Most of these pieces have a lot going on, designed for listeners who take pleasure in guiding their ear through each successive layer.

Sure, fans who swear by Skeletonwitch’s early work might take a while to warm up to anthems like “Temple of the Sun,” a tightly constructed barnstormer in which the band dares to toss clean-sung vocal harmonies into the mix, or “The Vault,” a Pallbearer-esque doom experiment that grows more blackened with each wailing note until its entire soundscape is torched to a crisp. And yet, even when their creative lodestar shifts its orbit, the Ohioans’ cornerstones remain intact: their virtuosic riffs, their robust production (once again courtesy of Converge guitarist and board wizard Kurt Ballou), their endearingly adversarial presence on-record--and, most of all, their diabolical joie de vivre.

Luck in the Valley is so vibrant, engaging, and alive, it's hard to overestimate it.

The music—bubbly, nebulous, free—seems to have a mind of its own.

Star Wars is their strongest record in a decade.

These 15 tracks were certainly worth the almost-decade-long wait.

Diaphanous of texture but heavy of spirit, Safe revolves upon this tension, the pressure point of a soul under strain.

Built mainly from Powell’s knotty acoustic guitar explorations and lyrical musings that feel like fragments from an exceptionally perceptive diary, it’s the most satisfying Land of Talk album yet.

Goths is Darnielle’s most evocative work since the occultist All Eternals Deck and even though it remains loosely conceptual like Beat the Champ, it’s all tethered to this palpable, too-casual melancholy, the kind that comes with telling a cautionary tale one too many times.

Albums this unpretentious are increasingly rare, and I think that's what makes Her Mystery Not of High Heels and Eye Shadow so seductive.

Musically, American Gangster is lush and spacious.

At 15 songs, Severant is long and occasionally becomes drifty, but at its best, the album is a confident, even inspired, solo debut.

Parry's writing is shimmering, jewel-like.

The album is easy to let play through, but sometimes hard to feel intimate with its complexity. It makes for music that’s wonderful to live with, encouraging repetition while allowing for unconcentrated listening.

While she may borrow from R&B and pop, Klein’s output has more in common with the abstract impressionism of Jackson Pollock. Such intensity makes Tommy a difficult and even exhausting listen, despite a running time of just 25 minutes. But as Captain Beefheart and the Shaggs have shown in the past--and as Klein demonstrates now—-stepping off the musical path that leads to standardized perfection can prove hugely rewarding.

What Parker tapped into on The New Breed, he blows wide open on Suite for Max Brown, a mesmerizing follow-up and informal companion piece. While his electric guitar remains a highlight, Parker builds out a fast-slashing range of ideas using dozens of other sounds and instruments, most of which he plays himself.

Small, fastidious details add up to a tapestry that feels deeply lived-in, even if Island often lists toward the subdued or dreary.

Kidjo’s music flows most easily, and the messages land with the greatest impact, when she’s not proselytizing, as she does on the Sampa the Great-assisted “Free and Equal” and the album’s title track.

Hartlett crafts Ovlov’s breeziest record yet. It’s still wooly and doused in fuzz, but the band sounds more lucid than ever before.

It gives clarity to what’s so magnetic about their creative partnership: that, in the grand wilderness of America, these two unusual musicians found each other at all.

Tragic Magic grows more involving with each track. When two artists this distinctive and identifiable come together, you want to hear them make a third thing that wouldn’t exist without the collaboration, and the progression of the record finds them steadily feeling out that place.

At 45 minutes it's shorter than Penance Soiree, but lacks its concision and punch, at times wading a little too deeply into the indulgent waters of burdened, discordant blooze.

It's nasty and explosive and full of bile, a hard rockin' bare-knuckle blow to the temple that'll lay you flat out. In other words, How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident is just the thing for the modern man, those confused and angrily impotent brutes.

For anyone who enjoys a thoughtful singer-songwriter record with adept, minimalist instrumental backing and a powerhouse vocalist, Echo the Diamond is a worthy listen.

THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED is billed as a spasmodic response to dehumanization and disaster. And when it sticks to that first-thought philosophy, it’s a thrilling success. .... The trouble with state-of-the-union albums is that they often come off as didactic, and the Armed do clip the edges of that minefield occasionally.

Time and again in these five tracks, it sounds as if Orcutt has reached the end of potential variations for whatever theme he’s playing, like an outlaw outrunning the cops only to reach the edge of a towering cliff. But he finds unexpected ways to extend the thought, with Miller and Shelley always maneuvering to give him room to do so.

Two Ribbons retains all of the light-hearted surreality that made their first two records so bewitching, but out of necessity, the songwriting is braver.

But Homesongs is not simply a procession of trembling troubadour tunes. For each turn of boxwood fragility, there's also one of bold and confident songwriting.