Where its predecessor corralled modern versions of The Canterbury Tales that the band's foxhunting moniker continues to evoke, Pecknold's Helplessness relies on a suitelike flow in the absence of greatest hits.

It's evident that the band's traditionally simple sound has been augmented with greater influences and a desire to overstuff, miraculously without overkill.

There's sex, drugs, crab cakes, and people you've never met and never will, including James Gandolfini and the children of Newtown, Conn., but their presence devastates nonetheless.

New Moon is a near yearbook, a simple reminder of the talent and fruition of Steven Paul Smith, friend, comedian, and one of the greatest songwriters of this generation.

The lengths of hiss and silence can be unnerving, especially when his ethereal prose floats into a void. Yet when the swells come and Walker breaks the waves, it's a thing of absolute beauty, and the black turns neon.

Eccentric, eclectic, and brilliant.

Happy Songs for Happy People offers many of the thrills of Rock Action, but without the diversity and succinctness that made that album shine.

An album that absolutely cannot be ignored.

Streetcore isn't exactly London Calling, but with his sweet, ragged voice sounding as strident as ever, Strummer improves on such hit-and-miss affairs as 1999's Rock Art and the X-Ray Style.

Supplying a few impeccably recorded onstage rockers, $10 Cowboy slots like an exploratory studio in-betweener among Crockett’s comprehensive catalog.

10 inspired tunes and one choice cover sure to leave less accomplished songsmiths gasping for breath.

Smother, roiling in passion often disorienting in its envelopment, is difficult to penetrate, but there is ecstasy in the succumbing.

Have One on Me runs about five songs too long, which stands out during a two-hour listen, but largely she invites you in rather than challenges.

The Oakland trio's sixth battering ram rebounds from 2010's scattershot Snakes for the Divine, blowtorching the veneer off previous summit Death Is This Communion in a sh*tstorm of scabrous distortion.

Childers walks the line of down-home idiosyncrasies and smooth popular jams with a star-making perfection.

Oceans laps upbeat and crisp, like winter in the Hamptons, a sleigh ride to 16 Lovers Lane.

Grizzly Bear did what's often impossible for lesser acts: shrugged off the overheated tongues of the Internet, refined its sound, and put out a solid disc.

There are points when Kid feels a little boxed; "Mom & Dad's Waltz" plays trite in the indicated time signature, and "Wild Old Dog" delves too far into its God-as-errant-mutt metaphor. Nevertheless, Griffin re-emerges with her best foot forward, sparse folk for the working man ("Faithful Son").

The Soft Bulletin posts several clunkers, a few throwbacks, yet manages to it finds its way into some genuinely new territory, and in its wake the Flaming Lips might just be poised to make a masterpiece.

["Song for Zula" is] brutal, beautiful, and like the rest of Muchacho, masterfully executed.

[It] casts a long shadow.

For the fair-weather Bowie fan, his Berlin years are probably the least favorite next to Tin Machine, but to the rabid appreciator, this time frame is arguably one of his best.

This is third wave hardcore, and it's a return to form, where commentary rules and violence and ignorance won't be tolerated.

Angst has a new champion.

Everett's double-album masterpiece, a definitive catharsis.

All told, Old Ideas might be Cohen's strongest effort since taking Manhattan.

Finn... has the poetic lovable-loser act down cold, but is too distracted by the ever-present "Party Pit" and "Southtown Girls" to expand his vision beyond the club parking lot.

The back end fades, but with Strange Mercy, St. Vincent masters the art of grin and bear it.

Lambert's country credentials are secured by her and Travis Howard's "Guilty in Here."

The album's trap-psych spaciousness blends so that most of Astroworld plays out like a single long, spectacularly mixed track.

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.

Gillian Welch returns after an eight-year drought with fifth LP The Harrow & the Harvest, an album sown with dry desperation.

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

Though no less anthemic in its last-call loneliness, the National's sound expands with measured confidence while still nurturing bruised ethos.

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

Each track is full of Laurel Canyon vibes – vulnerability, grief, acceptance – and melodies you'll never get out of your head.

There's not a bad spot on the album, 12 tracks that taken as a whole make up the most exhilarating UK rock album in years.

Tefloning the lo-fi clang of their 2001, self-titled indie EP breakthrough with Interscope's sugar Daddy Warbucks, Fever to Tell sounds like a tenement rolling, garbage cans bashing some helpless gutter rat.

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.

The trembling 'All When We Were Young' is less convincing, and 'Memphis Flu' falls apart in drunken frenzy before it even starts, but across 13 songs, Yonder Is the Clock proves timeless.

Any rock album that tackles such a wide spectrum without compromising the music deserves respect.

Perfect in vision, voice, harmony – not to mention timing – Treasure of Love delivers quintessential Flatlanders.

If you haven't heard the plaintive and curiously uplifting songs of longing and loss from this rising phenom, you're missing the emergence of one of the most affecting new talents of the past five years.

It's an album of brainy rock songs that state their claims then defiantly step out from beneath the ethereal haze.

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

Much of Play sounds like it was beamed directly from planet Sad Guy, but it's far and away Moby's most cohesive and affecting work to date.

All in all, though, Medúlla is far too busy. Even when you're experimenting, the less-is-more rule still applies.

Metallic hardcore still gallops in short, sharp, steely blasts on a pair of two-minute openers, but Nineties grunge-dripping Seaweed now coats Ryan Patterson's punk heroes.

Free from the constraints of perfunctory pop structure, Dee funnels seemingly dissonant patterns into pulsing tides of harmonious congruence.

It's the Ting Tings amplified past 11, and the two never stray far from the formula.

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

The National reveled in self-effacing jokes between the heaviness of their songs, and Trouble finally finds that balance on disc.

Distilling others' heartaches ("Always on My Mind") comes Full Circle.

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.

On Veni Vidi Vicious, the band plays like rascals on their way to jail, with the prospect of conjugal visits depending on the music's extroverted energy.

Freed from slick production, Clark plays to his many strengths.

Like Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot into A Ghost Is Born, Spoon's fifth full-length finds further symbiosis between Britt Daniel's emotional obfuscation and the band's spare, uptown backbeat, then looses drummer Jim Eno to metronome the rest.

What Alpha Mike Foxtrot lacks is equally significant: meandering guitar solos from recent recordings and zero footholds for "dad-rock" puns. Rather, AMF communicates Wilco's career innovation, maintained while increasing popularity--the rarest of feats.

The real prize here is Waters' demo excerpts, 22 recordings chopped into a dizzying 14-minute medley of delusional grandeur. The bassist sounds not like a jaded rock star, but like an outsider folk artist – sheltered and off-kilter – finding escape in lo-fi pop oddities full of echo, warm synths, and cross-faded effects.

Willie Nelson, 85, keeps going from strength-to-strength, and Last Man Standing is the strongest yet.

While megaproducer Brendan O'Brien sharpens the overall sound, especially the guitar interplay between Stone Gossard and Mike McCready, he does so by removing the grit that helped define Pearl Jam.

Thirty-six minutes of a detailed, agonizing shot in the arm, a veritable buffet of musical stylings, each song bettering the one before, from a band that just as easily could've released a new version of "Gimme Fiction."

The MC locates and provides new polish on the lost sex-positivity found in yesteryear.

The Black Album stands up alongside Reasonable Doubt and The Blueprint as Z's most ambitious work.

Nomad is more than a beautiful offering for the world music crowd. It's the defining work of a guitar hero.

Boasting enough insidious imagination to evolve beyond easy metallic labels, Agalloch transports The Serpent and the Sphere into its own phantasmagoric astral plane.

Challenging, enigmatic, and melodic don't always go together, but coupled with Case's sleek vocals, they make The Worse Things Get ... a marvel.

Olsen transcends ephemeral charm at every turn.

Impressive company, and Johnson earns his spot among them.

The Crane Wife could be the best Robyn Hitchcock album made in several years; the lyrical marriage of whimsy and death bear the fruits of a master class led by the former Soft Boy.

If the back end didn't sag, this cyborg would be unstoppable.

While the title track's big-hearted buildup channels the crew's establishing alt-pop buoyancy, new ideas stagger the 11 tracks. Monolithic "MetaGoth" and smoky ballad "Walking With a Killer" work through internal frustrations, eloquently tracking out a new era for the Breeders.

An album full of voluptuous soul samples fused with brusque perspectives on love, life, and common thuggery.

Yoshimi has its moments, but it sounds like leftover brilliance from its older, better brother, padded out with filler to make a new album.

Lifting both blast beats and thrash dynamics from metal, the Belgian indie rock trio galvanizes enough sheer fury to knock the needle off your turntable.

Hynes creates a jazzy respite for the marginalized by brimming Negro Swan with horns, synth, and guitar even if only for an hour.

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.

The 31-year-old bares herself and parlays stereotypical insecurities into liberating strengths, hurling bombs of empowerment.

The disc alternates between unsettling, exhilarating, and devastating in its emotional impact; it's also difficult not to get distracted by everything going on musically.

San Diego triangle Isaiah Mitchell, Mike Eginton, and Rocket From the Crypt propulsionist Mario Rubalcaba hurtle third studio LP and first since 2007 into the void atop a gloriously earthen pachyderm crunch on four tracks.

Sadly, familiar streams – "Matchbox," "That's All Right, Mama," "Big River" – don't yield any gems. Constant studio chatter and fumbled lyrics frustrate rather than charm, and even when duetting, Dylan and Cash's aw-shucks mutual admiration smothers artistic collaboration. Disc three's bonus content with banjo legend Earl Scruggs fares better.

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

English rapper Simbi Ajikawo, doing business in bars as the extraordinary Little Simz, tackles success, vulnerability, and sheer escapism on her lush and soul-jazz-infused Stillness in Wonderland.

Though the LP culminates a clear progression for Beam, Iron & Wine coalescing since 2005's "Woman King" into a band secure enough to experiment, the barrage of instrumentation and effects do little to advance the songs on The Shepherd's Dog.

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

If Modern Vampires of the City makes one thing clear, it's that Vampire Weekend's just getting started here.

Forget the new school of post-punk bands. None of them approach the intensity and rhythmic engagement of Wire, still flying the pink flag of twisted rock after all these years.

El Camino might be the weakest Black Keys album since 2006's Magic Potion, but the band certainly earned this celebratory joy ride.

Callahan's search for meaning becomes fully realized when he's finally connected to another.

It's Wayne's personality that both floats and sinks TC III.

The Cameroonian New York dweller threads a singular narrative obsessed with the singer's sense of place, or lack thereof.

Warbly vocalisms, impenetrably fuzz-encrusted guitar work, and boppin' elf grooves delightfully set the man apart from like-minded neo-hippies--alongside reverb avoidance and the occasional horns.

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.

May to December, Waylon & Willie ride again.

This John Dwyer-led, San Francisco collective's jagged psych-punk has always been ear catching, but this ups the ante.

Japandroids is bloated, angry, and absolute proof that the heart of rock & roll is still beating.

With typical spots of self-indulgence, Badu whispers stoned nothings on the spacey "Incense" and offers to pop, break, and crochet for her common-law lover on 10-minute closer "Out My Mind, Just in Time."