El Camino offers, like they say in Spinal Tap, something none more black, lean mean T-Rex-ish blues party pop (because the melodies are audaciously and apologetically catchy) that spirals nearly out of control yet is reigned in (really?!?) by producer Danger Mouse at his most spare and frame making.

Segall has been slowly but surely expanding out in various directions, exploring the possibilities of sounds and approaches to his songs and songwriting craft. Freedom’s Goblin makes the dividends of his exploration that have paid off all too evident.

Wussy reaches for transcendence and finds it. You wish it would go on forever.

The Pearl Sessions with newly found studio outtakes, live performances and chatter rarities, the tumult of its original 1971 (three months after her passing) comes through loud and clear.

With its near-perfect balance of power and tunefulness, Carved Into Stone rumbles with tracks that practically define heavy metal.

Clearly, Boz is back, and at age 70, he’s never sounded so assured.

Closing entries, “Oh Dolores” and “The Walls Have Drunken Ears,” provide the album with its most emphatic impressions, leaving no bridge untethered.

It’s a wonderful soul inspiring, mournfully imbued compendium of her songs that will hopefully continue to inspire an even younger crop of musicians on into the future.

Promised Land Sound are clearly onto something special, and it’s going to be a fun ride to watch ‘em develop.

I Abused Animal is a real shocker and definitely an album you won’t easily forget.

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.

On Big Bad Luv, his fourth solo effort, Moreland continues his knack for writing impeccably perfect lyrics (“They got silver spoons for American gods/I wanna be stoned, thrown American rods”) on some of the best heartbreak songs since John Prine.

It’s a good sign that Jones is open to anything on Super Natural, and that he can easily enhance his usual firebreathing rock & roll passion without diluting it.

There are plenty more excellent guitar janglers like The Pooh Sticks doing my favorite tune “On Tape” plus Pale Saints doing the dreamier “Colours and Shapes” and Choo Choo Train (Ric and Paul from Velvet Crush) doing the righteous “High,” all of which is one disc one. Moving right over to disc two The House of Love start things off with “The Hill.”

Four albums in and Turnpike Troubadours show no signs of writer’s block.

With One Drop of Truth, The Wood brothers have put out a career-defining album. But they’ve been just as brilliant from the beginning; now it’s time for the rest of the world to finally realize that.

Segall pushes things towards 11.

Japandroids sophomore effort is loaded end to end with great songwriting and the joy they've found in their influences.

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.

Given the complex menagerie of moods and movements interpolated amongst the din of this septet of songs, it seems like the man has indeed accomplished his mission.

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

They direct their efforts with a determined forward thrust that spills over the melodic parameters with a celebratory display of rock ‘n’ roll revelry.

This current incarnation of Swans swim across the salty sea of the group's three-decade strong catalog, executing a balance of grind and grace that casts a new light on old classics.

That’s maybe what’s so remarkable about Faith in Strangers, its uneasy balance between beauty and menace, calm and roiling intensity.

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.

Blunderbuss is good, damn good, and its' few missteps unthinking.

No one could have predicted that they'd get to Attack on Memory's savage impact so quickly, or indeed, at all. No telling where they'll go from here.

The Prodigal Son lives up to its title, a return to his earliest archival sounds.

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.

Twenty-five years in, how well these two sides of a sung coin fit together and complement each other remains remarkable.

He’s cut a broad range of material to date, everything from Delta blues to free jazz to blazing psychedelia. All that and more surfaces at various points on Eyes On the Lines, ultimately making the album a culmination and a celebration.

The band’s Miami mix of Folk, Rockabilly, Jazz and Blues-based Holiday music is simply divine.

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.

Yet aside from that one cut, Megafaun's self-titled album seamlessly integrates an easy-going tuneful-ness with a nearly mystical devotion to tone and texture.

It's Apocalypse a-go-go for the Georgia gentlemen. Go with them.

The result is a fantastic record, powerful in its calmness.

While the kick of recognition of the distinctive styles and contributions of each member is part of the pleasure, the album sounds like the product of a group, of a powerful force of equals. And it's all the better for it.

The combination of energies is so seamless that it’s hard to say where Oneida leaves off and Rhys Chatham begins, and yet, both artists seem to benefit from a push outside their regular territory.

There’s an uncommon depth here that hasn’t been evidenced on Williams records in ages, both in the sonics (an immaculately crafted blend of intimate and widescreen) and the lyrics, which at times are deeply confessional and others downright defiant as the songwriter stares down her demons, the vicissitudes of relationships and the rampant idiocy of the outside world.

To drag out a well worn cliché, The Best of Quantic is the proverbial embarrassment of riches, but boy is that true. This is just a feast of plenty for anyone interested at all in smart, sophisticated, well conceived and recorded global music in the 21st century.

Twenty-five for the Rest of Our Lives, their latest, is by far their best to date.

This is the best punk rock record you’ll hear this year--never mind that it’s not wholly or even really a punk rock record.

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

An album flush with both vicissitudes and vitality, What a Time to be Alive resonates with its resolve.

Once again breathing new life into an old form, The Sugarman Three are back to show us all How It's Supposed To Be Done.

Working with a cast of Chicago jazz, improv and experimental luminaries and newcomers, Walker casts a most enchanting spell on Primrose Green, and while it may reflect his influences more than spell out his vision, the love he bears for those influences comes through in every plucked and sung note.

Any adventurous soul with both Drake and Sun Ra back to back on his or her iPod will most certainly be able to get down with this truly unique hip-hop experience.

However carefully crafted the words or melodies may be, there’s an air of anything-can-happen to Frog Eyes songs. They are certainly always haring off in unexpected directions.

Unlike Waits of late, she works hard to not let the songs become just moody soundscapes. She doesn’t always completely achieve this, but does so enough to make this a success.

The Whole Love should make long-running Wilco-ites ecstatic since this is the best and most adventurous set of Wilco songs in nearly a decade.

With Major/Minor Thrice have stripped away unnecessary studio production, added instrumentation and pretention to offer simply a great rock album.

Apparently Cartwright exorcised his punk rock demons with Desperation, as Shattered is the band’s most accessible record yet.

Shook’s unerring insurgence and commitment to the cause are admirable traits, proof that edge and attitude never go out of style.

Lanegan doesn’t need someone to make him great, he does fine by himself and it shows with the anthology of his solo work Has God Seen My Shadow?- An Anthology 1989-2011 (Light in the Attic).

Weird Little Birthday is one of those albums that sounds like nothing much the first couple times you hear it, before you begin to lock onto the war between musical ease and lyrical dislocation.

Yellow & Green documents the evolution of Baroness from great metal band to great band.

With U feels fresh, new and mysterious.

If Hit Parade doesn't get Nourallah on more folk's radar well, their radar is done busted.

Far from nailing down who he is or what he’s attempting in this second self-titled album, Ty Segall seems to be trying all different things. Good for him.

Temple Beautiful is the product you expect from this highly original and creative artist.

As always, Russell's articulate arrangements embolden the material and give them the grit it deserves.

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.

The album is not flawless; there are one or two songs that don’t quite hit the high bar Atkins set for herself with this outing. But songs like the drinks-in-the-air sing-along “It’s Only Chemistry” and the instant classic “Sin Song” more than make up for what you pay for this album.

With Grief’s Infernal Flower, Windhand goes from strength to even more strength, taking doom to the next level by refining tradition, rather than radically altering it.

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.

Wide Awake will have to respectfully play 3rd place behind Sunbathing Animal and Light Up Gold, as those are the ones to beat.

Here in his first solo full-length, he sands down the edges of the jazz-man’s axe, denaturing the sound until it evokes rather than presents itself. Almost all these songs have the drifting, half-heard, hard-to-pin-down sense-memory quality of music drifting in from other rooms, long ago.

What he has done here is more than a lark. He really loves what he’s singing, and it shows. And he has a lot still to teach us about the joys of music.

With Animals reminds me of Lanegan’s work with Isobel Campbell, more acoustic, less bombastic, less ready to take you by the throat than his solo albums, but nonetheless quietly revelatory. It’s hard to tell, really, where he leaves off and Garwood steps in, but that’s because they’re so well matched and equally focused on a singular, spooky vibe.

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.

While some of the beats seem recycled from Thursday or House of Balloons they still sound good and don't detract from the songs [here].

Beautiful stuff, strange and arresting.

Gentle introspection--instead of the outright melancholy he often exudes--paired with sway-worthy melodies make Parallax the most listenable Atlas Sound album to date.

The bold artistic statement that is this record will have people talking about it for years to come.

Examining the duality of our motivations and emotions elevates Parquet Courts above most of their peers. Not only do they avoid the Vinyl-style embalming of their source material, but the songs transcend the romanticized hipster baggage that the city--and Brooklyn in particular--currently carries with it.

Once again, The War on Drugs have crafted an album of the year, built not upon flash or novelty, but a new take on traditional rock and roll that is always pushing forward.

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

It’s a gorgeous, unreal place that Mount Kimbie evokes on Love What Survives, but dissonance leaks in through the crevices.

With Adore Life, Savages have built on the visceral, gut-shock impact of their first album with stronger songs and more varied writing. It’s an impressive step up for an already promising band.

Only 8 songs here so they don’t wear out their welcome and know how to keep the fans wanting more.

Whether they’re tearing through a raucous house burner (“Buffalo Nickle”) or serenading in quieter moments (“St. Anne’s Parade,” “This Ride”), Shovels & Rope manage to deliver a nearly flawless record. Yet again.

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.

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

This latest album is still a fair amount bubblier than early works, with the electronic part more prominent than on Mother’s Daughter or Good Arrows, yet it has the same recognizable magic as Tunng’s best work, in hectically complicated arrangements that melt into simplicity and sleek modern surfaces atop centuries-old modalities.

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

Chapman’s songs range from bleak to wryly humorous, but they’re dark and lonely at the center, and it’s a pleasure to hear him in such good company, for once, and not alone.

The whole project is haunted by mournfulness and death. And that of course suits a Nico tribute well.

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

Populated with smartly crafted, passionately performed songs, No Way There From Here stands as Cantrell’s best work to date and leaves the listener hoping that she doesn’t take as many years to make do her follow-up album.

These are songs that brush up against you softly, swirl up around you like a sweet smelling breeze and leave you wistful for things you can’t quite put into words.

What he does best is craft heart-string cautionary tales.

The easiest way to say it is that there’s no barrier between despair and euphoria in these songs--which contain both, equally, simultaneously and without contradiction.

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

The Next Day is complex, pissed off and crafty.

The level of familiarity turns out to be one of the records strong suits, and something that distinguishes it from the Bragg/Wilco records.

This is the third album Stuart has done with this band, and they continue to find surprising and delightful ways to rev up Stuart's performances.

The Alvins don’t tamper with Broonzy’s basic template, and truth be told, their feisty renditions of “All By Myself,” “Key to the Highway,” “Big Bill Blues” and practically every other song on this set sound as if they’re of a vintage variety.

It’s hypnotic in and of itself, and all impressions are purely in the ears/mind of the listener.