Even with all the jazz, jams, and wonky improvisations, the nine tracks of musicians' music remain fun, unpretentious.

A subtle sense of dynamics (cf. "Wide Open Wound") keeps the roar from getting monochromatic, but don't blink intensity rules here.

Though derivative of countless bands, Vivian Girls succeed in paring hazy nostalgia with big noise. It's simple and sounds good.

Transcendental codification.

Corsicana Lemonade captures White Denim at the peak of its technical prowess, yet still only scratches its surface potential.

Dirty Sprite 2, Nayvadius DeMun Wilburn's third album, is his most epicurean work yet.

At times on Small Town Heroes, Segarra echoes them [Karen Dalton, Lucinda Williams, or Gillian Welch] precisely, taking what they do best and making it her own. That's a rung many have reached for but most have never grasped.

The quartet captures a harmonic pop mayhem they haven't approached individually with much consistency in the recent past.

Now in his 50s, Bob Mould returns not as the forefather of modern indie rock, but as a vital contemporary.

A set of apocalyptic relationship odes as pretty as an ornate church hymnal and as dour as the bleakest Sunday.

Traveling Wilburys-vibe results in an impressive coherence, and though they inhabit one another's songs expertly, these Monsters' genre-expanding combinations prove equally inspired.

What's striking about this set is that except for some drum parts and Neil playing bass on one tune, Liam's Lightning is bottled in his own one-man band, old-fashioned studio tricks and tape manipulation filling the gaps since he proudly proclaims that no computers were used in the making of the album.

Such moments of unnerving beauty make The King of Limbs, despite its complete lack of guitar-rock grandeur, worth revisiting time and again.

Run Fast melanges the hit-and-run brevity of Bikini Kill ("Stop Stop") with synth sparkles lifted from her Le Tigre époque.

Ronson reins in the raucousness without curbing the catharsis--on 16 tracks that blast newly crisp but equally irreverent.

Not as cohesive nor as musically alliterative as [Rouse's] previous breakthrough, 1972, this wistful, meticulous collection of short, (bitter) sweet strummers fits its nostalgic niche like a K-Tel bargain bin 12-inch.

Expansive cross-pollination at its finest, Lazaretto's dizzying Pandora's box of funk, blues, and hillbilly soul shakes and bakes enough to require a shrink-wrapped bottle of Dramamine.

The eponymous debut is pure punk.

Dirty Projectors has never done so much with so little, a rare feat reiterated by the disarming, insistent standout, "Gun Has No Trigger."

The Low Anthem finds the balance of apocalypse and subtlety sought by the Avett or Felice Brothers but never wrangled so effectively.

Small-town blues burst at the seams of Bugg's songs, but he reacts to the restlessness with an impressive sense of detail and narrative shot in concise tunes.

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

Not the clever cut of 2013's Vessel, but still airborne.

An exuberant return to old-school form.

Blitzen Trapper's fourth album and Sub Pop debut delivers a more polished, coherent vision while not sacrificing the Portland sextet's vividly eclectic contortions through alt-folk and garage rock.

In the years to come, Low will trudge onward across the vast tundra of gross underappreciation, but in retrospect, their canon will likely be seen as one of the most important and influential of our time, so you might want to start paying attention.

If it doesn't exactly blaze off in bold new directions, it does offer an opportunity for Interpol to do some fine-tuning (not that they need much) and settle comfortably into their black, velvet-lined pocket.

Paired with Bruton's lyricism, co-producer T Bone Burnett's saturated Americana backdrop, and Joel Guzman's accordion brushes, Bridges notches a Tex-Mex trifecta starting with opener "Hold on You" that bodes well against Burnett's other soundtrack selections, including Townes Van Zandt ("If I Needed You"), Waylon Jennings ("Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way"), and Lightnin' Hopkins ("Once a Gambler").

Heavy, like delirious laughter looped ad infinitum, Lord Quas quivers with psychedelic rhythm.

The last album's title ['Perfect From Now On'] was a promise; this one makes good on it.

The 51-minute groove compilation emulates late-night VH1 on a heavy dose of synth and a sprinkle of Eighties pop.

A haunting disc that lingers long after the laser dies.

The final third of the disc hits a tempo rut, though some such selections are ripe for rearrangement and reinterpretation.

Destruction Unit appreciates chaos, as their guerrilla bridge show a few SXSWs ago demonstrated, but Deep Trip proves they know how to play their instruments even if ducking behind a wall of squall.

Apparently evolution is overrated.

With Noble Beast, Bird proves that he's a whistling Renaissance man for modern times.

Neko Case-sung standout "Champions Of Red Wine" levels the otherwise upbeat 13-track disc, before Destroyer frontman Dan Bejar's "War on the East Coast" returns momentum upward.

Sea Change joins Weezer's Maladroit and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' By the Way on the list of beautiful-but-sad 2002 L.A. LPs.

Creaking, elegant, feverish.

The Brooklyn trio's fourth album has made it out of the terrible twos, and growing pains have produced a curious pastiche.

It's a scattershot collection of rougher material, lacking the concision and continuity that made 2003's Down the River of Golden Dreams and 2007's The Stage Names such defining works.

That emphasis on sonic variety opens Bad Time Zoo to a diverse observance of Twin City urban realism.

Far from A Far Cry From Dead, that polished product of posthumous overkill from the tail end of the millennium, Sky Blue allows the songs of Townes Van Zandt (1944-1997) to sit and breathe free from distraction or "Squash." Nothing ventured, plenty gained.

The South Carolina native's sophomore platter and first for New West digs even deeper [than her debut].

Band of Brothers belongs solely to Willie Nelson. This is the sound of rust being ground out, cylinders squeaking back to life, engines and carburetors opening wide on the road again.

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

Yet for all the vintage analog atmosphere, the Portland, Ore., songwriter's sixth album continues to expand his Americana template with more of the classic AM pop sensibilities shown on 2006's "Post-War" and flooding last year's Zooey Deschanel collaboration, "She & Him."

Although certainly not the capstone to Wennerstrom's extraordinary personal and artistic journey, A Beautiful Life reaches a new pinnacle for the songwriter, and signals a remarkable turning point on a new path forward.

While not nearly as brash or baiting as 1996 essential Popular Favorites, Yarber's junkyard boogie "Run for Cover," greaser ballad "Little War Child," and Friedl's "Woke Up in a Police Car" at least live up to that title.

Hard to imagine that the XX could construct a quieter album than the first, but that's what Coexist manages. The first-time poetry of the debut will always be more earthshaking, but the softer, silkier, and more tender Coexist proves the trio can be just as memorable in repeat doses.

Paired with his ever-fertile tunesmithery, ether-plucked choruses, and airwave melodies, singer and song beget a pop ball worth fetching again and again on Retriever.

The Swedes ignite right from the "Intro."

FSHG continues this wheelhouse effect, drifting from Smile session bounce on opener "Honey Bunny" into the heavy-psych wind tunnel of "Die" and sprawling anchor "Vomit."

Iggy Pop's adieu doesn't go out in a blaze of blitzkrieging punk, but rather adopts a subtler, rhythmically diverse attack reminiscent of his earliest solo work and specifically 1977 twofer The Idiot and Lust for Life.

Like Blondie circa 1981, Allen breathes needed fresh air into the game.

Aww, our little freak is all grown up.

With Dr. Dre, Kanye West, and even Jay-Z on its guest list, Hip Hop Is Dead makes for an ample, yet ultimately morbid, party.

Their music is an amazing nexus where surgical precision, ace musicianship, and thrifty minimalism intertwine joyously.

The band's fourth full-length, D, largely forgoes the breezy indie pop of last year's digital-only release, Last Day of Summer, attempting instead to usher jazz-fusion into the indie era. That's an improbable feat, but the rhythm section of bassist Steve Terebecki and drummer Josh Block lock in tighter than DNA strands, while guitarist James Petralli's progression can be measured in the group's instrumental catalog.

Co-crafted with Steve Earle lieutenant Ray Kennedy, and eight of 11 tracks guesting a Crowell crony, not all the material connects ("Deep in the Heart of Uncertain Texas"), but the pairings prove pure.

Picking up both pace and vigor after Prick of the Litter, McClinton finds a Second Wind going all the way back to 1978, his voice still ragged but right and, here, full of piss and vinegar.

Static Tensions, which, while not as compositionally right-angled as 2006 Prosthetic disc "Time Will Fuse Its Worth," liquefies massively ('Perception') and even psychedelically ('Unknown Awareness') into a multiton Teutonic corkscrew.

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.

It's a challenging album in both substance and aesthetics, layered and looping sounds colliding with themes of black liberation and environmental justice, all unfolding at a hyper-mellow pace.

Nichols still pleads brilliantly for outcasts and losers, and Overton is impressively tight, polished, and raw for a decade-old band.

Tony! Toni! Toné! has done it again!

Love and Curses is a sound entry into the Sound discography, one Cartwright seems intent on tuning up.

At 42 minutes, Cyclone could still lose a few tunes ('Fever,' 'The Pharaohs'), which elongate a back end that never seals the album properly, but in penning almost all of her own material, Neko Case can even get away with a 31-minute final track of cricket song.

The controlled recklessness of Little Honey was a long-awaited antidote to Car Wheels' strong medicine, and now Blessed basks in its older sibling's afterglow.

Ultimately, it all plays out like a 60-minute calling card that illustrates hip-hop's most liberal producers aren't afraid to keep on keepin' on.

If Alabama's Drive-by Truckers are the Second Coming of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Tennessee's Kings of Leon are ZZ Top -- barons of boogie.

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

Gone is the glitzy art-punk, spastic freak-out, and unfathomable screaming. Here now instead is simple melody, nasal singing, and familiar songs, which begs the question: Y Control?

Griffin could have skated on the success of her last effort, but Downtown Church is a gutsy move, one that's as haunting and original as anything in her past.

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

Prisoner, his 16th release and most obvious homage to Springsteen's early-Eighties output, doesn't stray, though it does find Adams at his most heavy-handed lyrically.

Lifted soundtracks the scaling of mountains, both geographic and internal.

Production given over for the first time (to Sam Kassirer), the sound rises to meet the heft of Ramirez's writing, though surprisingly, through melancholic, Eighties-pitched synth and guitar. The author finds focus as well, his deeply personal laments attuned with political purpose.

About a Boy is that rarest of bewildering beasties, the soundtrack that stands by itself.

Neither miserable nor memorable.

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.

Nostalgic, sure, but comforting, meticulous, and complex.

While the lack of onstage banter is welcome, Alive & Wired would have benefited from fewer songs and more space.

Upon first listen, meanwhile, Agnostic Hymns is disorienting. Snider's voice is typically craggy, but the music is too. Amanda Shires' violin shadows his words, and the rhythms occasionally miss a beat. Once things come into focus, his stories are of those affected by the Great Recession, told with a wrath rarely expressed.

"I live by my mistakes," exhorts Kirk Windstein on "Isolation (Desperation)," opening dirge on this NOLA quartet's ninth blunt-force trauma.

Goatwhore channels every evil impulse of its blackened death thrash into Constricting Rage of the Merciless, sixth LP of ill intent.

His genius has always been his ability to make a listen that's never really heavy and leans toward positively gleeful.

At 23 songs, the UK electro duo's fourth full-length has a lot of room for experimentation, but it comes off more like the soundtrack for a 1960s Hammer film.

Birds Make Good Neighbors is autumn wrapped up in cashmere: rich, comfortable, welcome.

By not being "smart" enough to subdivide their appreciation of pop into a series of echo chambers, Junior Senior comes close to recapturing the preteen joy of responding to music unhindered by stigma.

It all sounds like something you've heard before, but done better, faster, slicker.

It's sometimes hard to tell who's running the show, the major label or the major talent.

Uh Huh Her is a lesson in contentment, anger, disappointment, independence – seductive psychosis.

The three-guitar interplay, moderated by bassist Mark Ibold and Steve Shelley on drums, is confident if briefly indulgent ('Walkin Blue'), but Sonic Youth reigns in those tendencies for the most part, making The Eternal its most straightforward album yet.

Time Being, as with his previous work, is laden with winning melodies and a poet's worldly insight.

It plays like frantically turning the FM dial in the car, the neon strangeness of L.A. looming ahead.

Woman might make you uncomfortable, overpowered by its honesty, but it's always truthful.

Like Austinite Ariel Abshire's "Exclamation Love" last year, much of Jarosz's appeal is youth, but that's grounded so deeply in talent that listening to her is a sweet promise for the future.