What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World isn't a concept LP or any kind of statement of higher purpose. Instead, it simply illuminates the Decemberists' inviolate strengths.

A nimble, melodic wordsmith, Bada$$ casts his effortless flow over a loose collection of jazz and boom-bap backdrops.

By coming back down to terra firma to detail her disconnection with love, Björk reconnects with the people of Earth.

You're inclined to not like the too-self-aware man of I Love You, Honeybear, rejecting his moodiness because you can't stand another white man taking himself so fucking seriously. Then again, making fun of him is just falling into his trap.

The NYCers fourth LP pulls from the trio's usual obsessions--shoegaze, noise rock, 120 Minutes circa 1988--with zero interest in making things easy.

Sour Soul eschews the Tony Starks comic book concept narrative of the past two efforts in favor of some good old-fashioned coke rap and braggadocio.

A most welcome comeback.

As always, the contrast between Adam Franklin's smooth pipes and his and Jimmy Hartridge's strident six-strings provides the sonic setting, enabling Swervedriver to put the brawn back in beauty.

Though culled from improvisational jams, this instrumental exploration of psych's deep catacombs never feels anything less than deliberate.

Houndmouth pulls it all together into a packed album without faltering.

They're more punk at 70 than a truckload of Sex Pistols 45s, and still decimate every other band in your record collection.

Cat Power for the next generation.

Deeper--his third LP--plunges into his most self-assured head space yet.

"Fool for Love" wouldn't have survived the twisting soundscapes of the frontman's initial EP, but it offers the same sweeping vistas.

Guitars, energy, and emotions are dialed up in a manner that's unique to Yoakam.

Constant Bop lights up a whole lot like his main band's 2011 breakout album D by the second song.

Production rings crisp as the title track jolts at the outset with a speakeasy strut that turns to jumping jive on "Wanna Be Your Man," while chugging percussion and horns drive "Underground."

It's a well-grooved vision filled with stunning images and sobering emotions.

"Get the Point" and "Big Decisions" strike a personal honesty James hasn't revealed before, and closer "Only Memories Remain" hearkens George Harrison as simultaneously devastating and uplifting. The personal is the universal.

The Traveling Kind bests Old Yellow Moon by merging folk ballads, C & W, and a dollop of Texas soul.

Nine albums in, the newly downsized trio rolls categorically mind-bending and noisy while sustaining creative novelty.

While the tale and methods of In Colour are well-worn, Jamie XX, like Burial and Four Tet before him, proves himself a master storyteller.

Third LP How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful dispenses with that ethos [positivity on the aftermath of heartbreak], embracing the raging/wallowing period that's delivered through biblical and Greek mythological references.

The combination of Wennerstrom's singular vocal style and the Bastards' multilayered guitars remains both lyrically commanding and musically transcendent.

10 songs over 35 minutes at first feeling slight--yet not a sax bleed, organ snap, or female choral echo combs out as less than true-blue.

Eschewing Top 40 twang's shellacked production as well as God-and-guns patriotism, she adopted a gritty, unfettered small-band approach. Pageant Material maintains those standards, but spruced-up production and the "aw shucks" wonderment of her new reality.

The Glasgow threepiece has figured out what works: in this case, catchy funk-pop ("High Enough to Carry You Over") that threatens the radio friendliness of Bruno Mars, and nods to early Depeche Mode.

Servant of Love is anything but standard. Griffin deftly experiments with Arabic-style guitar-picking and eerie, chanting vocals on the stark and political "Good and Gone."

Last year Sturgill Simpson combined psychedelia and country music to great success. Israel Nash takes that idea to a tangential place, with results equally successful yet more likely attuned to those who reject anything with a twang.

Commencing the hourlong disc is brazen seven-minute opener "Time Collapse," its stoner psychedelia mash enduring throughout 14 tracks.

Free of the confines of the band that made her famous, Friedberger flourishes.

The locals' strength remains in crafting massive soundscapes, from the onslaught of guitar and electronic quips on "Radio Silence" to the balladic stillness of "Only Child." Meiburg's agenda isn't political. It's sonic.

The Ghosts of Highway 20 finds Lucinda Williams bending Americana with jazz phrasing, lush grooves, and unrestrained spirit.

If Lissie's still searching for her best expression, My Wild West comes closer than before.

Americana may find its best representation in the Kiwi's broad reach and inclusive interpretation.

Guerilla Toss summons skull-rattling intrigue by crossing maker lab art-punk with distressed basslines and salvage-yard funk percussion.

Freaks of Nurture captures Holy Wave as it takes a step toward greatness.

Rough going at 75 minutes, but it's as pure an expression of Merzbow's vision as the first half is of Boris'.

No Burden's Nineties crunch plus its writer's youthful sageness/naiveté fosters a propitious career launch.

Results including "Lucifer and God" and instant classic "The End of Things" equal Mould's most melodically explosive punk rock since his Eighties heyday in Minneapolis, all abrasive guitar work and barbed lyricism candy-coated by tunefulness.

Parker Millsap's sophomore LP kicks off raw and raucous, "Hades Pleads" chugging a howling blues that immediately showcases the 23-year-old's growth from his eponymous 2014 debut. The Oklahoma songwriter's eclectic roots reach likewise stretches impressively.

Backed by a full band, there are flourishes of rock and even reggae, but Azel stirs up another desert blues masterpiece.

Like its predecessor, Hope's lyrics alone spur startling awe and fierce innovation.

Moderating the spellbinding verbosity that saturated previous high-water marks like "Ducking & Dodging" from 2014's Sunbathing Animal gives this latest batch more space to develop and marinate.

The members' varied stylistic interests mean the music avoids homogeneity while staying true to a collective purpose.

A continuation of the warm folk, fiddle, and banjo style of 2013's Gone Away Backward, here Fulks continues proving he's one of music's best song craftsmen.

Across a decade and eight LPs, Brooklyn fivepiece Woods have perfected a lo-fi folk prone to spastic jam breakdowns. Ninth offering City Sun Eater in the River of Light now shatters any preconceived notions.

Not a lot of sky over NYC, but Kevin Morby capitalizes on any glimpse of it.

Third album Down in Heaven moves through Monkees-level cheese with the walking bassline and soaring "ba-ba-bahs" of "My Boys," while "Holding Roses" swings Rolling Stones, guitarist Clay Frankel mastering both Mick Jagger's vocal swag and Keith Richards' guitar privateering.

The funky "Eastside," the snap and bop of "Green Light," and the honeyed coo of "Sweet Little Messages" all stand out on an effort that gets extra points for trying something different and succeeding beyond anybody's dreams.

Blank Face stalls near its end with pedestrian raps and an awkward R&B crossover bid, but when Q locks into the streetwise grooves of "Dope Dealer" and the lush psychedelia of "That Part," he hints at the masterpiece he came tantalizingly close to making.

Miller indulges his appetite for electronics and repetition alongside psychedelic excursions.

Hard rhymes and bouncy hooks, stacked atop big drums and supple synths, hold steady through a barrage of guest spots.

Jeffery redefines what trap could be going forward.

Everything we love about Local Natives remains, but they make us work harder for it.

Lvl Up never made guitars feel more relevant than they do on their third album and Sub Pop debut Return to Love.

Arguably the most accessible album of his 16-year career, Migration finds British ambient electronic maven Bonobo (Simon Green) sounding completely at home on his sixth studio release.

Jardín proves spring's arrived for Gabriel Garzón-Montano.

Delbert McClinton tears up the blues circuit, but the easy saturation of Prick of the Litter serves up its own satisfaction.

It's as unsettling as it is unpolished, but Backlash compels as much as anything this crew's put out.

The SideOneDummies channel their angst into breathlessly muscular hooks and moments of chilling, claustrophobic self-reflection, often within the same song.

There's plenty of his trademark busted-speaker distortion and Hasil Adkins-joins-the Sex Pistols spew, with "Trainwrecker" verging on a backwoods version of Motörhead. Yet much of this finds Biram fully utilizing his home studio, sounding at times more like a band.

Everybody Works feels like a good jumping-off point, Duterte potentially able to take the project anywhere she wants.

Ha Ha Tonka's vehicles climb new heights with dazzling harmonies and impressive instrumental interplay on the revved-up "Race to the Bottom" and glimmering "Height of My Fears."

Raw and melodic, standing at the crossroads between the Ramones and Shangri-Las, singer/guitarist Lydia Night demonstrates a remarkable grip on youth and vulnerability in 2017.

By dialing back the intentional obfuscation of 2009's The Real Feel, the Northern Californians' sophomore release doubles its predecessor's skewed-pop pleasures.

It's a kick in the teeth from start to finish.

Whether Combs is telling stories ("Dirty Rain," "Rose Colored Blues") or waxing political ("Bourgeois King," "Blood Hunters"), he makes every track feel like a visit from an old and dear friend.

All of it builds up to quiet closer "In Times of Cold," a beautiful and crushing duet with Patty Griffin made even more poignant by the guiding hand of George Reiff in one of the local producer and bassist's final efforts.

Savage Young Dü aches breadth and depth.

The entire production is clever and suave, with effervescent female backing vox, even as the backside ranges more adventurous with the low-down "Bad Boys Need Love Too" and tinkering "Everything to Everyone."

The Boston foursome's anxiously blissful take on apocalyptic concerns bends toward chamber pop after past Americana leanings, the 12 tracks grounded in plucky instrumentation and energetic harmony.

While not expressly political, American Utopia can't help playing as a reaction piece.

Hailing from southern Algeria, this Tuareg desert blues troupe twists Tinariwen's template with their second full-length.

Each track here employs "straight" in the title, but Josh T. Pearson remains crooked as a bag of snakes.

In full, nine tracks strike a balance between pop-structured stoicism and Holy Wave's foundation in lush, active instrumentals. It's tactile enough to run your fingers through while evading a tight grip.

Nine tracks drip, bubble, and bristle in love, shaken up with an emotionally invasive immediacy.

While still supremely self-important, he probes his emotions like a narcissist at the mirror. The difficulty/trick comes in wondering whether Tillman goes out of his way to trip himself up.

Sprawling with gentle lamentations, ethereal timbres, and stringed instrumentation, both the song ["We Were Worn"] and sophomore album Argonauta expand upon her 2013 debut Life in the Midwater.

If the midpoint between The Future and the Past is modernity, Natalie Prass nails it.

All 11 tracks hold tight musically through a lackadaisical charisma, capturing the sonic telepathy of six longtime buds in their early 20s.

Original remixes are collected as Dance, though non-album singles, edits, B-sides, and soundtrack inclusions collected as Re:Call 4 deliver a stronger curio, including the gloomy "This Is Not America" with the Pat Metheny Group and a soft rock remix of "Loving the Alien."

More Blood, More Tracks: The Bootleg Series Vol. 14 also validates Bob's brother's urging to scrap and drastically rerecord five songs last minute. It's all especially enlightening if you have the blood and guts to listen to the collection in one sitting.

Buoyed by intimacy and sincerity, Assume Form channels Blake at his happiest as each song plays out like a sentimental billet-doux.

Hayes Carll may forever swing between his impulses, but he's come to fully embrace What It Is.

Ellis remains brilliantly elusive, torquing songs in unexpected directions.

This Land runs as a philosophical course correction, as a truer start on his path forward.

The Devil You Know: smart, joyous rage for our times.

The only misstep comes from spoken interludes about WWAY Health, an unnecessary framing device for a smart, textured zigzag of songwriting.

Across 16 tracks, the 64-year-old Virginia native and his ace band largely play it straight, and the album leaps with energy and celebration.

Welcome to the desolate wasteland of Destroyer.

Fever hinges on bouncing beats and an inspired brand of feminism.

The scion sounds most at ease on the album's back half, which burns with guitar solos.

If it feels like throwing styles against the wall, it's a testament to Privott, guitarist John Courtney, drummer Damien Llanes, bassist Megan Hartman, and keyboardist Natalie Wright that almost all of it sticks.

The family rollick of Mac Davis' "It's Hard to Be Humble" injects some fun, but the piano-tinkled "Stay Away From Lonely Places" shines with classic Nelson songwriting magic.

Daniel recently told the Chronicle he intended the band's new compilation for folks with a "passing familiarity" of the band, and that's where it hits its mark. Here's your gateway LP to Spoon, not a comprehensive overview.

Despite easy-listening atrocity "Lost in the Night," Let It Roll sparkles with more gems than the locals' custom suits.

No need to reinvent the wheel when it rides so smooth.