Another great release from the most important emcee in hip-hop.

I Feel Cream is a force of positive motion that addresses criticism with the sonic equivalent of a bitch slap.

When the songs are spare nothing feels left out, and when they're grandiosely band-heavy not one harmony or piano fill comes off as pilled on.

Gently blurring the lines between the warm golden haze of pedal-steel’d country rock with elements of tasteful, classicist new wave, the quietly intimate Cardinology jettisons the schizoid, freewheeling genre-hopping of previous records, giving the album--and, most important, the songs--an intensity of focus where there was once just intensity.

Nobody sounds quite like them, though, and few metal bands balance spiritual and metallic consciousness so well.

He's smart enough to know what's to be done, sincere enough to do it free of distraction, and nice enough not to impose his will on you. Ted Leo has literally seen his success as an artist become a life or death experience, and he's here to tell you how to treat it like a grown-up.

This album is the sound of just scraping by with a shitty job but not letting it get you down because there’s more than enough beer and guitars to make life worthwhile. Maybe in the next life or maybe in another world, but for right now The Bronx are right now. Welcome back, boys. We missed you.

Above all, One Second Of Love is a triumph of atmospherics and arrangements.

Although the reinvention teased before release never materializes, Lust for Life is still a return to form which should cement Del Rey’s status as the queen of femme fatale pop.

In addition to great production and invigorated rhymes, the album also sees four guest spots from the likes of Damon Albarn of Gorillaz/Blur, Beth Gibbons of Portishead, Goodie Mob's Khujo Goodie and Boston Fielder.

The album's great achievement is that it melds the civic with the personal. Mo' Mega spans a bigger range in its eleven tracks than most albums twice its length.

The attention to detail, the avoidance of crisp production, the resonance of the instruments and voices all contribute to the depth of the music and its ability to penetrate through to the listener in an almost raw and pure state.

They've found the blueprint to the instantly memorable rock song - and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga contains several - and continued to follow the instructions.

Some are sure to hate it, but unlike any Melvins album since "Houdini," Nude With Boots certainly demands your attention.

Free at Last is everything that his heads could want.

What could have easily ended up as a boring, stale record -- the sound of a band getting ready for 401(k) land -- is instead the peaceful sound of a goofy band being a little less silly.

The album is just as solid as Franz Ferdinand’s 2004 eponymous debut, and it shows that the group clearly knows its sound -- maybe a little too well.

In essence, under the mantle of her most pretentious album title yet (in a catalog of pretty brilliant titles), lies an earnest dance-pop album.

Heretofore lurches well beyond the confines of the breathtaking rustic songcraft they're known for, but every experiment is drenched in gorgeous melodies and inventive instrumentation. In short, it's Megafaun's most effortless, assured work to date.

Mountain finds the band taking several huge leaps toward that end, resulting in a more cohesive picture of their sound and a band beating down a clear path for where they'd like to take their music.

How lucky to be either a new or old fan, hearing Jansch at such a late age and in such a remarkable state.

Plumb is one of the top-shelf albums of 2012 so far because of Field Music's openness to continually tinker with pop music's DNA.

It's true that most of the attention Gonzalez received in the beginning was from songs other artists' wrote. The difference with Gonzalez is that he picks songs that fit his minimalist and whimsical approach--and he often makes them better than the originals.

Vampire Weekend’s debut comes across as a confident, precise, and, for better and worse, mature collection.

Matthew Houck, better known as the voice of Phosphorescent, has given Willie Nelson (and the rest of us) a gorgeous, shimmering gift in To Willie.

It’s promising indeed when an album that most artists would be happy to have as their pièce de résistance still shows plenty of room for growth.

Paralytic Stalks is a record made by a genius or a hoity-toity psychopath depending on your perspective--call it whatever you want, but it certainly isn't boring.

We can quibble about intent and expression, but in the end you will have to succumb to the heart, body and soul, and your brain might be left behind.