Yin & Yang is an earth shattering 45 minutes of street urchin dub punk that not only reveals This Is PiL for the anti-climactic milquetoast sham that it was, but re-establishes the true soul of Public Image as it was originally intended by the vast sum of its initial parts.

Scholarly stuff this, but also an intriguing reinvention that makes this an ideal marriage of folk and finesse.

Give Me All You Got is as seductive and enticing as its name implies because clearly, Rodriguez is giving all she has as well.

His music has gotten more complex, more tuneful and more energetic. In Focus? is Tokumaru's most uptempo album, although that doesn't mean it's his most rocking.

With consistently strong songwriting and an intrepid grasp on its own talent, the Joy Formidable has in Wolf's Law a near-perfect follow-up record: it moves the band forward while staying true to what made it appealing and exciting in the first place.

There are new elements here, but they've been brought into a foundation so strong they cannot help but fit in on only on Yo La Tengo's terms.

Fortunately, the band that helped establish the early indie ethos remains as odd and unrepentant as ever.

The new album's a stunning return to, and expansion from, seminal Ubu form.

What James Brooks has accomplished as Land Observations should easily make Roman Roads IV - XI a record anyone in tune with the works of such new school guitar giants as Christian Fennesz and Dustin Wong must hear now.

Buddy & Jim in tandem is twice as nice and two of a kind.

The Odds show that Fugazi doesn't need to reunite in order to make music that still very much matters.

This isn't the sound of a once-renowned band trying to cash in on their glory days; it's the sound of a band invigorated.

With its relaxing, wordless waves of pastoral hums and harmonies, LUX rightfully earns its place amongst such classic works by one of the great masters of sonic exploration.

For those who have been along for the ride since the beginning this anthology is like unlocking a shiny, new bonus track for each of Gibbard's efforts since Something About Airplanes.

Weird, raw and beautiful all at once.

In the last ten or fifteen years, only 2005's Magic Time has delivered more consistently enjoyable songs than this thoroughly captivating collection of rants, loves, and dreams.

Cut the World isn't a major new statement from Antony Hegarty, since only one of its 11 songs are new and he's no stranger to using string arrangements. But the material is mostly the cream of his four studio albums.

Fennesz also instills a similar dichotomy with his score, as beautifully melancholic passages on grand piano and guitar interweave and flutter through the ether of his static-encrusted digital ambiance over 15 compositions of unsettling serenity.

This is a collection of songs that sparkles in its own excellence.

Sure this House on the Hill could be more soundly constructed, but one suspects that ricketiness is part of the appeal.

It's only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches up and realizes she's one of our country's best songwriters.

Each song can stand strongly on its own or the entire record can work as a cohesive whole (most records are one or the other).

With Eno at the controls, the Turbo Fruits straighten up, fly right and in the process bash out their most enjoyable work to date.

The sound is not quite as clean as on Beyond the 4th Door, but there's an organic whole-ness and immediacy that makes up for murkier sonics.

File Provider with the best of Damien Jurado and Mark Kozelek, fellow travelers in the world of darkly compelling, unassumingly poetic acoustic ballads that are quiet but never soft.

It is great to hear them testing out other feels without losing an ounce of the consistency that has made them to toast of Chicago for all these years.

She shows herself self-conscious in a good way on songs like "Little But Loud" where she happily shows off her stuff off while name checking Led Zep's most famous tune.

The fifteen tracks that make up the record are soul shaking, dark, emotive and moving in a way that would have Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits sipping their whiskeys in agreement.

Anchored by the fantastic production of longtime Interpol collaborator Peter Katis, the incorporation of drum loops, sampled dialogue a la Primal Scream's "Loaded" and textural Books-esque embellishments on songs like "Arise Awake" and "Another Chance" offers the sense of sonic adventure Interpol never entertained.

As an official live document of what this guy and his compatriots are all about, I'd rank Live From Alabama among the great concert albums.

While none of the songs are deeply political or poetic like the wartime bands that predated Tame Impala, they are no less poignant and often delve into a reflective sadness of longing to belong.

These songs show a band in its prime-and cast a much wider net of influences, finally shaking that garage band label, bringing in folk, country and some damn fine bar room rock.

It's the sound of songwriter matched to band that makes this record so deliriously good.

The fuzz of "Fighting the Smoke" and blend of twang and sincerity on "Red Rubber Army" prove that he's not going to run out of great ideas any time soon.

The constant shifts in tone and temperament ultimately affirm Orton's unpredictable instincts, and give Sugaring Season a sweeter appeal.

A band that started with Can's hypnotic propulsion has ended up floating in Tangerine Dream's weightless free formity, but it's gorgeous stuff.

Recorded in the far reaches of the Australian Outback, it reflects those dusty environs in its stripped-down arrangements and traditional tomes.

With Reckon, Collett offers an unblemished view of all its troubles and travails. To his credit, this tireless troubadour puts it all in perspective.

Danzig in the Moonlight represents a bold step forward.

All nine of these slow-moving cuts are built on actual melodies, simple enough to stick right away, radiant enough to hang like this album's overtones, well after they are finished.

Sometimes controlled, occasionally chaotic, this new album packs a powerful impact.

The fact this lost treasure is once again widely available in any capacity is reason to celebrate.

Despite how often he churns out work, this is steadfast and cohesive.

A sense of quiet triumph pervades: this may be the prettiest Mountain Goats album yet.

Thomas Brenneck has crafted ten seamlessly funky and beautifully played and arranged instrumental tracks in search of a film.

It's a monster, coursing with primal ferocity and sending wave upon wave of le noise directly at your gut.

Recorded live on the floor with his band, ChesnuTT's second album cuts the fat away for a lean, no-bullshit sweet soul program that hearkens back to the heyday of the O'Jays and Al Green.

On the group's third full-length Love Will Prevail, Ragon earns his rightful place alongside the works of the underground icons he flips for profit.

Strapped is a marked maturation from their San Diego start five years ago.

This is a calm, passionate album miles away from the dirge of YOB, echoing the lucidity of his homeland's creeks and forests, bringing together elements of Eastern and Western folk like David Crosby trading in Topanga Canyon for the Dead Sea.

Every cut shines with Ndgeocello's brilliantly creative spirit.

Breakup Song is an electric, ultra-fun, frenetic carnival; but, it is most satisfying in its quieter, more spacious moments.

It's nearly impossible for Hiatt to put out a bad record. You may not love every song, but there's bound to be a few on there to make the album well worth the price you paid.

The music is consistently impressive. A calmer, mellower than its predecessor, affair, Diluvia is an enchanting album worth several listens.

They eventually return to their swampy shuffles and bottleneck guitars but not before establishing themselves as revisionists and revivalists equally content to also mine their own muse.

Eitzel's work is rarely weak, but Don't Be a Stranger finds him hitting another peak.

Sweeping and stirring in its emotional depth, Sing the Delta happily finds DeMent testifying to her beliefs with feeling.

At 21 minutes, these six songs come off like a moderately successful experiment, but an entire album might have been too much of a challenge to sustain.

False Flag was a raging, hairy monster of an album; Formerly Extinct is its subtler, more intricate, better groomed (but no less wild) cousin.

Even if it's in small phases, Moon Duo continue to evolve as they revolve.

This is not a return to form, or a wild new approach, just another Steve Forbert album, which means a very good thing to have in the world.

An album that bears repeated listens, Summer Skin is nothing less than extraordinarily affecting.

Garage Sale is mostly devoid of throwaways, and yet chock full of hidden treasures instead.

The disc's winning blend of warm organic tones and smart atmospheric touches, recalls Emmylou Harris' Wrecking Ball--and could also be the breakthrough for Merritt that Ball was for Harris.

Once again, we have a very good recording from a very talented singer, songwriter, and performer.

A welcomed, warm and quality return for Helio Sequence, Negotiations yet again unveils the superlative sonic possibilities of these talented gents and how their creativity perfectly complements each other.

LaVette is in incredibly fine form, squeezing every amount of emotional resonance out of every track, her voice a well burnished, emotionally charged instrument that she plays like a master.

The group's strongest, most challenging and most cohesive offering in years.

Occupied with the Unspoken is a headphone trip that ultimately proves to be an enjoyable listen in spite of the complexity of its craftsmanship.

Meat and Bone stands as quite possibly the band's best album to date. The Explosion breaks everything down to its root and reconstructs it all in a perfect way; it should show a generation of cool kids that may have missed him the first time around that Jon Spencer is among garage rock's main guitar slingers.

This follow-up is even better & louder, on par with the dizzying heights of her old band.

These eight songs are indeed everything you'd expect from this reconfigured version of Comets on Fire with Chasny at the controls. It's a purely transcendental synthesis of heavy folk meditation and interstellar overdrive.

Grace & Lies works best when it lays it on thick - opting for textures over latticework -and is least successful when it strips back and relies on its acoustic-folk undercarriage. Thankfully, the former predominates.

The finished product is a beautifully fluid fusion of dub, jazz and micro-house zone-outs that continues to exemplify Oswald's two-decade strong aptitude as one of the great masters of repetitive groove theory.

With its live wet vocal production, bleaker-than-black lyrical mien and varied musical layers, the album could be one of the Minnesotan folk singer's finest ever, a richly diverse and dire epic revolving around the burning suns of love, death, truths and lies with only two weak songs in the bunch.

Silver Age is another peak in a career full of them, and it's due to the quality of the material Mould uses to construct the suit, rather than the classic cut of the design.

O' Be Joyful would be their resulting--and across-the-board winning--entrée to celebrity chefdom.

The music on this remarkable record creeps up on you, and subtleties abound; with Burns' vocals mic'd very close and much of the instrumental flourishes occurring deep in the mix, it's an intimate affair.

Fans of his [Drive-By] Truckers tunes will find much to love here.

Unlike its meandering, esoteric predecessor, the gorgeous Under the Pale Moon is an affair more focused in thought and sincere in song.

The production may be a little cleaner, but the same knack for great fuzzed-out ditties is still there... a pretty good album.

On Sun, Chan Marshall is so sure of herself that she's prepared to confront not just romance's injustice, but also the world's.

Live at Billy Bob's Texas is proof enough that he's still living up to his rep as one of the original Outlaws of Country, sitting firmly beside Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings.

[The Seer is] everything for which Swans stands, wrapped up in one intense package.

How good is Antibalas the album, the band's fourth, on its own merits? The answer is: pretty good, but not as great as its inspiration.

Overall, the tinny, sterile production (there is nothing lush about the sounds on In Limbo, nor is there supposed to be) and the fresh take on psychedelic and indie rock sounds pretty fine.

There were many musical spirits in the room when White and his Spacebomb band went to recording the seven farmhouse-soul spirituals found on Big Inner, but what ultimately renders this record truly special is the band's ability to synthesize all these elements into something that is uniquely their own.

From the first few notes, it's clear that the duo's signature blend of worldbeat rhythms and ancient melodies with rich electronic atmospheres is still potent, if leaning toward the synthesized side of DCD's lush sound.

America, is the most fully formed and thought-out of his albums, perfectly joining his concept of a free-form punk mentality with classically influenced structure and arrangement.

Simply put, Tracer is a lovely, melodious, engaging work of electronic music that will play just as well in the bedroom as it will on the dance floor.

This tribute album isn't strong enough to be awarded its own two-prong crown (the Fleetwood Mac equivalent of 10 stars), but it's got enough surprises and excitement to keep the genre interesting.

The music that survived war, immigration and poverty flourishes even among the hipsters, a happy ending for a tale of struggle.

Their latest full length, Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Your Anger, is another dozen or so satisfyingly original tracks by what could possibly be your next favorite band.

Jamal continues to spin gold from the bench of his baby grand with Blue Moon.

K7 is doing its best to keep the tradition alive, and Foals' contribution is a curatorial coupe des grace.

Researching the Blues is a goddamn gem, crackling with energy, that totally celebrates the pure bliss and joy that rock 'n' roll can, and should be. In short, it's everything that you were hoping it would be.

Copper Blue is essential.

Those two bumps aside ["Cruel Intentions" and "I Should Have Stayed in Bed"], it's overall a solid album from a band that's honestly been missed.