Comparing the Scruggs cuts and the funky, swampy Cash covers with the austere John Wesley Harding outtakes that begin Travelin’ Thru is illuminating.

A decade later, RP Boo offers us Legacy Vol. 2, a sequel equally worthy of the title.

Classic Objects is direct and personal in a way that Hval’s work has rarely been, even as she evades confessional tropes. The album is soft and loose throughout, never spiking with dissonance. The pops and snaps of hands on drum heads give the songs a distinctly fleshy feel.

There are no extras, outtakes or re-anythinged. But taking these 10 records in a row, chronologically, it is a striking reminder no single artist has had a run like Joni,

Only a interpreter as shrewd and tasteful as Loretta Lynn could find the inherent commonalities in these songs, and make a grab-bag late-late-career album like this feel not only emotionally grounded, but like a powerful choice.

It's also quite good, despite the possible failure of nerve on its creator's part.

It’s familiar but new; varied but consistent; full of ambience but sturdy.

The songwriting is as strong and intricate than on 2006's classic The Warning, even if it takes a few listens for the finer points to sink in.

“Only One” highlights Jenkins’ facility for understated sophistipop; she’s a masterfully silky interpreter of hurt, a canny channeler of failed love in the softest possible tones. But the album’s very best song is its most atypical. “Delphinium Blue” is mostly synths.

The vibe is luminous pastels, elegant sway, adult-contemporary electro, and an uncombed, unselfconscious attitude that circles right back around to being cool, and Avalon Emerson’s got it.

Even amid all these choices, Squid’s spinouts are orchestrated stunts, never heady jam-band accidents. More than a canonized style, it’s their level of control that sets them apart.

Because Flowers doesn't maintain the urgency of Echo and the Bunnymen's early records, it's not the place to begin any investigation into their trippy delights. But for us old-timers who remember reading NME before the editorial policy changed to shameless oh-so ironic hyping of teen pop acts, Flowers stands as a gorgeous bouquet of memories.

Bottom line is that Mogwai are an insanely powerful live band, and these sharp recordings play like a unified set rather than a scraped-together compendium of disparate sessions.

On Farm to Table, he’s saying many of the same things he said on Live Forever, but more with his chest, with his feet planted even further apart, his gaze more level with ours.

Blackheart is the singular, visionary work that she's been hinting at since she struck out on her own post-Diddy in 2011.

The Slow Rush is an extraordinarily detailed opus whose influences reach into specific corners of the past six decades, from Philly soul and early prog to acid house, adult-contemporary R&B, and Late Registration.

On their third full-length, Weekends of Sound, the band showcases their strengths and improves upon their weaknesses, making it their most accomplished work to date.

Odyssey isn’t just full of ideas; it’s full of good ideas—rich, challenging, and inspiring in their largess. A decade into the new jazz boom and seven years on from Garcia’s debut EP, Odyssey shows ambition and style.

Rosebudd’s Revenge isn’t as seamless as Marcberg or Reloaded, suffering from some fidelity issues and perhaps being a bit back-loaded, but it’s endlessly, almost impossibly entertaining.

In addition finding new ways to snarl in their music, the lyrics go beyond mere cleverness into sharp, thoughtful introspection, making Travels a document of a creatively restless band out to prove something to themselves, and not just the fans they’ve picked up along the way.

It’s beautiful and devastating in that way that all the best albums are, and that in and of itself is worth some attention.

Captures a portion of the wispy bedsit magic that used to mark some of The Field Mice's best work and boosts it with the lush, "Hazey Jane II"-like chamber-pop of Belle & Sebastian's first flourishes of glory.

It’s short and cohesive, an enjoyable and uncomplicated 33 minutes of sheer exhilaration, filled with stings, itches, and cold chills. In one form or another, the collaboration comes as a surprise to all of us, arriving suddenly and carrying within the electricity and satisfaction of a good scare.

Beyond emotional acuity, the Linda Lindas also understand the power of a great hook. Arriving at under 30 minutes, Growing Up moves at a tight, bouncy clip, pogoing between power pop and punk, political statements and tributes to cats.

It isn’t 03 Greedo’s magnum opus. But until he’s free of the deprivations of an unconcerned carceral state, it’s close enough.

In creating space for such a rich spectrum of expression, Self and his many families of collaborators have created a timely and timeless document of the kinship possibilities that await when ears and hearts stay open.

While there's rarely been a correlation between the accessibility of a given Fall album and the profile of the label releasing it, the lean, brute-force rockers on Your Future Our Clutter suggest that the Fall might actually be taking this upgrade to Domino seriously.

Throughout Couldn’t Wait to Tell You, Liv.e is becoming an unmistakable and singular artist. Even when it feels like we’re merely privy to what’s inside her head, her thoughts resonate outward.