The Beast In Its Tracks is a gracious, relentlessly honest, post-breakup record.

Bella is a flat-out stunner, the work of a completely original songwriter and performer, and one of the young year's most startlingly eclectic and thoroughly fascinating albums.

Rarities alone aren’t the reason for acquisition, and in truth, the 16 tracks assembled for Assembly offer only a small taste of Strummer’s true genius. Yet, the music that is included still manages to provide an expansive overview of a career that was in full flourish at the time of his passing.

Based on Among The Ghosts, the band sounds tighter, more intuitive and incisive than when they started in 1998.

Finally, it seems, she's found her sweet spot in burnished southern folk-pop.

Unlike other such projects that prop up ageing rockers with a surplus of headliners respectfully going through the motions, Lewis is totally in control as he cranks out these tunes with a fire and intensity that doesn’t seem to have dimmed despite his six decade career.

There isn’t a huge sonic difference between Onion and the past few Clams releases, but the songs and instrumentation are tighter and better crafted with defined hooks and choruses.

Only eight songs long, Encore builds momentum and then leaves the listener wanting for more. One can only hope that there’s a further encore for this Encore.

For the most part, this is an album that constantly projects joy and musical adventurousness, qualities which have signified this career for more than a half-century.

Each song revisits some real or imagined past that leaves the narrator empty-handed or disappointed, culminating in the impassioned mid-album plea for faith and renewal.

Somewhere between the clear narrative of Boy's Night Out's Trainwreck and the Dear Hunter's ongoing musical saga, it's one of the most compelling realized moments Trophy Scars' madness has produced. [May 2014, p.94]

On Eleven Eleven, Dave Alvin continues his transformation from journeyman musician to becoming one of the people he always idolized: the one of a kind bluesmen and storytellers, rock and rollers and poets, folk singers and road warriors whose influences he's absorbed since he was a kid growing up fast in Downey, California.

In Reverie, Joe Henry and his group have created a raw, raucous and messy masterpiece.

Familiar but undeniably brand new, Halcyon Digest is forty-six minutes well spent--a loop that can repeated as many times as you'd like. Stay patient. If you skip out on a track, you'll be missing something.

Between the album’s imaginative, original art work and music that follows suit, this is one CD you’ll want to hold in your hands and stare at as you strap in and let the inspired music unspool.

The tone is consistent throughout, a sound so giddy and engaging, that it can easily break down barriers in order to allow for a communal embrace.

The 13 tracks are crammed into less than 40 minutes (seven cuts clock in under three), which also suits the group’s single-oriented, tightly knit aesthetic. It helps make Year of the Spider such a nonstop delight, one that casts its web by expanding and transcending Shannon and the Clams’ “punk oldies” moniker.

The end result is a festive power pop brew, a combination that mines instinct and intelligence. It’s fair to say then that Seeking New Gods is indeed a truly divine experience.

Presley’s latest album is a masterclass in songwriting that shows the singer’s limitless potential.

Even non-ZZ Top fans will appreciate the vitality and exuberance that jumps out of every track and those who have followed Gibbons’ 45 (and counting) year career should be delighted with this energetic if temporary change in direction.

For longtime fans, A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip is just another impressive notch in Sparks’ ever expanding career belt. But newcomers can come aboard here, then work themselves back through nearly five decades of similarly ecstatic, challenging and generally delightful Sparks music, most of it well worth hearing.

There’s fascination found in ever single setting, and his new album, Patience, is no exception.

Hawthorne mines polyester grooves, crackly sample beds and rich, analog production for his vintage soul sound, and it’s a wonderfully sumptuous thing.

Fame, fortune and influence haven’t dulled their initial impulses, something made clear on the hypnotic unvarnished vibe created throughout the superb Dropout Boogie.

With her new release, Under the Pepper Tree, Watkins excels once again, courtesy of a tender and touching musical tapestry drawn from nostalgic cover songs that bring to mind childhood memories and shared stories etched in comfort and caress.

According to Paul Simon, his new album So Beautiful Or So What is the best work he has done in decades. That's a bold proclamation. Even more startling: it's not hyperbole.

All in all, it’s a sumptuous box set and one that’s mined with obvious depth and devotion.

He’s not reinventing any wheels, but Road is an enjoyable, even impressive, release from an aging rock star who still, to trade on the album’s theme, has plenty of gas left in his tank.