With likeminded ensembles like Brooklyn’s colorful psych jammers NYMPH and Switzerland’s Eastern-flavored, Voodoo-inspired collective Goat transmitting dreamscapes from the beyond while exuding familial, Zen master vibes, Yoshimi’s OOIOO has joined that spiritual fray with this Gamelan-inspired trance inducer.

As intellectual and introverted as Krell often is, he’s at his best when he and the music simply let go. What Is This Heart? delivers in the second half when nearly every song peaks with exuberant finales.

An album packed start to finish with some of Mastodon's best material to date.

Quality-wise, the second half of the album has a higher batting average.

In a career fraught with obsessions over the perfection-imperfection dichotomy, it turns out to be a blessing that she put pop and its various pressures on the backburner just to deliver some real summertime sadness.

Much of A.K.A. is still mawkish, midtempo melodrama that does too much to accentuate J. Lo's tunelessness.

The result is the rare heady corrective that's as fun as it is thoughtful.

Deep Fantasy is exhausting, cathartic and a little scary.

Where Craft Spells' previous release felt a bit lackadaisical, the more self-aware Nausea, with its themes of growth echoed in its synth crescendos, sports ambition.

Savage Gold is of course far more than the sum of its parts, but those parts--Killing Joke, Deathspell Omega, later Death--make for an excellent starting point for the band's considerable combined talents to spring from.

Ultimately, it's their sisterly harmonies--not their lyrical content--that provide the salve of this First Aid Kit.

Lazaretto's experimentation sounds ambivalent, its songs fractured and distracted.

He's trying to remind you that he's still tough, though these lines mostly just conjure images of Travis Bickle in the mirror: a guy alone and clueless, snarling at imagined enemies that can't talk back.

Glass Boys is easier to navigate, and doesn't engender the same awe [as "David Comes to Life"]. But its brevity allows Fucked Up to loosen a little--to indulge in sounds and tones they forwent when their albums sprawled. Less space, and more stuff: the band keeps getting denser.

Their most eccentric, diverse sounding record to date.

These performances never surrender to the anxiety of influence: All those comparisons are mere reference points for a loose aesthetic that values sustained chordal vamps above all else.

Both "Smokin' and Drinkin'," featuring Little Big Town, and the rowdy "Somethin' Bad," her and Carrie Underwood's retort to bro-country, feel forced. These are small missteps on an otherwise solid outing.

Joyously addictive mutual self-destruction is what Do It Again is all about.

An album so urgent and pressing that it often foregoes language for feeling, explanations for executions.

Although Feast comes packed with Europeans and expats (Butler currently calls Vienna home), the rhythms strike with Yankee assertiveness, the vocals now direct yet far more diverse.

Once you've heard the undoctored edition of Bert Jansch's heartbreaking "Needle of Death," a harrowing tale of self-destruction by heroin predating Young's own "The Needle and the Damage Done," the noisier approach feels like needless gimmickry that diminishes, rather than enhances, one of his strongest sets in a long time.

In Conflict is queer outsider art at its most fraught and compelling.

Upside Down Mountain is a curious, if occasionally disturbing pleasure to listen to. Just don't expect answers when you turn it right side up.

Songs sag and soar at once.

Compared to the sleek, grandiose flash of Coldplay's last two albums—Viva La Vida and Mylo Xyloto, both underlined by help from Brian Eno--Ghost Stories feels as melancholically light and airy as Parachutes, while ironically sounding more like Eno.

Sincerely Yours, then, remains another sturdy addition to the discography of one of rap's more thrilling creatives.

In dialing down the pomp of Belong and the fuzz of their debut, the Pains discover something that transcends mere buzz: an ageless indie pop sound that could last them for years to come.

Agalloch have never sounded so rich, so full.

It's not White Blood Cells or Icky Thump, but at least they no longer sound like they're producing records in a Black Keys factory.

[An] all-consuming a ritual as rock music is capable of giving us, and also as viscerally, joyously life-affirming.

It's not that Chromeo's run out of ideas--they've been a one-idea band all along. But now they've got more of the world singing along, so their brand of fun suddenly means a little bit more.

It's immersive and transgressive, if you care about this stuff.

Her attempt at convincing us she's a loving wife and mother of two, a savvy feminist, and a satirical mastermind mostly comes off as disingenuous.

When I Never Learn aims for pop, it's the hazy Shangri-Las variety; the melodies are Li's lushest to date, but the smoke never clears around them.

She may sing about her belief in herself faltering, but her sincerity is actually stronger than ever. The victory here isn't just that Nikki Nack betters Whokill by beefing up its feral ferocity with more sophisticated chops, or that she triumphed over her detractors by proving she hadn't already peaked. Garbus found power in a hopeless place.

Whether or not you've made your peace with the datedness of Indie Cindy, as well as the sheer pile of things you did not want to see the band do, are you going to put it on repeat? More than you think, but less than they hope.

This is serious music. Albarn has stated that this is his most personal record and he ain't kidding.

Throughout the album, she shifts from restrained cool to soaring sentimentalism in mere seconds; this dynamic is something that Civilian possessed, but Shriek masters.

Sometimes the album sounds backward when it isn't. Rarely does it sound like one person squeaking out notes in succession--more like a bunch of dudes filling a tape with improvisations, rewinding to the cool parts and haranguing some hapless studio engineer to razorblade it all together.

The Way and Color is a gem in its own devastating way, but don't be surprised if TEEN occupy a completely different space next time.

SZA isn't lost when sharing a song with big names, but she doesn't seem interested in pulling them entirely into her own world either.

Breezy in its boldness (12 tracks, under 50 minutes), this is a heavily considered album from the only reasonable rap star around.

Food is indeed "the real thing," a satisfying album grounded by familiar funk, rooted in classic soul sounds and focused on the everyday rituals of life: eating.

Testimony brings rap's raw nerve detail to the sturdy slow jam, nullifying the need for nods to R&B of the "rap and bullshit" variety.

The New Classic establishes the Australian artist as a competent rapper with a decent ear for hooks, but that's about it.

With Light and With Love sounds bigger, though, more accessible, conceived with an ear toward top-down, tear-out-of-town FM anthems of summers past.

Like Seinfeld, as New York a document as Paul's Boutique, Quack presents itself as a comedy about nothing. But Seinfeld's nihilism, as a portrait of the neuroses of a certain class in a certain era, at least represented a kind of ethos (pace Walter Sobchak). Duck Sauce's "brain farts," on the other hand, take refuge in the idea that if you stand for nothing, you can't be held accountable for anything.

Under Color Of Official Right rumbles along with tense basslines and drums that feel like they're trying to stay out of Casey's way, as guitarist Greg Ahee slashes a path forward.

Lead vocalist/head louche Greg Dulli's dark obsessions and predatory narrators manage to sound as erotically entrancing as he pushes 50 as they did when he was courting 25, aging gracefully like a snifter of peaty scotch rather than a cup of flat beer.

EMA has crafted a wide-eyed, open-eared, reasonably horrified, digi-noise drone-folk treatise about the soul-sucking, privacy-wrecking qualities of online life.

It's no "High Enough," but it is a damn fine collection of selected ambient works.

Terje can make an aging gigolo's commentary on the folly of his misspent youth the centerpiece of his otherwise invigorating dance album because he's the rare crowd-pleasing DJ whose musical skills trump his proven ability to move butts.

The tunes barely let up until the Mann-led "Hummingbird" and "Honesty Is No Excuse" more than halfway through, and even then the usual boring singer/songwriter-isms become a nice resting place from the otherwise inescapable hooks.

Its lyrics, though often hard to discern in the mumbles, start to get to the core of what Mess is all about--trying to find some sort of peace in this anxiety-breeding world.

Beneath the arena-friendly sonics and the streamlined storytelling of Teeth Dreams lies the same old band that kicked off their very first number with a little bit of Mott The Hoople self-mythology, that fist-pumping Hold! Steady! chant within "Positive Jam."

Here Be Monsters sounds like a fleshed-out band, graced with Mekons-derived musical trademarks.

Buoyed by girlfriend and former Dirty Projector Angel Deradoorian and ex-Ponytail drummer Jeremy Hyman, Tare has plenty to bounce off of here.

While the band itself might still be metal newcomers, their music goes down like an aged mead, and Void Worship is an early contender to be one of 2014's most satisfying drams of doom.

Whether directly inspired by backpack rap or just embodying the raw energy of that era, the group has none of the preachy divisiveness that made that movement a half-joke.

Much like Bon Iver's output, Range of Light delivers a set of songs with a fixed sense of place and a nostalgic sense of time.

Baldi and Co. take the best bits from Albini's tutelage, apply them to lo-fi pop-punk structures and infuse all of it with tightly wound angst.

His patron saints appear to be Harry Nilsson and yacht rockers like 10cc, and rarely are either channeled with this little cheese and this much panache. He merges these influences with what's quickly become his signature guitar sound, an effortless style that can be playfully discordant. It's these dissonant bits that elevate DeMarco's easily digestible pop.

It sure does prove that Bob Dylan isn't bigger than rock and roll--while also proving that rock and roll needs ace songwriters more than many current rock and rollers think.

Get over Herring's Shatner-like earnestness like you did with Destroyer's Kenny G moves on Kaputt and you'll unlock the furrowed brows, baggy eyes and bulging veins beneath the metronomic perfection.

Their excellent new Bless Off, which careens even more crank-ably--not to mention somewhat less grumpily--than 2011's also very good Primitive Blast.

This wobbling between attempts to impress the dance music cognoscenti and to make songs as purely delightful as "Coast Is Clear" defines Recess, and occasionally bogs it down.

Boldly, My Krazy Life is in the vein of Kendrick Lamar's good kid, m.A.A.d city, with a developed, knotty and, ultimately, deeply moral narrative.

From the lyrics to the beats, the pleasure of Piñata is in the details.

Graves' earnest lyrics are purposely mixed far beneath the caustic instrumentals here, but when a few words do surface, we're treated to thoughtful (if only partial) confessions.

Supermodel's failing is that it's copying one of the foundational records of this trend, which is, you guessed it, Torches. It's hard to think outside a box you built yourself.

There are the irretrievably cheesy moments.... [But] Therein lies the strength of Kiss Me Once: Minogue's ability to turn any contrived situation into something positive, magical, and utterly her own.

If Slave Ambient represented a breakthrough, this one is an out-and-out star-maker that should rank among the year's best albums.

Glow tries so hard to keep the mood pneumatic that it starts to feel over-stuffed, even at just 55 minutes long.

What's great about Atlas, the quintet's huge, intentional about-face of a third record, is that it most definitely didn't organically occur.

Though there aren't any clunkers, Tomorrow's Hits peaks when it achieves maximum speed and strives for the ecstatic repetition of eye-rolling, body-transcending gospel music.

This is Ross at his least cohesive and most clueless since his 2006 debut, Port of Miami.

From the girl in "Till He's Dead or Rises" who has "the fear of Jesus on her side" to the way in which "First Air of Autumn" is an identical twin to Brighter's superior "Perfect Timing," the album sounds like the kind of holding pattern release that causes fan-bleed.

The most booty-shaking, speaker-twinkling, glitz-intensive pop-soul record to come down the turnpike in years, out-dazzling even kindred efforts by Timberlake, Bruno Mars, and Miguel.

An inspiring “is this even rap anymore?” record.

Granted, 10 of those are just a minute or less (sometimes far less: "Yet Unknown" is nothing more than a nine-second sample from a news broadcast), and 11 more don't even break the four-minute mark. On the plus side, we're treated to some of the best songs from his recent, out-of-print releases.

ScHoolboy Q comes off like the dude who gives in to all the peer pressure, constantly on the verge of betraying his talents and smarts just to fit in and be one of the bros. The weirder he gets, the better.

It's a major work, one that confirms that she's only marginal in the sense that she's vibrating on her own wavelength, way out at the edge of the spectrum.

This one is lithe and liquid, shy of a masterwork but still a fucking great record, top to bottom.

No matter how enthusiastically some claim Beck as a zeitgeist-embracing pop chameleon of the Jean-Luc Godard variety, he's far more a craftsman of the Louis Malle school: sophisticated, assured, self-aware, and incessantly torn between competing genres.

Clatter arises from songs and songs from clatter, and it's maddening how so many of them seem to randomly end before committing to actual endings.

When she depletes her stock of declarative phrases, Olsen has little to say about these mercurial emotional swings except that she's feeling them. Or unprepared to commit to them. Still, the good songs on Burn Your Fire for No Witness suggest Olsen is figuring out how to sound--how to resound, actually.

A confident and assured debut proving that home address aside, he fits squarely into the Black Hippy aesthetic.

Voices flaunts the duo's expanded range.

There are odd nods on Somewhere Else.... But her full-throated attack and guitarist Todd May's twang-snarled guitar, which splits the diff between Tom Petty's Heartbreakers and Johnny Thunders', also recall a less-remembered version of that decade.

Ostensibly a supernatural tale, Hotel Valentine challenges the listener to reflect on life, death, and nothingness. Whether that inspires joy or terror depends on you, but it'll inspire something.

The lack of a hefty, definable, or easily digestible pop overhaul here means that Little Red probably won’t hit America as hard as even its predecessor did. But it does feel like the natural progression of an artist whose narrative is so wholly and convincingly embedded in club life.

They're career musicians active since the '90s, but here, they actually sound excited again.

This guy has written 40-plus albums of material, so it's saying something that Benji is one of his more challenging listens.

After the Disco is the rare, superior sequel--think Toy Story 2--to Mercer and Burton's seemingly one-off self-titled 2010 debut as Broken Bells.

Rough in all the right places but pleasurably smooth in others, Held in Splendor is less like the kitschy t-shirt quilt you made to remember your high school clubs and teams, and more like the perfect old blankets your grandmother used to sew: oversized, musty, and familiar even when you haven't worn them in years.

The money shot is still the original 13-track album, which stridently argues (and proves) the thesis that Uncle Tupelo were the Velvet Underground of '90s alt-country.

"R.I.P music," wrote Cunningham in the introduction to the album. As corpses go, this one is exquisite.

As with so much of Too True, it's more Flowers in the Attic than Flowers of Evil. But it's also part of a glorious art-goth tradition: bookish rockers chasing pop into the dark, deep within the Hong Kong gardens, where all cats are grey.