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

Somehow It’s Great To Be Alive seems like the essential set, given that it boasts some 35 tracks spanning all phases of their collective career. It shows them in their true element--raucous, raw and unapologetic, a combination certain to appeal to diehard devotees and practically anyone else whose taste in music is generally affirmed by frequenting sweaty beer joints and any local roadhouse bar.

To The Sunset becomes a new plateau in a career that’s grown steadily and assuredly since the start. Indeed, its importance ought to grow over time given its unabashed enthusiasm and its unabashedly seductive set-up.

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

For beautiful execution of a beautiful idea for a tribute/concept album, try The Beautiful Old: Turn-of-the-Century Songs.

Granduciel’s songs envelop you. As soon as you understand the lyrics for one song, another song buries words in hushed reverb.

His ability to arrange is masterful and, on Way Out Weather, he establishes this sort of psychedelic roots sound that exists outside of about any recognizable genre or even sub-genre.

This album is a triumph, and with it, Protomartyr has pulled off the unlikely feat of making the rock record of the year, twice in a row.

While it has been out in their native land since January and only recently been made available in this country through tiny New York-based What's Your Rupture?, this 12-track typhoon is exactly the kick in the ass our sorry punk community needs in the wake of Jay Reatard's untimely death.

Superbly performed, the show is recorded with perfect clarity by NPR’s engineers, and packaged with an extensive booklet of essays and photos. Truth, Liberty & Soul is no barrel-scraping collection of effluvia, but a vital addition to the slim catalog of a genius.

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

What we have here is another excellent Chris Smither album, reason enough for celebration.

A treasure chest of riches that provides considerable new perspective on the band's processes and progress through the years.

Kozelek replicates the rhythm of our lives, the tricks of memory, and the portents we later find in seemingly banal moments.

The lack of anything that’s decidedly uptempo may be a detriment to some, but the blend of strings and acoustic instrumentation more than compensates for the subdued stance.

Though there are some slow-burners on this record; songs that might not stick on the first or second go round, they are worth the patience once they finally click with the listener.

He and his group put everything they could into every track--or at least the every one collected here.

Pink City is her prettiest, most cohesive work yet. It’s well-constructed enough to showcase the weirdness that crops up in her songs without making her seem like a novelty act.

Good News is an immediately infectious work.

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

Steven Wilson has remixed the entire original album for this “Elevated Edition,” so Tull trainspotters will no doubt thrill to the opportunity to debate, anew, the myriad sonic nuances, nooks, hooks, hobbit-holes and crannies afforded by contemporary studio technology compared to a decade and a half ago. In one sense, the Swedish show is the main draw here--it’s been bootlegged extensively, but never with sound quality this superior.

Leonard Cohen has made the best full album of his career (song for song, sound for sound, lyrical point for point; yes, this is true) and most certainly the best album of 2012.

In the end, Pure Comedy isn’t anything close to the laugh fest the title implies, but it does provoke a deeper reaction regardless.

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.

A most welcome return.

It’s an odd little record, a kind of confessional chronicle that gradually gets under your skin. In this era of fractured self-identification, Ten Hymns From My American Gothic nicely serves as a soundtrack for all the searchers and seekers out there.

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

If this all sounds sort of strange or back-handed, that can be attributed to the fact that Strange Mercy takes a few listens to grasp, and it makes the repeat visits enticing. And that's a sign of a strong album.