Sunken Condos is a smooth collection that insinuates deeper feelings through the head-bobbing rhythms and offbeat humor. In other words, it's Donald Fagen doing what he does best, which is always good enough.

All in all, Monogamy is a bit underwhelming, but there is understated humor in Kasher's musings, and he has a flair for infectious melodies without hooks. He snaps the puzzle pieces together, whether it's a fit or not.

Robert Ellis’ self-titled album is the sound of a young songwriter solidifying his blend of East Nashville country with whatever sounds, styles, and sentiments that suit his interests.

American Goldwing is an all-around great listen - one perfectly suited for late fall nights on the porch or holiday road trips - and it may even be the band's best record to date.

This is the Shack Shakers as we know them with every sweaty, caffeinated concert and rollicking disc bringing the group closer to the “legendary” status flaunted even before their first release.

Those who liked One Quiet Night, especially those familiar with the pop material Metheny is recalling, should enjoy this record. But many non-jazz listeners will find this CD dreary and sleepy, and jazz purists probably won't like it a lot either.

First Aid Kit’s latest may be a slightly more conservative gesture than their last record, but it synthesizes their many musical strains more fully than ever before.

On their 5th studio album, North Carolina string band Chatham County Line show no signs of ruining the good thing they've got going. Each album they've cranked out has been a keeper, and Wildwood is a grower, to say the least.

shed. It’s beautiful, intense, occasionally relaxing but most of all challenging music that borrows from a myriad of influences and never feels derivative.

Chrissy Hynde remains a powerful and iconic presence. We should be thankful she’s still at it and recording music as impressive and distinctive as Alone.

This is the work of a mature artist, comfortable in his skin, creating insightful, brilliantly recorded and performed reflective music he knows will never find favor on the radio.

At its most upbeat and salacious, it's a glorious thing.... At its slowest and most soulful, the band's music finds a warm inspiration in the soothing sounds of gospel.

Are We There is definitely an album that will reveal itself to you with closer attention and multiple listens, as opposed to Tramp, which was a little catchier with its obsessions right from the get-go.

There's no shortage of catchy, bopping crowd pleasers on The Carpenter, and the Avetts churn them out with gusto and pride.

This is no halfhearted sideshow done on a drug prompted whim, but a serious if twisted and undeniably idiosyncratic re-make/re-model.

Perhaps a few upbeat performances would have better balanced the all-ballad program, something Hynde could surely have pulled off without breaking a sweat. Regardless, what’s here displays her ability to inject a fresh approach to Dylan’s timeless work, revealing nuances of his writing that often get overlooked in his or others’ hands.

The production is raw enough for the guitar chords to slash and burn, yet clean enough for the words that are so integral to this band’s attack, to be understood and felt. Like the music of the Replacements, the melodies creep up on you and by the second time through, each one has a chorus that’s tough and memorable.

It’s an impressive, often explosive first effort and a reminder that the organic combination of a tight outfit backing a talented, distinctive singer with a parcel of compact, rugged tunes and unaffected production to tie it together will turn heads and rock the house.

While there aren’t drastic changes to their sound, there’s a sense of sureness to the songwriting, playing and Charlie Starr’s singing that reflects a decade and a half of the same dudes slinging it out together on the endless highway.

It would be a fully-formed debut for artists of any age. So it’s all the more impressive that Yellen is only 23 years old.

On Bloodhounds, the harder Victoria works to reckon with the dark Southern demons of her youth, the further she’s pulled back and drawn in by the music she’s discovered along the way: the lonesome wail of Junior Kimbrough, the isolationist cry of Outkast, the mournful lament of Patsy Cline. It’s this push and pull that provides her music’s driving tension.

There aren’t many that can keep the musical flame burning for this long and maintain the quality found here.

Lead track “Mile Marker 29” gets things off to a rousing start courtesy of the song’s riveting refrain. The tangled tapestry of “All Your Friends Are Dying” doesn’t offer the most promising premise, but it’s intriguing nevertheless. Still, when the band slows the tempo and recasts the proceedings with some mellower melodies, the album truly hints at greater glories.

An impressive effort that proves these relatives with impeccable musical synergy have more than just bloodlines in common.

Give Collapse a few listens. The potential is there.

These new songs should mesh gracefully with the classic music that rightfully made Cat Stevens a household name in the ’70s.

A similarity to the material and an overall honeyed style dominate on initial listen, but the pieces become more distinctive after a few spins.

They still craft songs as if they’re assembling a robot, and they make sure to throw so many of these short tracks on the album (25 in 45 minutes) that you’re bound to find a few that will hit the pleasure buttons just like the old days.

Those looking for a cool album to throw on as invigorating background music will be delighted. Those who want a little more substance with the style should cherry-pick a few chosen tracks which spotlight why Yeah Yeah Yeahs still impress a decade down the road.

Fogerty knew the risks and sought to rise above mere sing-along gimmickry, inviting his partners to share ideas for their tracks. Wrote A Song for Everyone, the result, is, at times, revelatory.

While there aren’t any rousing sing-along choruses, let alone pop crossover potential, this is Americana that’s conceptually consistent.

Morissette's poetic discourse of intimately describing her feelings still abounds, but is elegantly emoted here with cool restraint.

None of this is sonically abrasive but it’s all challenging and a little goes a long way. At over 50 minutes, it’s a heavy lift that may confuse some but also intrigue others.

Unlike its predecessor, it comes across as a decidedly calming affair, one that stands apart from the earlier album’s brash and bombastic surge of racket and rumble.

The diversity works to Los Coast’s advantage, keeping a vibrant, generally exuberant approach coalescing around Pivott’s voice as it ignores stylistic boundaries more established outfits might be hemmed in by.

All in all, Blue Rider is a stirring experience, one that elicits emotions with the most subtle of brush strokes and simplest of sounds.

Everything is weighed down with import, and that can become wearying through 14 longish songs. Still, people will relate to the universal doubts and fears that are often stirringly evoked by the music and lyrics on Delta. Mumford & Sons know their strengths and they play to them well here, proving that too much catharsis is better than not enough.

Rouse uses his recent psychoanalysis sessions to question universal questions of our place in life as we age. That he does so with such beautifully crafted, hummable pop songs is a testament to his long established talents as one of America’s more overlooked singer/songwriters.

This feels like the band’s fifth album, not their first, and that’s an enormous compliment. They blow the roof off but do it with style and class, nodding to the past without slavishly imitating it.

Despite the adept lyrical approach, Gonzalez’ guitar virtuosity is still one of the main draws here.

Despite his relatively young age—he’s barely 25—he conveys a remarkable sense of self-awareness, and if he seems especially vulnerable on some of these songs (I love myself but that’s alright, he insists on the album opener “The Funeral”), one gets the sense that he’s speaking for others that imagine themselves in a similar scenario.

In retrospect, Young’s decision may have been for the best, but like everything he’s done, Homegrown still has much to offer. In retrospect, and with all things considered, it’s not a bad blend.

Fleet Foxes producer/engineer/mixer Phil Ek warms up the band's previously chilly sound to yield arguably their best, and certainly most accomplished album yet.

How much appeals to you will depend on your tastes, but it’s clear that all of the contributing musicians did this as a labor of love, something obvious from the honesty and quality of the performances.

You’ll just go with the flow and appreciate the sheer songcraft of a journeyman who could probably release an album as solid as this every year without breaking a sweat.

This remains a cool, downbeat and shadowy version of the duskier side of Americana.

There are a lot of songs here, and it overwhelms in one sitting, but even in small pieces, it’s clear that Tweedy takes home the songwriting ribbon at the father-son picnic.

Simone’s vocal, arranging and composing talents are so consistently strong that you’ll be swept away and lifted by the sheer quality of these lyrically dense yet musically fleet footed stories.

This is music for relaxing and enjoying the good times, after all, delivered with just enough abandon to make sure you know these guys can really play--and more than enough hooks to keep the hit songs coming.

Her voice flutters, bounces, and hiccups through the twelve songs on Metal, and her singing is dynamic and never boring.

Few tracks instantly jump out, but after multiple spins, it’s easy to get lost in Lynn’s creamy, dreamy approach, her breathy yet compelling voice, and the life-questioning lyrics that define the album’s overall entrancing soundscape.

It’s quietly hypnotizing music, unconcerned with commercial trends and miles away from the more hoedown revival of Old Crow.

The album does a wonderful job of creating and sustaining its mood. People looking for something a little bit more flashy or bold-faced from their music should probably look elsewhere.

More ornate and richly produced than any of her previous recordings, The Order Of Time fully establishes June as a proper auteur who has long transcended any limitations as a quaint revivalist.

The bottom line is that The Next Day proves that Bowie, whoever he might be, is back, invigorating his listeners even as he stupefies them.

The sometimes heavy quality of the concepts never overwhelms music that takes Dusty in Memphis as its stylistic template and moves it into a contemporary, but not slick, setting.

If there’s anything keeping Dying Star from being an outright classic, it’s that Kelly can so effortlessly conjure up the regretful young man’s blues that the nearly hour-long album can coast at times. But for the most part, Dying Star is a triumph.

On fifth LP Gimme Some, the Swedish trio has stripped down their sound, and their brand of indie rock has never sounded fresher.

Regardless of Lou’s input, this sounds like another solid Lofgren set.

The twosome generates real sparks throughout and the natural camaraderie bursts through the speakers. You can almost see, and surely feel, their beaming faces on many selections. But even at its best, it’s hard not to wish this was a bigger showcase for Mahal than Mo’, with the latter’s notoriously slicker approach dialed down to allow the former’s gutsy soul to take the spotlight.

Existing fans will appreciate the uptick in sheer moodiness and offbeat experimental tendencies matched with fluid, often hypnotic melodies the quartet displays on the majority of Strange Little Birds. Newcomers to the Garbage experience can start here and work themselves backwards through an impressively edgy catalog brimming with more of the same.

he album is a study in contrasts with Lauderdale’s recording debut: the 61-year-old singer’s voice has deepened and grown more resonant with age, more weary and weathered and measured.

Social Cues shows the group maturing musically without losing its grip on their ability to craft haunting, accessible tunes ready for the larger venues they have rightfully graduated to.

It’s the sound of a knowing band reveling in what it does best. B-Room, which combines the scrappiness of the band’s earliest records with a matured sense of songcraft, is sure to please longtime Dr. Dog fans.

The mix of upbeat folk-rockers with moodier fare makes this such an impressive and convincing album.

The more sophisticated Chains are Broken reflects a willingness to push beyond the somewhat cult audience The Devil Makes Three has accumulated, into a wider framework without abandoning their reputable roots. While it may be a bit jarring on initial spin, the risk has paid off.

The problem with Psychedelic Pill, and it's a substantial one, is that, besides that inspired ending, the instrumental passages don't distinguish themselves as being all that memorable.

LeBlanc has found firm footing with the help of fellow Muscle Shoals musicians John Paul White and Ben Tanner, who have helped the Shreveport, Louisiana native flesh out his musical strengths and make the most mature, cohesive record in his still-fresh career.

This is another in a series of solid, R&B-soaked Sacred Steel albums, each a little better and more focused than the last, that further cements the pedal steel’s — and Robert Randolph’s own — musical place both in and outside of the church.

While this collection isn't uniformly awe-inspiring, Hiatt has outdone himself on a couple of these tunes.

What could be a raucous mess is smartly written, well produced and arranged hard rock/power pop with slight prog and punk tendencies.

There aren’t many musicians of Mayall’s advanced years still recording new music and fewer still sounding this energetic and dynamic. It’s not his finest work, but fans won’t come away disappointed either.

The styles vary while the tonality is so consistent, so dialed in that all feels seamless and the transition from gorgeous to gutbucket feels as natural as sunset.

It may take a leap of faith, and it’s hard to imagine how convincingly Lake Street Dive can pull off this slick, immaculately produced studio album on stage, but once you let yourself go with the disc’s flow, it’s tough not be engaged by the sheer vivacity and likeability of a set that sounds like it was plucked out of a time capsule.

Ultimately, The Future represents another plateau for a band that’s quickly earned a stellar reputation for both verve and versatility. The Future draws on those accomplishments through a timeless tapestry that offers reason to rejoice.

Benson may jump at a Raconteurs reunion should it ever appear, but with a release as strong as You Were Right, he deserves to be playing mid-sized halls as a headliner in his own right.

The performances smartly stick to rockers since the few ballads (“Guernica” and “No Hard Feelings”), while darkly tuneful, expose the limitations of Hunter’s voice, now a shadow of his “All the Young Dudes” heyday. But give him credit for refusing to tweak it with electronic enhancers and writing some terrific tunes, which he attacks with more vigor than many a quarter of his age.

Raw, rough yet beautifully crafted, Taylor’s music is pure, honest and riveting in its unadorned simplicity.

It could be all tongue in cheek--and some of it probably is--but in the end, this isn’t an Occupy rally, it’s a rock album. And it’s not a shabby one at that.

By design, Mechanical Bull was made for fun, and in that spirit, they succeeded.

In the end, Alive As You Are is a polished and impressive effort that heralds DML's chameleon like musical ability by exemplifying you can in fact teach an old dog new tricks.

What’s so profoundly American about these songs are the way they often deploy humorous metaphor and simple, child-like storytelling devices to convey deeper, darker truths. Other times, the songs are simply funny stories without a larger lesson.

Live From Atlanta is a more effective career retrospective for the alt-country stalwarts than any formal greatest hits compilation could ever be.

The unexpected is to be expected, and in that regard, Wagner and company don’t disappoint. The Bible may not be the last word as far as this band’s creativity is concerned, but as always, Lambchop’s music is worth heeding.

In the end there are no real surprises here; this is just another solid recording from AKUS which the band's fans will no doubt enjoy.

Since their music so effortlessly recalls the best of Jackson Browne, consider We’re All Gonna Die to be Dawes’ version of Browne’s 80’s curve ball Lawyers In Love, a stylistic detour with high points that outweigh the misfires.

The production, arrangements and overall audio are beautifully crafted, McCombs’ askew concepts are, well... intriguing, and this hour long album is another impressive notch in the belt of a talented artist whose unusual, often offbeat approach is what makes him so distinctive, entrancing and appealing.

As with most feature-heavy albums, some of the duets fall flat....Still, there is some real magic to be had on Mean Old Man.

Despite the ominous lyrical content, Nadler creates music with warmth, grace and genuine humility.

On Life In The Dark, the Felice Brothers continue their decade-plus quest of chronicling our crooked national pathologies with quirky humor, slacker indifference and guarded folkie optimism. Never before has the Felice Brothers taken in their country with so much wide-eyed wonder.

Ultimately, the album's roomy sound and well-observed sentiments come across as byproducts of lived experience rather than of an extensive vinyl collection.

Turn Blue is the most masterful representation to date of the duo’s successful transformation from lost-in-the-milieu garage rockers to game-changing, widely appealing songwriters.

The original songs here are, perhaps surprisingly, stronger than the parodies, and Yankovich shines brightest when he is just being funny without a direct target.

It’s not for the squeamish or those looking for concise, structured songs. But established followers will likely get on board and stay there. Others may want to dip their toes to test the temperature before they jump into Lanegan’s choppy, occasionally dissonant but revelatory waters.

A few highlights such as the soaring, dramatic title track are spread over an expansive 70 minute playing time. But there isn’t much you’ll revel in as timeless art criminally neglected to the dustbins of R&B obscurity.

It may not be her finest set, but it captures the light/dark spirit that informed Crow’s best music and is a worthy addition to an already impressive catalog.

This is soul music of the most raw and affecting type; naked but brimming with more feeling than the majority of today’s stars in the genre whose elaborate productions can’t touch Son Little’s cottage project for purity and emotional clarity.

With the orchestra, Vanderslice is able to maintain the best-friend-telling-secrets feel of his previous work, while expanding the sound to make it feel more like an orchestral soundscape of all your best friends telling you the same secret. Or maybe the secret is just much, much grander.