Yes, Ys is a demanding listen, but it's also a rewarding and inspiring one.

Matthew E. White's Hometapes' debut, Big Inner, is as frustrating as it is cosmically transcendent.

They're in an increasingly crowded field but hover well above all of their contemporaries.

While the title may reflect a a certain ponderousness, these 11 tunes are anything but.

Big and bold the whole way through and with nary a stumble, Something Else is another triumph from Tech.

Broken Lines' only downfall is that it isn't as cohesively arresting as its individual highlights. Having said that, those highlights pretty much eclipse this.

side from the cultural relevance of his lyrics, Choi's songwriting is catchy, vibrant, and brimming with melody and moxie on this excellent follow-up.

Coral Island is the band at their best, effortlessly conjuring up the glorious ghosts of rock & roll's past and turning those sounds into something timeless and instantly rewarding at once.

As good as OFF!'s previous releases were, they (in classic hardcore style) sounded like they were produced in hit-and-run style, with the band cutting them live with minimal overdubs. Free LSD, on the other hand, aims to be something more; in its intensity and vision, it succeeds, and it's a gloriously weird triumph.

With Say I Won't, Bass Drum of Death evoke the sweaty album rock of the '70s, infusing it with an undeniably raw and sultry immediacy all their own.

Like all Tinariwen releases, Amatssou is compelling and strange. They are a musical entity like no other, translating the essence of their culture through creative exploration and complementary collaborations, yet always attuned to their inner compass.

It's fitting that such a thoughtful work reveals more shades with each listen, and while grasping all facets of reality may not be achievable, Le jour et la nuit du réel expresses Colleen's truth brilliantly.

It's that sound of love, the fantasy vs. the reality of a relationship, that fascinates McAlpine and makes Older such a lovely and bittersweet experience.

With Dacus' warm vocals and melodies leading the way throughout, Home Video is an engrossing set steeped in life lessons and nostalgia.

On this soul-nourishing tour de force, her one-of-a-kind mix of innovation and emotion is as inspiring as it's ever been over her decades-long career.

There's a marked feeling of newfound ease that flows through The Comeback Kid. The always unstable elements that make up Stern's sound are still potent and volatile, but gone is any dread or confusion that may have pushed her music forward in the past, replaced by a sense of triumph and euphoric self-acceptance.

Kish Kash may be the best dance record of 2003, but it's the least imaginative LP the duo have ever released.

A dense, plunderphonic kaleidoscope of an album with giant, noisy jazz breaks and groovy electronic synthwork.

A standout among her already impressive catalog, The Moon and Stars is utterly beguiling with a luster that only deepens with repeated spins.

Revolution offers a strong, cohesive take on what has quickly become the “Lambert sound:” a blend of lilting ballads and loud, fire-breathing anthems, many of which owe as much to rock & roll as country.

What makes Interstate Gospel so invigorating is hearing how Lambert, Monroe, and Presley mesh as both songwriters and singers. Their time apart has only strengthened their bond, resulting in a fully realized and resonant record that is their best to date.

So if the first disc of Enter the Vaselines is absolutely essential, the bonus disc is for fanatics only.

The 19 tracks here are all over the place, true to form for Russell and his ever-expanding inspirations. ... For all the fans who discovered Russell after his passing, collections like Iowa Dream are bittersweet time capsules, holding new evidence of his one-of-a-kind talents that still occupy a space all their own, even when unearthed decades later.

It's still Duster to the core -- as sad, exhilarating, and powerful as ever -- but it's colored by 20 years of life experience and dipped even more deeply in melancholy. At a time when almost every band ever has reunited to make disappointing, derivative music, Duster have come back to make their most sonically challenging and emotionally invested record yet.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Multitudes is that virtually any of its 12 songs would be showstoppers in less consummate company.

Lyrical prowess is never in doubt, and neither is the idea that the MC is an acquired taste, but this wordy, extroverted, and capricious effort is an alive whirlwind with more pride than usual. That last bit makes it one of the most persuasive Aesop efforts to date.

While it may be inspired by Sandy's fallout, Landfall's reach runs to a sea of loss, chaos, and confusion. It's an elemental mystery of quietly epic proportions made exceptional through clarity of thought and feeling.

Nothing here is particularly outside the wheelhouse of Old Crow Medicine Show, but the songs are finely etched and the performances vivid, elements that separate Volunteer from its predecessors. Here, Old Crow Medicine Show feel focused and fully realized, as if they're just hitting their stride after two decades in the business.

Yo La Tengo have been doing what they do long enough that they know and trust their process, and This Stupid World doesn't seem radically different from their work of the last 10 or 15 years. That said, this music feels warmer and more emotionally satisfying than anything YLT have given us since 2009's Popular Songs.

The consistent excellence of Tomorrow's Harvest is as comforting as a collection of quietly menacing android fever dreams like these could possibly be.

Just when you think they've hit an artistic plateau, they take another creative leap into the unknown, only to return with what feels like a deeper, more heartfelt statement of who they are. With This Is Why, Paramore underline that notion, pulling the artistic and emotional threads of their career into a cohesive, ardent whole.

The LP is another work of sophisticated simplicity with deliberation seemingly eschewed in favor of spontaneity. Due in significant part to Leach's active hands and the frequent presence of Hone's woodwinds, the material evokes gentle spiritual and Brazilian jazz almost as much as it does smooth private-press soul.

Full of great lyrics and great playing, Strange Mercy is St. Vincent's most reflective and most audacious album to date, and Clark remains as delicately uncompromising an artist as ever.

It's his friendliness that makes his musings on the human condition work, and with Winter Wheat, he's once again crafted another thoughtful and meaningful set.

A stunning achievement, with Loom Gately beautifully honors her mother as well as her commitment to uncompromising music.

Equally soothing and exciting, heartfelt and innovative, Ecstatic Arrow is Virginia Wing's finest work yet.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend would have been impressive if it was just a showcase of her strengths as a singer or as a songwriter, but since it is both, it's simply stunning, a breakthrough for Lambert and one of the best albums of 2007, regardless of genre.

The modulation and echo treatments on the vocals, combined with the frequently torpid tempos, nonetheless make Astroworld ideal for being pumped through an (18 and over) amusement park's sound system near closing time, when the challenge of hitting all the rides has started to turn into an overindulgent, overheated chore.

Montero delivers in droves, a powerful realization of self that boldly places sexuality, honesty, and vulnerability at the fore.

New Bermuda finds Deafheaven continuing to effortlessly traverse genre borders and create transcendent music.

The group sometimes sacrifices immediacy for angular melodies and riffs that don’t catch hold. On balance, though, One Beat’s musical progression is still extremely impressive.

The Harrow & the Harvest is stunning for its intimacy, its lack of studio artifice, its warmth and its timeless, if hard won, songcraft.

All Our Reasons is wonderfully executed, and full of excellent tunes, nice improvisational turns, numerous surprises (many of them subtle), and a warm, lively sense of engagement throughout.

If you haven't seen Isbell and the 400 Unit on-stage, Live from Alabama will likely convince you to show up the next time they play in your area, and if you already have, this will remind you why you walked home impressed.

After an impressive debut, Tesseract return with Altered State, a sophomore effort that finds the band expanding its progressive metal sound in a bigger, more ambitious direction.

As a band, the Vigil is exciting as much for its potential as for the multifaceted talent the group members put on display here.

More accessible yet no less honest than their first two records, Bonxie is an expansion of Stornoway's best attributes.

Each of the five discs leads with a full-length in its entirety and is filled to capacity with an assortment of extras. What's missing is negligible, mostly forgotten remixes and redundant 7" edits.

Async is certainly not one of Sakamoto's most accessible albums, but if the listener is willing to devote several listens until it all makes sense, it ends up being quite powerful.

Epithymía is uneasy and sometimes painful, but it beautifully conveys dark, heavy emotions and is well worth the time.

As displayed on Nightbringers, there's plenty of room left to explore and experiment inside their sound, while expanding its parameters. They've done both to excellent effect here.

Audio, video, or both, this is a fantastic version of a bona fide classic.

This may be familiar to the dedicated whose allegiance never wavered, but for those who believed R.E.M. faltered after Berry's departure, R.E.M. at the BBC is a gateway into the band's last act.

Everything clicks into place right from the start and the emotion, the songcraft, and the power hooks never let up. Comet Gain may have been around a long, long time, but they have never felt as alive or as vital as they do on this amazing and important album.

There is no other album in Motorpsycho's vast catalog -- including its two companions -- that reaches these exploratory heights. For all of their ambition and excess, Motorpsycho never surrender their focus, their musicality, nor their powerful emotive directness.

Part of Simpson's appeal lies in how he blurs genres, so it's a bit ironic that this single-minded collection is one of his best records, but it is: it's an album where the joy in the music's creation is palpable and infectious.

On top of the more accessible production, this record also boasts some of Granduciel's most immediate songs, making it some of the best work from a band with a near-spotless track record.

Interestingly, five decades into his career, Billy Valentine & the Universal Truth may be the record that finally introduces him to a national audience, simply because it's the protest-soul album we need most right now.

scular, miserable, mighty, and meandering, High Violet aims for the seats, but only hits about half of them.

Yanya covers a wide breadth of styles and emotions here and even if it all doesn't hang together perfectly, Miss Universe is a fascinating debut that is reflective of the pressures we place on ourselves and others which all too often result in a striving but imperfect mess.

Buck isn't a talented rapper, but he has a gift for expressive storytelling and evokes a range of emotions with his limited, mumbling vocals.

At a taut ten tracks, Bloom is an unambiguous statement from Sivan, clear in its intent to celebrate the highs and lows of queer love through the eyes of a proud pop star in the making.

Singles shows that their craftsmanship and good taste may have been their most defining quality.

In time, it should be seen as a career highlight from a superstar--one of the hardest-working people in the business, a new mother, in total control, at her creative and commercial peak.

Cole's Corner is glorious, magical, and utterly lovely in its vision, articulation, and execution.

Emeritus is not the usual, very serious good-bye record, but in so many ways, it's a typical Scarface record. It's just better than usual with the rapper sounding liberated by his decision to move on.

Once Nao enters on the finale "Amazing Grace," an ethereal original that shares some lyrics with the popular hymn and delivers another message of salvation, it becomes more clear why the title song, an ideal closer in just about any other context, starts the album.

Somewhere in the second half of this hour-plus album, the mostly sedate sequence of productions -- some without beats, others with dragging trap-styled percussion -- make for laborious listening. The trade-off is Walker's vivid and biting lyrics and knack for singing them with such grace that they please the ear as much as they raise eyebrows.

Evermore as a whole doesn't play as a sad album. Swift enjoys playing with the new musical and emotional colors on her palette for Evermore to anything but a warm balm, a record suited for contemplation, not loneliness.

Gore and Gahan transform tragedy into something profound and universally relatable. Though not their most immediate offering, Memento Mori is their most heartfelt, thoughtful, and moving statement in decades.

It's simply unlike anything else out there -- except perhaps Just Another Diamond Day.

Revolutionary stuff and absolutely no fluff, R.A.P. Music is outstanding.

All the sonic elements are in place, so it's slightly disappointing that the songs aren't as vivid as the album's deliberately hazy vibe.

The last thing PWR BTTM are ready to do is mope; instead they've chosen to create a record that feels defiantly optimistic and celebratory.

This is deeply intuitive, subtly detailed, endlessly grooving, holistic jazz-trance music that was improvised at an extremely high level.

Even with some of the smoke and mirrors removed, Ariel Pink is still a singular talent.

Art of the Improviser serves as a testament to Shipp's achievements, yet it is also a continuation of the discovery in his developmental musical language.

Made Possible finds the Bad Plus openly wrestling with the complex interrelationship between rhythm, harmony, and improvisation (individual and collective). It offers a more inviting aural view of the group confronting these questions, and the historic weight and imposing boundaries associated with "the piano trio" in jazz.

The passing of time has only increased Blur's stature as a British treasure and this is a concert that suits their status: it's crowd-pleasing without pandering.

Gorgeously recorded and mixed by Guip, Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams is 44 minutes of roots music gold.

This is hardly the first or best study of the U.K. punk scene of the '70s, but Action Time Vision is an impressive tribute to the early stirrings of indie culture in England, and it's great listening throughout.

Amo is a genre-bending thrill ride that marks a brave new era for the band. Placing a significant amount of trust in their fan base, Bring Me the Horizon deliver an utterly refreshing and forward-thinking statement that finds them in complete control of their vision.

From beginning to end, The Long Goodbye is pure Pere Ubu: surprising, unexpectedly tender, and above all, thought-provoking. Even by their standards, this is a wild and challenging album -- coming full circle rarely sounds this exhilarating.

It's a striking album of hidden layers and plenty of craft that entrances from start to finish.

While LaFarge might still be a time-traveling rock troubadour, he seems to have found the center of his musical universe with In the Blossom of Their Shade.

There isn't a weak moment here, not even a middling one. Auerbach's Easy Eye Sound is forging a unique path into the future of blues, one artist and one impeccable track after another.

Shows a refreshing rawness that was absent before.

Ultimately, Fever to Tell might be slightly disappointing, but it delivers slightly more than an EP's worth of good to great songs, proving that even when they're uneven, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are still an exciting band.

The Ugly Organ is greater than the sum of its parts, with tracks that flow into one another seamlessly in spite of the wildly varying tempo and stylistic changes, not surprisingly like a classical piece in that regard.

Wind's Poem strikes a balance between accessibility and ambition that offers something for every kind of Elverum fan, but never sacrifices its purpose in the process.

Crushing is riveting right from the spare, noir-tinged opening track, "Body," which remembers the moment Jacklin decided to leave the relationship after her partner got them thrown off a flight.

The Path of the Clouds was constructed by Nadler sending frameworks of songs to long-distance collaborators; Seth Manchester (Lightning Bolt, Battles, METZ) later mixed the album after judiciously adding feedback and distorted guitars. These adjustments perfectly suit the album's epic, aching songs, which refuse to keep tragedy at arm's length.

Where previous outings like This Night and Streethawk: A Seduction mined the '70s for inspiration, 2011's Kaputt utilizes '80s sophisti-pop, New Romantic, Northern soul, and straight-up adult contemporary to deliver a flawed but fascinating record.

[Everything Hits at Once] proves there are few bands more adept at giving the venerable best-of compilation a refresh.

King Gizzard are restless and brilliant and listeners must follow everything they do like a hawk because they might unleash something classic, just like they did with Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava.

Yonder Is the Clock is the band's most nuanced effort to date, an effortless piece of Catskills folk and narrative know-how that shows just how far a band can grow in one year's time.

While this effort may not be Welch's surprise transformation into a full-on pop diva, Dance Fever is a generous offering to the goddesses of dance and restorative energy.