Twelve members and five records in and the Dears have made their best album yet -– Degeneration Street is one of the rock albums to live up to in 2011.

Contradictory emotions push against each other in each line and verse, pulling the listener between envy and pity for the characters that inhabit each song, and often with envy/pity switching sides on each additional listen.

There's plenty more on Tao of the Dead that works. After years out in the cold as music critic whipping posts, this should go a long way toward reclaiming some lost luster for Trail of Dead.

In a word, Abigail Washburn's City of Refuge shines. It is a folk-pastiche that draws on all of Washburn's past successes and crafts them together into a lovely and sometimes mysterious work of art.

The lack of thematic diversity strikes another blow. Certainly, songs about being unhappy with relationships are nothing unusual. However, the ability to write anything meaningful or refreshing about the subject is quickly exhausted on Mine Is Yours.

Like many a great singer-songwriter, Snider possesses neither an exceptional voice or above average guitar skills. What he does bring to the party, though, is his own inimitable point of view: a wry, self-deprecating, seemingly slightly stoned, hilarious, and authentic persona.

In the end, this album just doesn't make it.

On their self-titled debut album, country duo Meghan Linsey and Joshua Jones Scott deliver a sound that is familiar and cozy, as if the songs have always been there.

As far as this legendary foursome's new offering, Content, is concerned, well, at least they're not simply cruising on the laurels of their formidable back catalog, and to be fair, Content is no worse than other recent comeback albums by fellow post-punkers Mission of Burma, The Buzzcocks, and Wire.

Ultimately, however, once you've gotten past the nagging feeling that you're not really listening to the Iron And Wine you thought you knew, you realize that you are, and that many of the songs are wonderful.

The harder they aim for radio, the more rewarding the result. Beneath the irony and compact cool, Cake is still a great little pop band.

In the end, though, the spirit is most definitely still there, and any Allman Brothers fan or blues fan needs this album. It's an event as much as a recording and a good representation of the artists that made Allman want to be a musician in the first place.

It all seems more diverse than it actually sounds, and true, the band borrows plenty, including some room to play around with the sound, but Thank You Happy Birthday transcends its genres, and would be better simply labeled as a solid second step.

After a listen to Love Letter, it's clear that only a true maestro can pull off a line like that. Let's leave such proclamations to the man himself.

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.

There are no enduring classics here like the songs on 2007's Live At Massey Hall, or anything to rival the material that helped define late '70s AOR from, say, American Stars 'n Bars or Rust Never Sleeps. But this is a record well worth having, and it's a blessing that we still have enduring artists like Neil Young creating such vital music.

The Old 97's latest effort mimics the end of the workweek. At first, the possibilities seem endless. Every moment, just like every possible meaning, could be the one you've been looking for.

The Union brings up two very good points again and again: No amount of celebrity shenanigans or animated transgressions can eclipse the fact that Elton John is an absolutely amazing musician and there's a never-ending list of reasons why Leon Russell is your favorite musician's favorite musician.

It's geek rock's holy grail courtesy of the sub-genre's flagship band, and an album that, though rife with sincerity, songwriter Rivers Cuomo has seemed to run farther and farther away from ever since.

Because of the buzz behind it, Speak Now was destined to be a commercial success no matter what. Thankfully, the album succeeds on an artistic level as well.

While able to raise the hair on the back of your neck, The Fool, like many monstrous creations, sometimes lacks the necessary intelligence to be fully alive.

This type of music has been done before in a different time, same place--the album was recorded in Nashville--but it hasn't been done this well in quite a while.

Ke$ha didn't really set the bar for intellectual heft too high on her debut, Animal, so it seems like hair-splitting to mention that even with guilty pleasures like "Cannibal" and, uh, "C U Next Tuesday," Cannibal seems to be skimping on the cleverness.

After the celebri-beef and ALL CAPS blog posts fade away, Fantasy will stand as an album that dare to push the entire medium of recorded music forward, for better or worse.

This record is all over the map, showing how widespread Loretta Lynn's influence has been on the generations of performers who have followed her.

It's such a disappointment when something you hope is going to be great is, well, such a disappointment. That's the case with Dreams, the latest album from Neil Diamond.

Over the course of 16 tracks, Costello flexes his stylistic muscles and exercises that famously acerbic wit.

If you're a fan of the Memphis music of the '60s, and/or Huey Lewis, this album is a good bet. Soulsville won't be on the charts long in this day and age, but its songs are timeless, and Lewis and his band do a nice job of paying homage to the music of this bygone era and its creators.

Their eighth studio album is somewhere between an extension of their previous indie gems and another baby step towards radio-friendliness.

This whole idea might be a little overdone for everybody by now.

As a project, The Incredible Machine succeeds big time, and may make these guys even less welcome to certain factions of Music Row as they continue to change the face of what is considered country.

The Age of Adz builds on his previous dabblings in electronica by integrating the ideas he has clearly been stewing with the aspects of his work so dear to fans.

In the end, Charleston, SC 1966 doesn't break any rules or new ground, and probably wasn't meant to.

When Wayne is on, he's one of the best in the game, but on Human Being he's just killing time with sub-par versions of his far more popular songs – this is a completely superfluous release that lacks the relevance and immediacy of his mixtape works and the quality-control of his albums.

Basically, you know if you want to buy this album already, and if you do want buy this album odds are you will really enjoy it. But if you aren't familiar with either artist don't bother--there are better Orb records and there are better Gilmour records, and even though Metallic Spheres is quite enjoyable, we wouldn't recommend it for newbies.

Tiger Suit wears a different skin than her previous recordings, and the highs and lows are obvious.

The five-piece band's new album, Easy Wonderful, is full of those same universal ponderings and investigations of love.

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.

This will be a good record for backyard barbecues and beers, but not for much serious listening.

The unrelenting earnestness of the album may appeal to some listeners and repel others, but in either case Franti has achieved his goal of capturing the "sound of sunshine"--and it seems like he's having too good a time to care what anyone thinks, anyway.

Even the most rock 'n' roll track, "Bobcat Goldwraith," starts with and then later, after much cacophony, unravels to reveal the same building blocks underneath. The plinking and plunking riffs of No Ghost prove inescapable. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, mostly because what follows those riffs is done so well.

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.

What matters is that this is a really good record, and while it would have been nice to hear some instrumental breakdowns--especially from banjo player Richard Bailey, who is way understated--it's nice to know that Nashville is capable of putting out something besides more bad pop.

Bingham made a challenging record, opted to go the Bad Blake route instead of going down in a blaze of ponytails and designer jeans, and that ensures his relevance for years to come.

If Dream Attic is any indication, recording studios may soon be as irrelevant to Richard Thompson's career as big record companies are.

All Birds Say plays like some east coast indie darling took his acoustic guitar out into the great west, met a kindred soul with a steel guitar and shared a few sweet and unambitious thoughts on life. Broemel chooses his instruments well, and if the album never raises its voice, with a consistency in tempo that approaches droning, it's still a pretty haze.

The now mature musical relationship pays dividends as the baritone crooning of Lanegan and Campbell's breathy, Nico-inflected singing continue to deliver an atmospheric payoff.

As its' title suggests, this record is not what it seems at first listen, but one that's worth the extra effort to decipher all of its introverted intricacies.

The problem is that the band seems to want to go mainstream as it stood in 1995. As a result, they've lost a lot of what made them unique.

God Willin', while a pretty record and certainly head and shoulders above so much of what has been released this year, it is nearly completely bereft of the emotion that we've come to expect from LaMontagne.

The songs are pretty, well-written and well-constructed, but the album as a whole lacks the vitality that would give it necessary variety.

It's about people, and Mellencamp continues to write and sing about them better and better with each passing year.

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.

Coming in at six songs and a lean 22:30 run-time, Blake Shelton's All About Tonight is what I imagine being in the studio audience for an average sitcom would be like.

It works. And not just because Tilbrook's high and mellifluous voice has only ever-so-slightly thickened and Difford's lower register--used for great deadpan effect on "Cool For Cats"--defies aging concerns, but because these effortlessly clever, tuneful and pithy songs never got their full due in the U.S.

The Suburbs ends on a dark, dystopian note with a little 90-second deconstruction of the title track, leaving you to wonder if the "screaming" alluded to earlier might not always be the joyful kind. That kind of ambiguity is what makes Arcade Fire's deceptively simple music all the more intriguing.

With guest artists like '60s organmeister Booker T. and Americana legends Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, Jones and Johns have made a real statement in the same way that Rubin, and of course T Bone Burnett, do almost every time they produce an album. That statement is that the same people who set the bar decades ago for so many of today's acts to measure up to are still making a lot of today's best music. Praise and Blame raises that bar just a little higher.

In the moving disc closer "Mimi Song," she asks her listener to "tell them about me when I'm gone" and to "remember me." With an alluring album such as this one, that request shouldn't be hard to do.

It may have taken her over 20 years, but today Sheryl Crow is retrieving and expanding upon those parts of her artistic sensibility that had always been there.

These United States' lead singer Jesse Elliot has a scratchy, affected voice--maybe a super-strung-out Ryan Adams, if you're looking for a point of reference--which makes for a varied listening experience: Sometimes you want it to lead you to the Promised Land ("Just This"), sometimes you just want to make it stop ("Ever Make You Mine").

Dark Night mostly fits together as an accomplished piece of downbeat concept-rock. The mood can get--to quote Chesnutt's song--"grim," but the artfulness shines through.

For the all the bang of "Saturday Sun," "Elephants," with its slow-paced piano, closes out Intriguer, drowsily, though perhaps fittingly so.

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.

Writing this review would be so much easier if you didn't seem like such a nice dude and if you hadn't had such a disaster fraught year so far. we'd totally let into you about that Miley Cyrus duet and probably scold you for including that atrocious remix of the Rock of Love theme, but frankly, we can't. Not now anyway.

Though songs are on the lengthy side (around five minutes), they don't drag, and there is enough powerful bass and drums to complement electronic noise.

For the half hour that this beautifully oddball symphony persists, it's hard to determine where anything begins or ends--a track, an instrument, Davison's voice, or the music itself. And that's a good thing.

He may be feeling wounded by love, but Escovedo's follow-up to 2008's career-defining Real Animals is an almost equally strong testament to his durability.

What We Walk This Road lacks in over-the-top displays of technique, it makes up for in soul, as Randolph's tasteful playing and subtle vocal phrasings emerge more clearly when not fighting for space inside overloaded arrangements.

As the track [Untitled] fades out and Eminem thanks the listener for coming out to the show, it's clear that if this effort is just the recovery, then the countdown to full rehabilitation begins now.

After listening to Gray's latest, The Sellout and going back to the music that had shifted through our slush pile unnoticed over the last decade or so, we're pretty stoked to find an artist making solid, soulful music beyond the confines of contemporary culture.

In these tough times, Thile's words, and the album as a whole, are more effective than the titular tonic at staving off inclement weather, at least of the emotional variety. A strong dose of Antifogmatic goes a long way.

If you buy Bingo! expecting to hear some burning blues, or to hear another of the Miller hits that may have excited you in the '70s, you'll be disappointed either way

The songs are rich with relentless, complex instrumentation, the smooth, ethereal voice of Yannis Philippakas, and dubious lyrics about life.

Grace Potter's voice is the perfect compliment to the band's newly designed dual-guitar blitz.

From The Black Dirt Sessions we get the sense that being painfully serious is more important than making stylistic progress.

Science or not, Widespread Panic's eleventh offering shows that after all this time, they've got something figured out.

The sound is quintessentially opiate--almost sleep-inducing--and upon writing that, it should be clarified as a compliment, kind of like falling asleep to NPR: It gives good information, but the undertones and lush notes can lull you to dreams.

Here's To Taking It Easy stands as a triumphant proclamation of Phosphorescent's ongoing ability to provide quality heartbreaking Americana.

This cohesiveness is the very thing that was lacking from previous efforts, and ultimately dulled their impact. Kudos to the Casadys for finally accenting their highly inventive songwriting in a unified manner.

As much as Broken Social Scene's identity is wrapped up in it's concept as a collective, their most transcendent moments are not their speedy grandiose party anthems but are instead the small soft details like the band setting into a slow almost improvisational groove in "Sweetest Kill" or the hushed vocals of Emily Haines, Leslie Feist and Amy Millan singing in poignant unison on "Sentimental X's."

Every line seems to come straight from the mouth of that guy right over there, you know, the buddy of your buddy-the one you always wanted to ride around with while he told his stories but never got the chance to. Well, here it is. Are you game?

Despite the distinct musical talents involved, Together is surprisingly as its name suggests--cohesive.

It is a monumental album in everything from the scope of its subject matter to its grand instrumentation and production.

It's a beautifully understated album of personal confessions, wandering thoughts and worldly observations, all rendered with the assurance of a naturally gifted vocalist, one who clearly has no need for auto-tune or other irritating tonal tampering devices.

His latest album, Country Music, is Willie at his finest, characteristically understated and effortless.

Having long since cracked the code for the perfect country song, Haggard expertly crafts a fresh batch of tunes that make you want to write one yourself.

A fierce backing band, Okkervil River lends them drama, tension and a cinematic pomp that underscores the miraculous nature of Erickson's recovery.

There are no crescendos, no peaks or valleys. It's a straight line all the way through, which, as we all know from watching medical dramas on TV, can only mean one thing--the lack of a pulse.

All in all, Congratulations pushes MGMT in the right direction. Rather than resting on their deserved laurels, Vanwyngarden and Goldwasser challenge themselves sonically, creating a follow-up that will test even the most astute audience.

While his vocal style is not for everyone, Matsson is an imaginative songwriter whose songs deserve your attention.

I Speak Because I Can is composed of mature, sophisticated but relatable songs, performed as only Marling can perform them, showcasing not only a broader vocal range and more intricate guitar parts than on her previous album, but a new breadth of experience, resulting in a balanced album that can sound as enshrouded in shadow as it does enlightened.

All told, Women and Country is Dylan's most accomplished work to date, and will set the bar for all future endeavors.

The hitch in the album is the hit-or-miss probability of the listener connecting with the quizzical story, wrought in obscurity.

Shame, Shame is both a more focused and lyrically mature effort without forgoing any of the band's rambling pop charm.