cee-Lo's malleable style of rap... one of the year's strongest hip-hop albums to date.

Phonte and Big Pooh sound rejuvenated, and while 9th Wonder isn’t on this record (or part of the group), the beats compiled by Khrysis, Nottz, Zo!, Black Milk, and Devin Morrison have a sophisticated bounce, making this feel like an old Little Brother album without dwelling too much in the past.

The record stretches deeper into a pool of contemplative, ambient-leaning pedal-steel records that’s expanded significantly since Balsams. Based in Oakland, California, Johnson makes inventive use of both space and place on The Cinder Grove.