An album full of fresh twists and turns, musically and lyrically, and a song cycle full of melody and surprise.

It is chock-a-block with everything you have ever loved about the Boards over the last 15-some-odd years.

After the third track “Christine” floats past like a lost Julee Cruise track on soulful blues guitar and vintage 50s’ keys, the LP takes a surprising but effective turn into heavy, murky territory.

Ivan & Alyosha offer an emphatic combination of allure and affirmation that all but assures instant appreciation.

Mollestad gives us a generous and welcome taste of that classic sound, which her own twist on it that would hopefully make McLaughlin himself proud.

Those who loved the Del-Lords in the 1980s will be delighted, as should anybody who missed them but thinks passion, skill, and commitment are a pretty good combination in music.

Time Off takes its time getting where it’s going, but deftly reaches its destination.

More Than Just a Dream is a perfectly ok record that can even boast one or two above-average songs, but ultimately the result is pretty underwhelming.

Ultimately American Ride resounds like a victory cry--urgent, enduring and unfailingly affecting.

Those that deem this effort too weird or erratic are best advised to consider the deluxe edition with its live bonus disc recorded with the Metropole Orchestra at the Paradiso in Amsterdam.

On its fifth album Fandango, Wellington, NZ combo the Phoenix Foundation doesn’t so much eschew the eclecticism of previous efforts as employ greater continuity

It’s always good to know there’s someone out there still doing straight-up guitar pop without irony or pretense.

A wonderful album, in which everyone comes together without losing what is special about each.

He sounds like an old master these days, crafting material that would sound equally affecting if they came from the pen of Guy Clark, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Steve Earle, Alejandro Escovedo or any of several weathered and revered troubadours who blazed the path before him.

Throughout, Holmes maintains a steady hand on the controls, never letting the stylistic shifts overwhelm the overriding ambiance, which is to revel in sensuality of synapse-stroking while riding the pure physicality of a full-on dance/rock record.

Fossils remains uniformly subdued throughout. Yet, it’s hardly as dry as the album title might imply.

The final outcome is the most intriguing and innovative Matmos LP since A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure.

Listening to this stunning album will provide you with your own moment of clarity. Don’t let it slip away.

Walking the same cabaret folk rock path traveled on his previous record Sketches From the Book of the Dead, Harvey sounds comfortable and confident in the skin of his artistic vision.

What they do is ply their trade with heaping dollops of Muscle Shoals soul, fiercely funky grooves and southern rock swagger, all doled out in substantial doses on This River, that hang heavy with the humidity of Grey’s Florida homeland.

Ultimately, Dagger Beach isn’t the easiest listen--“bewildering” and “bizarre” are perhaps the better descriptions here--but for sheer daring and intrigue, Vanderslice finds fruition.

For those of you not so enamoured of the lo-fi, early ‘90s garage/punk crud the Memphis trio so brazenly and brilliantly pioneered, feel free to plug in your own “1” or “0” stars.

Immunity pounds and pulses with pneumatic energy, its rhythmic tracks (“Collider” but also “Open Eye Signal”) gleaming with machine-precise hedonism.

Howl is an unequivocal roots recording, an evocative combination of Bluegrass celebration, deep bottom Blues and total allegiance to authentic Americana.

It’s lyrically strong and musically tight--even as it drifts and frolics as easily as kite.

The music appears deceptively simple and unabashedly blithe at times, but regardless, the emotional undercurrent clearly comes through.

A musician capable of creating lush if sometimes unlikely arrangements, he uses his particular prowess as a means of fashioning spectacular soundscapes.

This is a dazzling album, steeped in soul and brimming with an uncommon musicality, all rhythmic urgency and compelling melodies and anthemic choruses.

The band’s pretty much stuck in nuevo Nirvanaland.

It’s as if the quartet decided to pay tribute to one of O’Malley’s chief inspirations: Earth. That sounds dull, but there’s something hypnotic about these songs.

Ministry of Love may wax gloomy but proves to be an enjoyable album that fans of IO Echo just may happily play repeatedly.

Tom Jones is almost 73 years old, is singing as well as he ever has while refusing to conform to his stereotypes, is artistically and perhaps spiritually searching and restless, and is recording perhaps the finest music of his long career.

The problem is the album starts to wear thin about halfway in and never really gets back the strength of those first few songs.

Though the sound is stripped down--limited mainly to voice, guitar and unusual atmospherics--the effect is also fairly frenzied and typically creepy as well.

It is not one thing (folk) or the other (post-rock, post-classical experiment) or even, really a blend of the two, but rather something fresh and idiosyncratic and worth exploring.

Patty Griffin has clearly been saving the best of her own material for a long time, making this perhaps her finest hour.

Listening back on the first couple of releases, its obvious Alkaline Trio has learned to inject more melody into their songs over the years, though My Shame Is True is closer to their punk-ier sound than the last few efforts.

These songs work well in small doses, but start to grate after repeat listens.

Power pop may not be as ubiquitous or even as relevant as it was in the Raspberries’ prime, but it still can be done well... just ask Mikal Cronin.

The songs on their second full length Baba Yaga are not immediately sticky, in fact they take some time sink in.

As exhibit A in a case made that Shuggie Otis is an overlooked talent, Inspiration Information + Wings of Love present powerful evidence.

The second half of the album finds the foursome relenting and mostly mellowing out.

He sounds more at home and natural on these [jazz] songs than on the country music for which he’s most celebrated, making Let’s Face the Music and Dance one of the most effortlessly enjoyable records in his large catalog.

For all that remarkable restraint, Dennison creates a stirring impression, making this convergence of emotion and execution equate to nothing less than pure, evocative bliss.

HEK’s second album makes him sound more confident, distinct and comfortable in his own skin but thankfully not more fancier than his 2011 debut.

On Ready to Die, Iggy & the Stooges sound hungry, ready not to expire but to prove something: that rock & roll is not dead and no one does it better.

Impossible Truth feels like both an empirical observation and an epiphany, a glimpse of the glow behind the world itself.

Despite his delicate--make that dainty--designs, Henson also knows how to set a fanciful mood, albeit one that’s singularly subdued.

Vile’s drawl communicates isolation with a contradictory urgency. Somehow, Pretty’s spiritual resignation sounds like an invitation.

It’s actually a great record once you give up all preconceived notions of what to expect.

Afraid of Heights is ok, it’s Wavves most sophisticated, it’s fun for one or two spins on a sunny day and the duo due take a few chances but at the end of the day, the thing that Wavves are most afraid of isn’t heights, its originality.

The album is chirpy, playful and transitory, dispensing 10 songs in 31 minutes.

In crafting an album that’s filled with largess, they give their fans a work that genuinely seems destined for the ages.

Unfortunately, while the singers add some variety to the down-tempo dance stew that Green comes up with, they also fade into his lounge-like, bare-bones background all too well without adding much flavor, not to mention bite, to the proceedings.

Some of their ‘80s-style material also works in a pretty way (“Re-invent Your Second Wheel,” “BW Silence,” “Time Lock Fog”), but not so that you’re convinced that their collective hearts are in it.

The Men almost casually demonstrate a mastery of song-based rock & roll that usually comes from decades of work.

More a series of half-drawn soundscapes than actual songs per se, No Elephants comes across as an exercise in the abstract, in which the artist makes almost no attempt to color inside the outlines.

Both revealing and resilient, Spring and Fall could be deservedly called an album for all seasons.

For all of Fritz’s humorous lyrical twists, his strongest moments here often are when he doesn’t hide his feelings behind funny lines.

The best tracks, though, come when Earle focuses on just simply rockin’.

Marrying Beam’s continued interest in keeping the beat moving with some of the strongest folk/pop melodies he’s yet composed, Ghost on Ghost evolves Iron & Wine music even further into the realm of the mystic.

Finds the Present Tense reconciles past with future and makes for a compelling connection.

The band’s timbres are more distinctive than its songs, which means that even the shorter tunes are best when they let the instruments do the talking.

Bradley and his band are such great interpreters and expanders of the soul tradition that you don’t mind the nagging feeling that you’ve heard these cuts before.

Given the jam-friendly group’s propensity for live euphoria but recorded disappointment, it’s a relief to hear that the Hiss has finally hit its stride in the studio with Water On Mars.

This LA-based hardcore band turns out their most consistently solid set of songs yet; a dozen tracks of distorted guitars, machine gun drumming and throat-reddening vocals.

The results meld as mood music of the highest variety--dense yet delicate, edgy and yet elegiac.

The guitars still crunch as hard as ever, and Dan Peters’ drumming has that distinct set of accents that keep the anticipation high.

The Next Day is complex, pissed off and crafty.

Growing up in the Nottingham projects may have given Bugg enough life experience to get away with penning “Seen It All,” but it’s his sonic aesthetic that give his tales truth.

Indigo Meadow is an assured, exciting piece of work.

Wild Chorus stays true to its title as it winds its way through a series of sensuous yet spunky duets.

While Burdon himself remains indignant, and indomitable, his tenacious stance is coached in songs that rarely measure up to the classics credited to him early on.

The sound is a little too familiar, and--like a lot of Scandinavian music makers--the Deer Tracks are more style than substance.

You're Nothing is an album full of power--power which makes you think and react viscerally.

Honky-Tonk is a Country Music album. No Alt required.

A musical journey through spiritual and physical emotions, Electric Word will stir and soothe the soul.

Chain Letters is a solid album and Big Harp brilliantly adds to the growing plethora of artists crafting stark, raw music that strikes the core.

Out of View already channels a good bit of chaos in with its summer afternoon melodies, now after only a couple of years of experimentation.

Like a reincarnated Big Star, complete with sweet melodies that last for days and hooks sharp enough to piece flesh, the band's latest Foolish Blood (their seventh if you loop in EPs), is one of their strongest efforts to date.

Marr has become a more assured singer, which is one of several ways this album improves on Boomslang.

A few of the tunes seem to want to ape the front cover of waterfalls and Jesus-long hair ("Sore Eyes," "Locusts" etc.) but most of Almanac is able to bring a love of the past into the right now and (usually) make it seem effortless.

By definition, they're not as classic as his first three albums but because of the amazing guitar plus the soulful grooves and songwriting (and thankfully no overdubbing), there's still some good quality material found here for fans and even some agnostics.

The best of these songs, by a long ways, is "Counting." [...] Yet elsewhere, Ashin sounds like he's treading water, emoting floridly but to no real purpose over shiny, surface-y arrangements.

Old Yellow Moon will be well worth remembering.

Shout Out Louds have produced a great, light-hearted and warm album that will lift your spirits, mellow you out and make you dance.

With the ambitious Miracle Temple , Mount Moriah puts its own powerful stamp on a music that's faithkeeping in more than one sense.

Hamilton writes very nice folk rock songs, the way a 1,000 song writers do, but he, unlike most of his completion, he also wires them with dynamite and blows them sky high.

The lift-off and liberation come subtly, bearing the masterful marks of men who've learned the value of compositional patience (it's no coincidence that Cave and Ellis have also forged a successful partnership as film scorers). This, ultimately, makes the emotional devastation you experience once the record has spun all the more remarkable.

Laid back beats, a high pitched effect methodically layered within the effects, vocals, bring in the bridge then loop the beat. Arguably this is the pattern to all electronic music yet there is not much variety within this paradigm; luckily there are enough winning moments on Flume to make you forgive this.

Admittedly, Taylor’s patented droning mantras can be a bit numbing when stretched out to an hour. But when his artistic vision hits exactly the right balance with his emotional thrust, it’s hard to imagine the music sounding any other way.

Not a far stretch from 2011's Reptilians, Miracle Mile is, sonically speaking, lateral to its predecessors. But it holds enough well-crafted tunes to make for an enjoyable album.

It's obvious at the outset they create a mighty bold impression all their own.

Solid songwriting chops show a clear ambition on the band's part to be more than just another garage rock act, though the tunes are stronger in the second half of the record than the first.

Though hardly the type of platter meant to accompany any sort of festive gathering, Little Heater still manages to stir the senses.

It's as if the Brian Jonestown Massacre hired J Mascis to write its material, solid songcraft disguised as stoned slack.

There's a warmth and life in these songs that goes beyond tribute or reenactment.

Yes, it's a fine album.... It's during the songs that shift the focus from chaos to ethereal mirth that the listener can fairly wonder about whether this album should be judged as simply a regular new offering or an (almost) lost treasure.