Voyageur resonates with the kind of drama and daring that Edwards has been perfecting all along.

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.

Earle has proven that he can embrace the past, look forward to the future and find peace through his music.

Clear Shot, the Brighton, UK band’s third LP, brims with catchy melodies and straightforward performances--only the richly layered production really betrays any overt psychedelic influence.

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.

Hurricane is her first new album since 1989, and it's her best ever.

Here, together again, they pick up more or less where they left off, slipping subdued hooks into strummy reveries and spiking easy breezy tunes with jarring, occasional violent lyrics.

Thanks to this well-constructed compilation CD (including a very informative booklet), his legacy will be exposed to a new generation of musicians, and music fans.

She is better than you would expect, flexing a style that exists between Woody Guthrie and Def Jux as she calls out hypocritical hippies, turtle burning oil companies and the overdose that nearly killed her with effortless wit and grace.

All things considered, Stars and Satellites is easily this band's best effort yet.

There is not a single track on this record that doesn’t belong, each nearly flawless in their own way.

High Bias is the best Purling Hiss album yet, channeling a tidal wave of noise into songs that you can remember almost immediately and even hum to yourself later when the album’s out of ear shot.

They come back hard and a bit more focused on this terrific sophomore effort.

The EP is the perfect cherry on that sweet cake that is Light Up Gold.

While the band clearly has an advantage, being able to handpick songs that were already pretty stellar to begin with, credit is due to the hard Working Americans for not simply churning out carbon copies, but slathering plenty of loose blues, jam band raucousness and stoner charm, to make these songs their own.

Louis Armstrong may have provided the raw material for Ske-Dat-De-Dat: The Spirit of Satch, but make no mistake: this is a Dr. John LP through-and-through. As it should be.

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.

For those a bit put off by the overt club friendliness of The Field but intrigued by Willner's affinity for glitch, Loops is definitely your conduit into the abstract nature of this BPM bard's state of mind.

Lovingly named after Rod Serling's cult post-Twilight Zone program and, in all intents and purposes, is just as thrilling.

So its songs aren't exactly of the hum-along variety. No matter. There's no denying Sun Kil Moon's luminous glow.

Sunlight on the Moon is utterly pleasant, slightly off-kilter and melodically memorable, but if you listen to it hard enough, it’s also a bit disturbing.

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.

In terms of pure triumph, Port of Morrow provides its listeners with safe harbor regardless.

The steady driving "Mulholland Drive" and the Roy Orbison-worthy "Here Comes My Man" are among the band's best and could have easily come off their breakthrough 2008 release The '59 Sound.

As its title suggests, Use Me offers a lesson in how to stay true to one's muse.

The combination of the two disparate methods of performance made for quite an extraordinary menagerie of styles that will definitely appeal to hip-hop, art pop and world music fans alike.

Waiting for Something To Happen is an excellent record.

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

Looks can be deceiving, especially when you have an album's worth of decent songs to back you up. And despite a so-so start on their debut full length, they do.

Their often-dark songs have a triumphant dimension.

This band stirs a noisy pot of rock sounds, but vapors that escape smell delicious.

Tom Jones is almost 73 years old, is singing as well as he ever has while refusing to conform to his stereotypes, is artistically and perhaps spiritually searching and restless, and is recording perhaps the finest music of his long career.

Half a century later, Look Again to the Wind serves as a stirring homage to an album that remains as daring and defiant now as it was when it was first offered to an indifferent populace.

All together, this is a very classy compilation, and an essential piece of the global puzzle of 20th century music.

These songs are like pearls, lustrous, unknowable and happiest next to bare skin.

Hellfire is a brilliant album with no weak cuts.

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.

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

Some of his best work, however, comes under the guise of his own name, as is the case with Crow's new album, He Thinks He's People.

Like its celebrated, quarter-century old predecessor, Array 1 is the culmination of the group’s furious fusion of psychedelic crunch, ambient moan and motorik vroom, and a reminder of just how brilliant Loop is and always was.

No matter what confection the band prepares, the melody is the cake and the trippiness the frosting, making Join the Dots one of the most non-head accessible psych rock records since Tame Impala’s breakthrough.

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

With nearly each track including a mesmerizing hook or chorus that slowly permeates your subconscious - "Clone" and "Breathing Underwater" leap out from the pack in this regard - Synthetica is a solid album.

An 18-track adventure into the joyous heart of classic African funk as colorful as the jacket it is dressed in.

Unassuming and uncluttered, Television of Saints is intimate yet expressive, as if birthed on a breeze.

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.

Optimism hasn't always been a hallmark of Doe's endeavors, but it ought to be said that this less-dour Doe is easy to enjoy.

They exit the proverbial time warp tunnel with a sophisticated release that beckons recollections of classic rock groups while forging their own sound. Influences from Buddy Holly to Beach Boys to even The Beatles are felt on Uncle, Duke & the Chief and Born Ruffians rightfully stand in good company.

A furtive solo debut, Simone Felice provides the perfect setting for meditation and musing.

Not flawless, but damn it’s still a fine effort from beginning to end.

This is a portrait of a band firing creatively on all cylinders. Their time is now. Don’t miss out.

These beautiful, beguiling melodies make for an album that’s so rich and regal in both style and shimmer, it’s simply stunning to say the least. Prepare to be enticed.

Mostly it's hard to say what puts Veronica Falls over the top in a genre where so many fall flat. Enthusiasm? Personality? Songs? Probably all of that, as well as the indefinable quality that makes old genres come alive again.

With Sagara, Disjokke splits the difference between late-period Cluster and Alan Lomax, offering a most unique world view on 21st Century Nordic festival music from one of that nation's most open-minded visionaries.

Coming in at 11 songs, there is hardly a weak one on Go Fly a Kite and no real need to call out one track over the next, as all are pretty much worth the price of the album.

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

Not a weak track on the album.

Tunes that are both brainy and catchy, full of life.

For their third album together, John Elliott, Steve Hauschlidt and Mark McGuire bring the same sense of fearless adventure to them modular synths, creating a seven-song cycle unlike anything in the Emeralds canon yet.

While obviously studying their heroes with a fine tooth comb, Big Troubles has done a perfect job of combining past and present guitar pop into one 30 minute stew.

This is a just a great sounding record. In truth; just great, period.

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

Ufabulum easily stands as his strongest and most consistent work since Go Plastic.

He delivers a drastic shift in style that anyone enrapt with the gauzy pop euphoria of the first two Crayon Fields classics never saw coming.

Jukebox the Ghost proudly wear its pop influences on their sleeves and quite frankly don't care whether you like those influences or not.

Fourth Corner is one of those rare releases that leaves its listeners wanting more.

This artistic upgrade from their previous work is further enhanced by a significant expansion of their sonic arsenal, including piano, cello, Mellotron and female backing vocals courtesy of Crystal Stilts/Dum Dum Girls/Vivian Girls drummer Frankie Rose.

The music appears deceptively simple and unabashedly blithe at times, but regardless, the emotional undercurrent clearly comes through.

The lush production and whimsical tone complement May’s discerning ear for song arrangements, making Warm Blanket his most endearing effort yet.

This is more adventurous fare but never forgoes its footing in melody land--well, with the exception of the off-putting "Rolling," a short track that unfortunately opens the record and sounds like a symphony warm-up with six instruments headed in different directions.

Never before has there been a band that has brought all those elements [Crazy Horse, Television, Quicksilver Messenger Service and The Dream Syndicate] together in a manner so crafted and explosive as these kids do with their fevered compound of ragged rock and summertime roll.

The Black Session is a fitting testament to the current state of one of the English underground's most unshakable acts.

This is an elegant product of hard work and musicianship that shouldn't be dismissed because it is not entirely new material.

Yet even at its most opaque, Sun Full and Drowning connects subliminally, with its deep reassurances of folk-rock melody, its shimmering, vibrating intersections of interstellar guitar, its grand sonic spaces.

This is an essential CD for both the serious and casual fan.

This is a feel good album about terrible times.

The entire affair is more open, relaxed and loose than he's ever been on record, qualities that appear easily and readily during his live shows.

Rarely do mistakes of one’s youth sound so beautiful.

While this faithful tribute doesn’t lessen the sadness, it does remind us that genius is timeless and that the memories of those triumphs will linger long enough to inspire us forever. The fact that these performances serve to remind us of that fact is reason enough to rejoice.

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.

The trademark ingredients that turned Hollywood Town Hall and Tomorrow the Green Grass into seminal classics are retained via Olson's yearning vocals, the sun splashed harmonies and their adept meld of Americana, vintage West Coast rock, strings and psychedelia.

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

It's as if the Brian Jonestown Massacre hired J Mascis to write its material, solid songcraft disguised as stoned slack.

Doldrums have given voice to the psychology of the outsider, fashioning a work of art whose queasy, warped nature is just too hard to shake.

Solid songwriting chops show a clear ambition on the band's part to be more than just another garage rock act, though the tunes are stronger in the second half of the record than the first.

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

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.

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

Wallop[s] you upside the head with an acid-induced mash-up of rollicking glam, gunky metal and ghetto-fabulous art rock.

Walking the same cabaret folk rock path traveled on his previous record Sketches From the Book of the Dead, Harvey sounds comfortable and confident in the skin of his artistic vision.

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.

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.

Each three-minute zinger is an aptly kilned piece so crossly pollinated, it should be studied.

The only real misstep is the too-funky-for-its-own-good “Snow Your Mind”; otherwise Fulvimar has created another record that will appeal to a wide range of music fans as the indie rockers will give it a thumbs up as will the stoners, psych-mongers and electronic freaks, too.

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.

Whatever the fuel, the songsmith has created sterling and a wonderfully adventurous record that is quite possibly his best since 1995's 100% Fun.

Gold Panda seems most interested in the former on his DJ-Kicks mix, keeping the dynamics understated, but the results are consistently interesting, melodic, and effective.

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