The ever-shifting tone of Speak to Me asks the listener to keep up with the Lage's quirks and mood swings, but the sum of its parts is quite dazzling.

While Dabice and Mannequin Pussy might be worried that their destructive Dark Phoenix energy is too much to take, I Got Heaven is an album of apocalyptic rock & roll bliss.

Though she's never been a hesitant or unfocused artist, listening to Gordon come into her own on The Collective is a wonder, especially because she's not remaking herself to stay relevant -- it's the rest of the music and pop culture world finally catching up to her.

Bleachers occasionally borders on indulgent, but its tangents and loose ends are part and parcel of Antonoff's process -- and part of what makes it such a complete self-portrait.

Her concentration on an especially brutal historical subject makes it one of her most bracing works, and it becomes more compelling and powerful with increased intention and awareness.

Visions is clear and light, its textures vividly articulated and its rhythms mellow and fluid. It's music that feels alive, inhaling and exhaling with a gentle insistence; it's never rushed, never clipped.

There's no denying the sensibilities of Liam Gallagher & John Squire lie in 20th century guitar rock, but there's a freshness in how the duo's sensibilities intertwine that gives the record a warm, welcoming pulse.

A revelatory experience that's somehow been hidden within her all these years, Girl with No Face is a bold reclamation of artistic self from a thrilling pop auteur.

Scope Neglect is a disorienting, sometimes deceptive work, but it's thrilling in the way it dismantles genre tropes.

Focus on Nature is thoroughly pleasing and beautifully crafted, the sort of album Saloman's cult following will delight in while those new to his work will wonder where his somber joy has been all their lives.

While Kaiser Chiefs aren't starting many riots these days, these shiny tunes will keep the body bouncing and the spirits high.

Half Divorced is Pissed Jeans' chosen form of therapy for folks who really, REALLY don't like Mondays. Or most of the rest of the week.

With Playing Favorites, Sheer Mag have made an excellent rock & roll album, and yes, sometimes that is all you need.

The appeal in this refurbished soft rock lies in the atmosphere and supple interplay, how the musicians twist melodic clichés without refuting their power, an execution that mirrors how Webster writes songs that feel slightly off-center: she delivers subtle surprises without neglecting basic pop pleasures.

The sturdiness of the craft and its faithfulness to Cast's body of work means Love Is the Call could indeed function as a handsome farewell, but it also suggests the band might have more plenty of road left ahead of them.

Grey's voice is sometimes treated in a way to further emphasize the urgent bulletin-like quality of the material, but otherwise, this crackles with spontaneity, and the band at times plays with nearly the same ferocity displayed on some of their 1980-1982 output.

Y’Y a singular meditation on ancestral history, environmental awareness and spiritual devotion, is wide ranging, complex, and in places, quite mysterious. It is also utterly compelling.

Wry, riveting, chaotic, and infectious throughout, Where's My Utopia? easily upstages what was an impressive debut.

The piece ["Interstellar"] is easily the album's lightest and most optimistic moment, as the rest can feel cold, ominous, and sometimes challenging. Still, the album's more mysterious aspects make it worth hearing.

Shah's most exciting collection yet.

"Get Numb to It!" is a late-arriving outright banger with headbanging drums, a soaring singalong chorus, and lyrics that include "do do, do do do" as well as an anthemic "No, it never gets better/It just gets twice as bad…So you better get numb to it/Get numb to it." The rest of WWBWWGFH is just as nihilistic, a potentially appealing trait given the global tenor of its time.

On Untame the Tiger, balance doesn't mean compromise; as Timony works her way through grief, she creates moving, memorable songs that fans of any point in her career can appreciate.

A remarkably assured set of bold-faced indie rock and maximalist goth pop teaming with earworm melodies, intelligent, darkly romantic lyrics, and thespian bluster.

There's an intimacy to the interaction between Lund and the Hurtin' Albertans that gives El Viejo a warm, weathered vibe that's every bit as appealing as the songs themselves.

Though the communion and self-awareness Sadier envisions seemed almost impossible at the time of Rooting for Love's release, that's precisely why the album feels so vital.

It's not a return to form, a return to pop, or really a return of any kind, just a continuation of the band's blissfully weird frames of mind and a record that includes some of their strongest songs in years.

Ross rounds out the session with two vibrant covers, including a shadowy, off-kilter take of Thelonious Monk's "Evidence" and a dewy, after-hours reading of the John Coltrane ballad "Central Park West." Those last songs nicely underscore the vibraphonist's thoughtful, entrancing distillation of blues and ballads at play throughout all of nublues.

The very pleasant surprise is that Nance and his bandmates -- guitarist James Schroeder, bassist Derrick Higgins, and drummer Kevin Donahue, with some extra guests sitting in -- slip into this music with an easy authority, more languid but no less emotionally engaged than his more raucous efforts, and the spare acoustic closer, "In Orlando," leaves no doubt that Nance can do heartache at 3 A.M. every bit as well as he can summon a wall of fuzzy mania.