There's a musical landscape between Simon & Garfunkel and Devendra Banhart begging to be found in the here and now, and the Autumn Defense has settled in, sentimentality and all.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

The Physical World proves that not only is 2004 just far back enough to merit nostalgia, but that this return opens our first portal back.

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.

Soon to be a jukebox staple at every down-at-the-heels dive and java joint in hipster America, More Adventurous has the potential, and the songs, to go a lot further.

Lovesick Blues once again proves Stamey's worth as a pop magician.

The album's midsection goes limp.

The good news is Vapor Trails is Rush's best album in a decade. The bad news is it's still no Moving Pictures.

For a group that's never settled down, Mess could be described as Liars' comfort zone.

While the concept fails to stand up over the album's narrative arc, the songwriting is solid as ever, and Bachmann and [Lara] Meyerratken's combined voices will soothe even the angriest beast.

Brighter than Bloodflowers, denser than Wish, The Cure presents Smith as a wild-haired sorcerer's apprentice, conducting another mad symphony of infatuation and angst.

The songs rock -- and ferociously -- but that's pretty much all they do.

End still brims with hope and promise, no more so than on "Moving On," with its beaming synths and stadium drums, and "Loved Ones," which builds atop an extended piano interlude. End might not be a breakthrough, but it doesn't have to be.

The band's third album, Milk Famous, returns to the twitchy dance-rock that made this Brooklyn group such an unstoppable opening act, folding in dashes of Talking Heads' jitter-pop and some blackened post-punk tautness.

In the end, though, Broken Boy Soldiers merely makes you wonder what Meg White has been up to.

With material this naked, a stumble or two is expected, but Seeing Things possesses enough newfound emotion to make even Bob Dylan proud.

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

Gentle outlaw Cass McCombs luxuriates in sunlit California landscapes, weaving offbeat tales of carousing and yearning on Big Wheel and Others.

While not as sunny as 2009's Hold Time, it's confident and multifaceted.

With seventh LP There Is No Enemy, leader Doug Martsch fully embraces Young's mid-1970s songwriter mold--the songs are a bit slower, with a reflective urgency and pop polish that garners strength in every repeat listen – and on that ground alone the album succeeds.

Let's just hope it doesn't take another near-death experience for their next album to be this good.

The repetitiveness of Pool tires itself out by track 12, but there's an art to flawless cohesion.

The resulting Willie and the Wheel is exactly what one would expect from such a musical brain trust: an old-fashioned good time with expert instrumentalism. If anything, the disc could use more dirt under its fingernails, as everything comes a bit too easy.

The Mountain represents not only a point of no return and a cornerstone for the Heartless Bastards; the album's a personal triumph of desolate determination.

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.

These 16 songs in 16 minutes are a lean demonstration of hardcore punk purity that only lacks memorable songs.

Welcome to the desolate wasteland of Destroyer.

Gonzo garage maniacs King Khan & BBQ Show offer the aural equivalent to a drunken hook-up: short, weird, messy.

Modernity tarnishes after a while ("Walk Don't Walk," "Dry Bones"), but Leon Russell's piano on closing prayer "Salvation" caresses penitent. We Walk This Road, pathfinder.

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

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.

Last Day of Summer dials up a bargain at any price.

Like its predecessor, Give is edgy, irreverent, and yes, fun.

Houses of the Molé is signed, sealed, and delivered so powerfully that one can overlook the fact that it's basically Psalm 69 or The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste Part II.

It's a rare talent that can express such emotions so concisely; even more rare is the ability to deliver them in a near-whisper rather than a scream.

Punch buries its best shots behind too much guitar and gratuitous arrangements.

Beginning with the naughty promise of "Closer," which voices a transgressive assertion of female sexual desire, the duo rapidly devolves into a string of whiny mash notes accentuated by tinny, synth-heavy instrumentation.

To the Sword's credit, variety pulls its sense of melody to the forefront, though die-hards may find the subsequent loss of energy an uneven trade. Yet "change or die" applies to the Sword as much as anyone, so if the tweaks of High Country act more as window dressing instead of a new structure, the additions enrich a manor in need of upkeep.

One Day is a rollicking carnival ride that turns its off-the-cuff attitude into something approaching transcendence.

Idle No More, titled for an indigenous rights movement, is both darker and more refined than any Shrines release to date.

The band pulls its emotional punches with all the opaque atmospherics, but ultimately, Junip takes the listener where they want to go as long as they surrender to the ride.

Deal; her sister, Kelley, on guitar; drummer Jose Medeles; and bassist Mando Lopez return from 2002's "Title TK" in a mellow tone.

Occasional miscues, including the frivolous "Black Caffeine" and mawkish "Open Season on My Heart," break the spell at times, but Old Yellow Moon still sounds like a couple of friends sitting around the kitchen table sharing songs.

There's growth here even amid the stumbles, Elbogen realizing with closer "Bruises To Prove It" that black and blue are "still better than a torn-up heart."

Together, Hunter and Lauderdale straddle what Ralph Stanley calls "mountain music" and a contemporary ethos with phenomenal ease.

This time around things are more industrial and complex but every bit as sleazy and intoxicating.

Fans of Calexico's darker, rougher, and more cinematic work will pine for just that, even though the band's clearly evolving on Garden Ruin.

The now-Pacific Northwester's tart vocals almost as pointillistic as his picking, percussion big and roomy beneath him.

Like a strawberry cupcake covered in Szechuan pepper, A Place To Bury Strangers finds the sweet spot by ripping its way through in Onwards to the Wall.

Master of My Make-Believe takes a more subtle approach than its predecessor.

The Chicago quartet morphs the heavy crush of doom into compositions, and its ability to lay down the crunge in a painterly manner unfolds mighty and impressive.

Clocking in at just half an hour, their third LP streamlines sonically, but the bulldozing remains.

Black Forest radiates stark sexuality, making it stimulating and alienating, suggestive and impassive, suitable for the leather-clad lynx dancing away her post-industrial blues and the bald guy in the turtleneck with the frozen expression in the corner.

Second LP Warpaint stirs, stews, beats, and swells far more amniotic, evoking the seminal psych greeting, ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space.

It won't get your blood pumping, but the dusky vibes are markedly idiosyncratic for a crowded landscape.

Like M.I.A.'s two CDs, Troubadour is Westernized but never compromises its heritage.

Deadheads don't require this or any other tribute, but connecting with at least a couple of the set's five hours comes easily. Its modern cast, too, may well bridge a generational gap to rouse new converts.

No mold-breaking here, and for that we're grateful.

Merging Siouxsie Sioux with Aphex Twin, Silent Shout twists manipulated sounds around a basic core of addictive rhythm in a convoluted game of tetherball.

While it may occasionally get too precious for some ears, Own Side Now is a tantalizing debut.

Perkins' funereal, imagistic pull still haunts the album, but bolstered into the Elvis Perkins in Dearland fourpiece, the eponymous LP lopes with a processional gait.

Lavish with sentimental tunes befitting his patented countrypolitan appeal and troubled past, its songwriters, including Jakob Dylan ("Nothing but the Whole Wide World"), Paul Westerberg, and Robert Pollard, rise to the occasion of Campbell's final class act.

Undercurrent might not be her best work, but she's set herself up to go wherever the music takes her, and those following along are sure to revel in the adventure.

[They] have taken their love of Fifties kitsch and Sixties pop off the Jesus & Mary Chain Gang of Love and down to the Velvet Underground.

A most welcome comeback.

Ozzella and Kerns match and meld more effectively than previous efforts.

The contrast of Moog buzz and the wordsmith's featherlight touch reaches full tilt with 'Hallelujah, Goodnight!' but takes a sharp left with the equally charismatic 'Bat Coma Motown,' where banjo and trumpet hug it out while dancing the Temptation Walk.

Someone had to pick up where Oingo Boingo left off when Danny Elfman decided to grow old and rich composing film scores.

Material is everything to a chanteuse, and in contrast to Come Away With Me, the problem here is that Jones wrote/co-wrote almost half of the Home's 13 tracks.

A.C. Newman is a brilliant singer-songwriter, and his work here shows no diminishment. Challengers' glass jaw, then, is its sluggish instrumentation, its boots filled with lead while the lyrics and vocals--especially Ms. Neko Case's--strain to pick up the pace.

The middle gets muddy, as they return to their weaker late-Nineties fare (read: "ballads"), but it's a strong album overall.

Jack Tatum's 2010 debut Gemini and sophomore Nocturne two years later remain solitary swashes of moody guitars and sulky introspection. Life of Pause loses these moments in favor of lush waves of warm electronics and buoyant soul that coalesce into Neon Glo flourishes.

Some of his warmest melodies.

Arguably the whole of Give Me All You Got, plays out as a hymn to the free-spirited sinner who embraces the compulsion for adventure, as well as the need to put down roots. In one long breath, Carrie Rodriguez sings with equal affection for both.

The album's visual, an indie rock show tune on shrooms, but it's just difficult to take seriously hairy men smeared in war paint incoherently singing.

While Up isn't stylistically different from his canon, it proves that Peter Gabriel is back in the big time.

The Love Is Hell discs are far more dense and dark, making the songs a fun challenge to crack open, though it isn't difficult to determine what a no-brainer it must have been for Lost Highway to favor the brilliant Roll over the more spotty Hell discs. [Review applies to both EPs and 'Rock N Roll']

White Denim realizes a sound truly its own on Stiff, shaking off whatever nerves that may have lingered after significant lineup change.

All too often, his voice/accent/rhyming patterns suffer from too much rehashed facsimile of past rap glories.

González gently expands his borders without abandoning the center.

Companion piece Hands of Glory restructures the old and new alike in dusty-trail cowboy swag.

Event 2 sounds close enough to the first launch that an outwardly futuristic disc sounds oddly dated. Eight years in the making, the sequel doesn't venture where no man has gone before, but it's a worthy return trip for fans of the maiden voyage.

The point of psych is that drugs enhance the musical experience, but only 16 hits of trucker speed could focus this droney mess.

Solo debuts, beginning with 1970's McCartney, generally lay themselves bare. Grace/Wastelands does, with the same irresistible UK melodicism begun by the British Invasion's big bang.

Trampin' is much too formulaic, too willing to leave the power of Smith's songwriting in words and not back it up musically.

A juvenile cluster bomb of goofy guitar shenanigans.

Svanangen's bright falsetto holds his miniature musical tapestries together.

The last couple 97's discs were perhaps negatively affected by frontman and principal songwriter Rhett Miller's burgeoning solo career, but here he seems doubly inspired, and the band charges alongside, particularly Ken Bethea, whose guitar play remains snaky and evocative.

The sophomore LP from Steve Wynn, Scott McCaughey, Linda Pitmon, and Peter Buck picks up where 2008's Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails left off, mixing musical styles to their song histories of the pastime's heroes and goats (from Bill Buckner to Mark Fidrych to Pete Rose).

Although his quartet's first LP has boozy punch, even with two bonus tracks, the Scots' eponymous debut still feels padded.

Synthesizers are set to beverage warmer – nearly nil – but where a back-to-basics drums/bass/guitar bash continues since peak return Vapor Trails, pinpoint production to extract hooks from hard rock homogeneity continues to elude them.

Learn to Sing Like a Star is the full Hersh experience, encompassing as it does all of her back-catalog iterations, from the knife-throwing thrills of the Throwing Muses' precise power pop to the cutting melancholia of her Hips and Makers-era balladry.

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

One of the best albums of his long career.

The Golden Archipelago presents a direly meditative culmination.

Analog tape thickens America's best punk band into an upward curve on its third LP.

Boland's great concept album endeavor may strike as too convoluted to top his catalog, but it also sets the songwriter free to launch into new creative paths and continue expanding what country music can be.

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