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

Taken in tandem, both CD and DVD provide an intriguing look at an album that ranks as one of the most dramatic accomplishments in modern Rock realms.

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.

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

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

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.

One of the strongest debut albums in recent memory.

Weirdo Shrine is everything that the debut was and more.

The Ghost in the Daylight (Warp) is a quieter, more overtly folky album than 2007's Western Lands. There is no obvious focal point - nothing like gorgeous, pick-clawed "Trust" from the previous album - only a series of acoustic songs that flare gently from rueful nostalgia to sudden melancholy.

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

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

Like many a good party, you wish it would have last longer (the other minor qualm is that there isn’t a mention of when the specific songs were recorded).

Another cohesive set that plums the same territory songwriters have spent centuries on, - that Mandell can still rivet our attention is testament to a great songstress.

Lovesick Blues is simply a beauty.

Bellowing Sun is one of Fennelly’s best and most brightly colored albums yet.

All of Mess has an enjoyably menacing feel that will prove inviting to Liars fans and new listeners alike.

With Easy Pain, the trio go full fang on this fourth LP, harkening back to the most extreme aspects of Louisville loudness.

The Lookout doesn’t make any waves or upset any expectations. If you want to be surprised, look elsewhere, but if you like beautifully turned melodies, set in soft, enveloping arrangements that keep every instrument clear, this is another good one.

There’s little doubt Here Be Monsters will one day be considered the album that ensures Langford’s legacy.

Jamie XX has rearticulated dance music once again. This is an album that surfs from one emotional peak to the next. It’s an album I was actually sad to have end.

The contrast between the style and the subject matter is so arresting that you kind of wonder what will happen on the next record when Nelson is, perhaps, not mad anymore.

There's a cocktail cool to "Troublemaker" that goes nicely with the singer's Nico-on-a-bender routine. And "Irene" with its hypnotic refrain and ice-thawing emotionalism is the sort of heartbreaking melody that made you fall in love with the pair in the first place.

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

Ultimately, True Sadness is a confessional set of songs, revealing in many ways and vulnerable in many others. However, honesty has always been an inherent element in their sound, so in that sense this album’s no different.

The band allegedly recorded this one just for fun, with little intention of ever releasing it. You know a group has hit its stride when even its goof offs are worth releasing.

Internal Logic pits fractious churn and friction against head-spinning harmonies, and here's the surprise, everybody wins.

With Tarpaper Sky, he can clearly claim one of the finest albums of a sterling 40-year career.

On Lovers, Cline is effective at making re-interpreted songbook selections his own.

If Provider was Webb reveling moment-to-moment in a new life, Free Will comes to terms with the fact that the more you live, the less you know.

Shovels & Rope displays a firm grip on its craft on Swimmin’ Time, and a willingness to use it in service of any stylistic boulevard it chooses to walk.

This is more, almost more than you can take, and it’s better than less any day.

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

Their strongest collection by far.

As far as songcraft is concerned, this may be Benson's most consistent record, and What Kind of World will induce ecstasy in the faithful and shocked delight in newcomers.

I like the tumult and ferocity of the album’s first half, though I’m not sure the world needs another “Everybody do the [insert dance move here]” song or anything else entitled “Rock and Roll Baby,” ever again.

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.

At any rate, Behind the Parade lobs another handful of Keene klassiks into the katalogue.

The Devil's Walks minimal electronic landscape is mesmerizing and perfect for a quiet, rainy day of contemplation.

It’s quite a gift to fans, too. Live in Memphis—which has a corresponding DVD available separately--finds Chilton, particularly, in good voice, his obvious playfulness all the more engaging given that he’s performing before a hometown crowd.

Strong Feelings sums up the sentiments, but it’s the eloquent execution that makes this so sublime.

Fondness for Jackleg only grows the more time you spend with it.

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.

Lung of Love come[s] across like another breath of fresh air.

This is a well-crafted album that manages to reach some rare sonic ground save for a few missteps. The band works best when it is allowed to let the songs build and layer over one another.

[The] excellent Faithful Man is a product of the dream team of producers, arrangers, songwriters and players (the house band called the Expressions) at Brooklyn's Truth & Soul Records, whose history parallels Brooklyn's better-known Daptone.

His vocals are delivered with such breezy casualness, you almost miss the poetry in the words. Pair that with the brilliant musicianship and it’s simply confounding that Bare and his band aren’t as big as groups like Arcade Fire and My Morning Jacket at this point.

Some of the names here will already be known by fans, including White, Charles, Gentry, Dale Hawkins, Link Wray and Larry Jon Wilson; while others, such as Dennis The Fox, Gritz, Cherokee, Jim Ford and John Randolph Marr, may only be familiar to collectors. It's all great, though.

Cut for cut, Big Station is as strong a record as he's ever made.

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.

Accessible to a fault, and exceedingly mellow to boot, it flows with a natural ease usually accomplished by those with far more track time under their belt.

Let's Go Eat The Factory proves that the pioneers of lo-fi still do it best.

The combination of hardcore punk songwriting and a pop tunesmith's sense of melody and composition gives the latest venture for this DC scene giant an appeal entirely unique to its branch on the family tree.

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.

[A] gorgeous outing from one of rock's best pop-smiths.

Last Patrol is easily Monster Magnet’s strongest LP in years.

Seventeen tracks makes for an extended listening experience, but there’s enough variety that you’re never bored. In fact, the second half seems to hit a little harder than the first.

Taken as a whole, Sukierae is a much different experience, exhibiting a labor of love in the truest sense--a family affair that bridges the generational gap to offer a little something for everyone.

More Is Than Isn’t balances vocals with lyricless tracks but at the heart of it all is RJD2’s strength in producing impressive music.

The experimental sonic world Dosh creates is beautiful and he has created an eerily enchanting one with Milk Money.

From start to finish, God’s Problem Child is a quintessential Willie Nelson record and there are few things in the world better than that.

Like its MCA spiritual predecessors, Modern Country shows what a great musician can do when he decides his skill is the least important part of the package.

It’s a tour de force performance that never revolves around technique--instead Chesley channels her rage, sorrow and acceptance into sometimes soothing, sometimes serrated devotions of pure, unadulterated feeling.

Unseen alludes to The Handsome Family’s darker realms, but the beauty it boasts is so unerringly mesmerizing, it begs repeated hearings simply to soak it all in.

A fine batch of bittersweet pop songs that are nearly impossible to ignore.

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

Regardless of the narrative you attribute to the running order of an album after listening to this record, I felt as if I had genuinely experienced something groundbreaking, elemental, and thoroughly thought-provoking.

Raw in places, expansive in others, and rife with Williams’ patented street-corner-talking, pimp-swagger style, I Wanna Go Back to Detroit City is as good a postcard for the Motor City as you’ll likely find all year.

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

Benson’s created an album that stands as his best thus far, a vivid, emphatic encapsulation of pure pop coupled with unabashedly enthusiastic execution.

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

While there aren’t any revelatory moments of creative growth here, the best songs on Still Life suggest Morby still had plenty left in the NYC tank.

You almost can’t grudge Bishop for his globe-hopping, 9-5 shirking, guitar-buying existence when it produces music as wonderful as this.

True to its title, Solid States is, again, a solid workman-like affair, flush with resolute integrity, catchy choruses and songs that sound tailor made for instant gratification.

For the Glory Fires, it's all about "Righteous, Ragged Songs," and Bains and the band deliver that in spades on There is a Bomb in Gilead.

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.

The strong creative flow guiding this record indicates that the band’s artistic direction wasn’t solely the vision of Smith.

There’s a Bluebird in My Heart is the sound of a great artist coming back home.

Her writing, which here often expresses personal sorrow and fear about separated or lost love (“1923,” “Nothing in My Heart”), is alive to the senses and nature but doesn’t get lost in abstractions about feelings.

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

Muffs fans, then, are the ultimate winners here, as it sounds like Shattuck & Co. are having the collective time of their life.

Country Funk II is an archivist’s delight.

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

The last song, a sparse electric guitar ballad, identifies another dualism: it's called "Get It Wrong, Get It Right," and like most of the rest of this unsettled album, it gets it right.

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

There's power in these grooves, but there's a message too, and it spells a better day for everyone.

It all combines to create an album of magical (realist) splendor, a journey into a past which will always have more to offer each time you listen to it.

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

He knows exactly how to build and sustain interest in a song, even the ones that don't hit you over the head with obvious hooks.

King Khan is, so far, pursuing a sound that is more huge than slick, and it sounds great.

Despite the duplications from previous collections and a heavy emphasis on dubious alternate mixes, true devotees will likely still find Made in California an essential acquisition.

Mudhoney’s new live set, L.i.E. (Sub Pop), collected from a 2016 tour, is bluntly, ferociously coherent, though it spans three decades, seven albums and one Roxy Music cover.

Call it a comeback. Call it a rebirth. Welcome back Barrence. Dig Thy Savage Soul rocks.

It’s hardly an easy listen, but it’s a compelling one just the same. And if it’s not exactly a conclusive journey, it’s still one worth traveling all the same.

A nourishing collation, Fear Fun has more rock (than the work of Fleet Foxes, or on Tillman's previous solo work), masterfully nuanced production (by Jonathan Wilson), and some exemplary compositions.

It's not often that an album has this much to offer, intellectually, physically and spiritually. This is not just another sterile bedroom disco experiment, far from it.

Though occasionally confounding, it inevitably turns out to be time well spent.

You have to go back to 1993’s Songs of Faith and Devotion to find a more consistently flawless record from the band. Lyrically the trio is in top form.