This is breathtaking, life-affirming music with the power to heal and restore. It's that beautiful.

The sun-kissed Laurel Canyon pop of "Dangerous Place" tackles the push and pull of creative collaboration, neatly summarizing Burch's modus operandi: wide-open sonic aesthetics with a pointed and poignant message behind it.

It's Ray Wylie Hubbard at his best, candid, shrugging, unapologetic, and dispensing rock & roll philosophy in words that matter.

American Idiot and Born in the U.S.A. both pave the way for American Slang, and as the quartet's third album, it's Gaslight Anthem's Born To Run.

These anthems drive their points home with unearthly force.

One Beat is the Portland, Ore., trio's best work to date, illustrating yet again that women can play and will be heard, with or without a political platform.

Filled with a brand of progressive folk music unlike anything you've ever heard, it crackles, sways, and whines, breaking through barriers we didn't know existed while creating a listening experience that's spellbinding.

As thoroughly self-possessed as Portrayal of Guilt's celebrated bow resounded in punk and metal pits, follow-up We Are Always Alone now standardizes the locals' splatter into a trademark sound. Success breeds fearlessness, focus, certainty; No. 2 harnesses No. 1's tempest.

Tassili's more acoustic than previous efforts but entirely transfixing, filled with haunted pleas about solitude ("Asuf D Alwa"), faith ("Ya Messinagh"), and drought ("Takest Tamidaret").

While the album retains some of the lo-fi insularity of his earlier four-track work, the full band backing makes Supper more of a living-room album than a back bedroom one.

Though repetition of "Losing My Religion" and "Man on the Moon" exhaust, there's a mighty pop to R.E.M. at the BBC.

The rest of UGK 4 Life rolls celebration, not just for one of Houston's greatest personalities and foremost musical pioneers but also for the Bayou City's finest hip-hop unit. Long live the Pimp, hell yes, but this is one fantastic curtain call.

Shinsian popsters rejoice. Here's another dreamsicle caked with sugar sugar.

By sidestepping guitar herodom, The Story of Sonny Boy Slim stakes out territory Gary Clark Jr. can proudly call his own.

Make no mistake, The Cool's stuffy and its plot a bitch to decipher (only four joints detail the story), but every 16-bar verse is stuffed, even the glitzy Snoop collab, "Hi-Definition," with zingers garnishing crates of encrypted metrical compositions that demand critical analysis from student groups of no more than four, no less than two to a table.

Confident and composed, the Boys have grown into and perfected these 16 songs.

The band's third LP scales back and sharpens the electronic textures and cinematic sweep that defined 2007's "Parades," and the result is Efterklang's most immediate work.

Danceable grooves and R&B beats heighten the disc's eclectic imagination.

The accompanying DVD offers only a higher fidelity version of the audio performance, but Sugar Mountain remains a magical and rare portrait of a budding genius.

This set proves they're not only the best at what they do; they're the only one's that can do what they do.

From quirky ("Needle Click") and Zen ("Chamber Lightness") to dystopian ("Kites III"), Music for Installations surveys Eno's myriad musical personalities, but what rationalizes the hefty price tag is an oversized art book. Packed with rare photos and a new essay, the book captures its subject's most ephemeral work in images that will be new to even the biggest fans. It's basically coffeetable porn for ambient music nerds.

The Monitor is a near perfect union of cacophony and immature angst.

No chips or cracks in this debut's silly-grin inducing veneer, just one short, sharp jolt of postmodern skank.

The Oakland quartet, now on Jack Johnson's Brushfire imprint, has a greater sense of urgency, sharper edges, and a more mature sound overall.

New DVD/CD combo Live at Reading rides the wave of mutilation that was Nevermind, but its best moments dump Bleach, the busy shoot pausing to catch Cobain picking out debut detention "School."

A rare record from an extraordinary artist, and one of the year's best.

Singing sometimes borders on yelling, but the promised heights reach their summit.

A near-perfect sonic snapshot of London under Blair's blowback blitz.