Led by effects-pedal guru Oliver Ackermann (the Edge is a customer), this Brooklyn trio further their rep for insane volume on their first proper studio album.

Drawing from a syllabus of 100 essential country tunes compiled by dad Johnny in the 1970s, Rosanne Cash delivers the most enjoyable history lesson imaginable.

Milking the quiet-LOUD dynamic a drop more, this four-song EP's title track morphs a gentle guitar bath into a fuzz-pedal masterpiece.

Though Bonfires' pacing is erratic, the band keeps winsome romance close.

Its finest moments ('Let It Die,' 'Sunrise/Sunset,' and the beautifully tortured opener 'Hands')--featuring the duo's heartaching harmonizing--capture a uniquely tender gloom amid the droning atmospherics.

Hollywood brooder Ryan Gosling doesn't reverse the rule that actors make dubious pop musicians (see Keanu, Jared Leto, ScarJo), but his rickety collaboration with budding thespian Zach Shields has an undeniable dark charm.

The album's best cut, 'I Hate People,' is an unexpectedly bubbly May-December duet with Iggy Pop, but all of Break It Up ripples with raw power.

The trio’s official debut further expands their musical palette to include triumphant synth rock (“Chalo”) and woozy G-funk (“Julia”).

The writing still can be vividly evocative, but the uninspired, folky arrangements make her words too easy to ignore.

Often brilliant, occasionally creepy songs such as the bitter toe-tapper "Without You" and the optimistic six-minute epic "Light of Day" aren't appreciably improved by the trappings, but still cut deeply

Sinister remixes of cuts fronted by Martina Topley-Bird and Elbow's Guy Garvey reconnect Massive to their stylistic descendants, while further refining their calm on the verge of chaos.

On their sixth, the band's sound finally matches their romantic ambitions.

It's a breath of fiery air, then, that their latest is as close to a return to classic form as anyone could reasonably expect.

It all looks backward unabashedly--fitting for a band formed 30-plus years ago--but no less resonant.

Lambert is still at her bubbliest playing a guntoting, wisecracking, catfighting gal next door who cusses like a sailor, or at least brags that she does, plotting revenge on lying boyfriends and town hypocrites--preferably at cowpunk tempo.

The upgrade is one of focus and intensity.

AFI may not be breaking new ground, but they never forget who listens hardest.

As with latter efforts Jar of Flies and Alice in Chains, Black's most tender moments ('Private Hell') are its most essential. And while William DuVall is a serviceable Staley impressionist, this comeback would register with more purpose had guitarist Jerry Cantrell assumed the vocal lead.

More than anything, I and Love and You proves how miscast the Brothers were as folkies, because their ambitions are so much larger.

No matter the new producer (Steve Albini), new label, or new percussionist (Emil Amos replacing Chris Hakius), Om's droning bass/drum take on heavy metal still resounds.

To most listeners, though, Through the Devil Softly will simply function as a collection of breathily perfect lullabies.

Even the raw stuff has the humanizing detail that keeps Ghost interesting years after we've grown accustomed to his imagesplaying Joycean flow.

She's made a fine, loud career out of channeling childlike abandon, and the rumbling acoustic guitars and schoolyard choruses (featuring the Yeah Yeah Yeahs guys, Deerhunter's Bradford Cox, and the Bird and the Bee's Greg Kurstin, among others) are both joyful and foreboding.

The MC trio rhyme with distinct cadences tuned like instruments, while engineer Earl Blaize compiles keyboards, drums, and software blips into an Afro-surrealist space opera.

"Demons" and "Ten-Speed" show that Higgins' amber vocals and crisp guitar skills remain, but too much here floats by on a vague cloud of coffeehouse clichés.

Slim aims for the gut but usually ends up hitting the hips; either way, his relentlessly cloying lyrics ensure that Be Set Free is more suitable for soundtracks and square dances than headphones.

Shoniwa is both impulsive and precise: Every string-swept disco flourish or arena-rock guitar break heightens an unflappable poise that bypasses rote R&B melisma for soul-shaking celebration.

Nixing the sappy bits that dampened his debut, he rewrites the hooks from your parents' favorite Bon Jovi/Belinda Carlisle hits into earnest proclamations of teenage eccentricity, then waves his jazz hands in naysayers' faces.