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.