She's spellbinding when she's on--aided by her penetrating and often-literary lyrics. But when her singing meanders too long without focus, you forget she's there--her energy dissipates and she blurs into background, leaving her dependent songs with nothing to do but await her return.

You may wish the songs were a little tougher (the Wilco frontman might have spread himself too thin writing the entire album), but Tweedy’s words preach without sounding overly preachy. The backing musicians effortlessly find a funky/soulful groove and even at low boil, Mavis Staples remains a force of nature.

Richey’s doe-eyed, bittersweet approach perfectly captures the hurt and regret in her material, but you may wish there were more glimmers of light to offset her somewhat bleak outlook.

There are enough moments when everything clicks to make this a pleasant, intermittently compelling listen. But it’s hard to shake the nagging feeling that it could have been much better with a starker instrumental edge and less processing.

The best moments on Faster find a reasonable niche between Fish pushing her boundaries and including enough roots music to keep earlier followers from abandoning ship.

The Ascension, Stevens’ eighth studio album over all, and the follow-up to his highly lauded outing Carrie & Lowell, diminishes the accessibility factor in favor of a more amorphous imprint, one that finds all manner of effects and an ever-constant shift in sounds that drift through practically every selection.

It’s an impressive start to what seems to be a promising career for Jay Som, an artist ready for the next step to build atop this remarkable and often striking self-constructed first release.

Neal Francis’ balancing act of meshing a retro mindset with a modern sensibility doesn’t always work, but when it does, his music reflects a fresh, if not always compelling, perspective.

Harris' vocal approach to her folk-based songs, ballads or mid-tempo, is infused with the presence of a time-traveler, visiting modern America from a pre-pop-culture place where music is in the air rather than the airwaves.

Although Augustana may not be the year's most cutting-edged release, it is full of strong, if not extraordinary material, which is sure to leave an indelible impression on admirers of pop/rock.

At times, Amore sounds like a modern Goth-rock romantic tragedy, full of heartbreak and despair, but the pain Atkins expresses in her lyrics ultimately results in the album's most pleasurable moments.

This scrap of a record is nothing more than something a hardcore collector adds to the library for completion's sake.

It’s a fine line between revival and parody, and he walks it well, cowboy boots and all.

All in all, the album feels like the slightest bit bloodless, the older, wiser Lerche a little less than the yearning teenager we once knew.

At 10 tracks clocking in at about 35 minutes, it leaves you wanting more .

For a band that many hoped might come roaring back from Where Are They Now? purgatory with engines in overdrive, this is bound to be a letdown.

Some of his best observations get lost in the full-throttle approach of songs like "Ecce Homo" and "Still Life With A Hot Deuce And Silver Platter." It isn't until the album's second half that pace slows, some open spaces appear in the music, and Stickles' rants come into clearer focus.

What's offered on Ceremonials is solid, even a cut or two above solid. But it doesn't move the band forward.

Taken in tandem, All Roads Home makes for an enjoyable outing, one that gives each musician an opportunity to take center stage while demonstrating a small sampling of their individual wares.

Although the songs on Speed Of Darkness have a heavy theme, this fifth album by the band is anything but sorrowful.

Charmer is at its finest during the most subdued, quietly detailed stretches, which veer closer to what we've heard from Mann on past efforts.

This 30 minute set [provides] a crazed, occasionally unhinged yet always riveting experience.

A full orchestra occasionally adds more bloat to an already over-the-top sound.

Other piano-based narratives like the closing “Angel Blues” are delicate, pretty, and charming, but edge dangerously close to schlocky and don’t play to Lofgren’s tougher talents. Thankfully there’s enough solid material here displaying Lofgren’s impressive vocal, instrumental, and songwriting qualities to punch another notch on his belt of good but not great albums.

Whether or not this will be Bulat’s breakthrough record remains to be seen. The sound sustains the suspense, but rarely does it leap out at the listener. It hardly matters though. Are You In Love? answers its own question with every repeated encounter.

Sun June defines its enigmatic, shadowy sonic borders but never pushes beyond them, which causes the disc to occasionally lapse into tedious uniformity as it progresses.

While there are moments in which Coldplay take some interesting steps forward on Ghost Stories, there are a few moments when the band rests a little too heavily on easy listening or pop music clichés.

A sturdy but far from a revelatory example of Creedence rolling through a dozen hits and album tracks without much fuss and virtually no connection with the audience for a meager 42 minutes.