While it's not the Clan in full, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better supporting cast. If Tomorrow is, in fact, the group's swan song, 36 Seasons proves that Wu's members can do just fine--and maybe even better--on their own.

Much like its forebear, the album's 12 tunes are tight, tidy pop-rockers, presented in her characteristic straightforward-yet-slightly-skewed manner.

It's a more consistent album than its predecessor. And perhaps more importantly, it shores up the duo's country flanks, and demonstrates that FGL intends to aggressively protect its progressive place in the genre, one that the act essentially designed on its own.

Not only does Wilder Mind reintroduce the band members as rock gods worthy of the title, it does so ­without changing what fans cherished most about them in the first place: their songwriting, their sentiment, their gusto.

Unbreakable is the mature album, free of commercial ambition, her all-too-breakable brother never made.

Art Official Age isn't just the stronger of the two--it's among his most imaginative albums since the '90s.

Martsch has hinted that There Is No Enemy could be the band's final album. If that's the case, the set's multifaceted melodies and experimentation would be an inspired sendoff.

Leaps and bounds over the act's earlier material, "Teen Dream" allows Legrand and Scally to truly come into their own while leaving the listener aching for more.

Its fifth album is another successful step toward the mainstream.

Blackstar is its own strange, perverse thing, the ­latest move in a boundlessly ­unpredictable career.

Lady A has always demonstrated the potential to deliver a little something more. On 747, we finally get a glimpse of it.

Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, Lennox's fifth studio LP, is his most direct and accessible statement yet.

Deerhunter isn’t repeating itself: This creatively restless group doesn’t stand still for long.

If there's a funnier, stranger and more touchingly bizarre album released this year, it will be a very good year indeed.

[2012 album, Shrines] was a fun record, like listening to Madonna at half speed with your face in a strobe light. Follow-up Another Eternity does little to expand this aesthetic, but for those who enjoy hearing top 40 pop sounds refracted through a funhouse mirror, that's probably not bad news.

The music is spacious, paranoid and sultry; the lyrics are ­suggestive and knotted.

By using the lineup shift as a chance to explore different terrain-namely, eschewing pop choruses and traditional vocals-Underoath's sprawling, at-times disquieting music is newly realized.

On its fifth studio album, "Fire Away," Ozomatli shows a remarkable ability to innovate with its most expansive and energetic set in years.

Lantern is a beautifully restrained--by HudMo standards, that is--concept album that mirrors a full day, yawning awake with palate-clearing drones and ending ecstatically in the wee hours of a club utopia.

While it's too early to tell if The Pinkprint is a classic, it's safe to say it's her best album to date. Minaj was finally able to out-rap herself and purge issues she's struggled with in private in her most exposed fashion yet.

Unexpected collaborations with stateside cool kids like Perfume Genius on the aching “Jonathan” and talented Philly rapper Tunji Ige on the plush “No Harm Is Done” should charm any skeptics who might worry Letissier got lost in translation.

Songs of Innocence is a colossal-sounding record from rock's ultimate stadium wreckers, and a quick listen reveals why no other marketing strategy would have worked.

With these 13 tracks--nine of which the band had a hand in writing--One Direction does maturity much better than on its last album, 2014's ballad-heavy Four.

Pain Killer is an in-your-face album with rock bombast, though there's enough occasional twang here to keep the country traditionalists happy.

Frontman Randy Blythe still growls his guts out while his bandmates hammer away at economy-sized grooves that suggest an extreme-sports version of Southern rock.

Throughout Stronger With Each Tear, Blige solidly reinforces why she endures as a fan favorite.

It's an intense, focused exploration of all, or nearly all, the relationships the singer is involved in, both romantic and familial.

On the impressive Sour Soul, the Canadian trio that built its profile through Odd Future and Gucci Mane covers bangs out rich blaxploitation-invoking live instrumentals, providing a perfect canvas for the Wu-Tang Clan vet's vivid rhymes about dodging police, jewelry and, oddly enough, yoga.