Sweet Heart's melancholy tunes are still grand, their orchestras soaring and their choruses rousing, even Phil Spector-orian in the epic kink, but they're more tightly wound than on previous efforts.

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.

An unassuming venture, but capable and well executed one regardless.

Votolato’s new album, inexplicably titled Hospital Handshakes, offers yet another example of his considerable skills, a collection of songs that fires up an urgency that extends from first song to last.

There’s no need then to furrow well below the surface; with Waffles Triangles & Jesus, White’s reconciled mischief with melody with exceptional results.

The 14 tracks here rank among some of the best Bird's ever done.

There's a dose of the otherworldly in these evocative tracks, but laced, in all but a few cases, with recognizable bits of ordinary life.

This is one of the best albums of the year.

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

They’ve been in the long-form, drone-and-drift mode for a while now. It’s nice to hear them rock out a little, too.

The overall mood, however, is thoughtful and somber: unlike You Are Not Alone, this is a contemplative late-night album rather than a celebratory Sunday morning one. It’s wonderful.

The sounds that seem most real and certain disintegrate as you listen to them, while the ones that might be an illusion drift into proximity, obscuring all else.

Though he avoids dissonance for its own sake, Bleckmann amazingly never descends into treacle, nor does he indulge in the usual nonsense syllables of typical scat singing. Instead he forges his own distinctive path on Elegy, taking the concept of the human voice as instrument to new and shimmering places.

These 12 songs run a mere 33 minutes, but cover a lot of musical and thematic territory.

In Between takes more spins to reveal its charms than is usual for the Feelies, but the effort pays off handsomely.

One of the strongest debut albums in recent memory.

Another Splash of Colour: New Psychedelia in Britain 1980-1995, has plenty of meat on the bone for the uninitiated as well as the seasoned psychedelic music listener.

He just hides his eccentricities a little better this time. You have to look for them, but they’re there.

No surprises, but impeccably predictable.

They blast their way through what will be one of the best punk records you’ll hear this year, and their best album to date.

This Ain't Chicago does exactly what it's supposed to do: make you wish you were there.

From the heads down deliberation of Alligator, Mississippi to the teasing double entendre of Sweet Tooth, White’s music captures a particular time and place when pop and pretense weren’t necessarily intertwined.

Outside Society serves as an excellent primer for the young person looking to delve into the genius of Patti Smith for the first time as well as an essential addition to the record shelf of any seasoned fan well versed in the catalog of this high priestess of rock 'n' roll.

True to its title, Believers does indeed have the potential to make faithful advocates of all.

An exciting and distinct new spin on the dreampop revival.

What Thundercat has created with The Golden Age of Apocalypse is the sonic equivalent to a power-packed issue of Wax Poetics, bringing together several disparate elements of one nation under a groove to build a challenging and soulful playground for his indelible skills on the bass.

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

Brooding, menacing, haunting, even elegiac--we feel the Earth move across the emotional spectrum, rumbling through its soundscapes with eyes closed and amps set to stun.