Scituate native Casey Dienel’s third album under the White Hinterland moniker seems to construct itself as it goes, incrementally expanding from the bits and scraps of piano and multi-layered unaccompanied vocals of opener “Wait Until Dark” and culminating in the rollicking, if skewed, roll of penultimate track “Sickle No Sword.”

The time away has done the California-spawned group good, as the conversation is familiar--intricate instrumental phrasing, pristine harmonies--but also full of fresh energy that lends everything from the buoyant gospel bluegrass of “21st of May” to the joyously bleary “Rest of My Life” an air of excitement.

Heard in its complete, unruly, sometimes crazed glory, Miles at the Fillmore shows just how furious the evolutionary pace of his music was at this point.

Shakira is a more middle-of-the-road affair, but it’s also more revealing.

The rock quintet wastes no time reestablishing its high-energy bona fides on Teeth Dreams.

The group deftly submits to the forms and tropes of electro-pop and vintage EBM.

The songs are sparer, she’s picked up a scratchy electric guitar, and there’s air around her low, enigmatic voice--like Nico, waking up on the right side of the bed.

As always, he’s superb executing tender acoustic love songs.... His ventures onto the dancefloor are far less assured.

While the turbo vocal bursts on “You’re Mine” and “Burn With You” blend nicely with the poppier elements, several of the tracks, including the burbling “On My Way” and the title tune, feel a bit too calculated and anonymous in their production approach.

Tone is everything for the War on Drugs. You hear tone, a silvery shade of effortless cool, in the electric guitars that ring out in ricocheting patterns and in singer-songwriter-visionary Adam Granduciel’s expansive vocals.

“Sexercize” could be the worst song the singer’s put out in well over a decade. It’s the album’s only genuine misstep, but it’s still perplexing, hearing a Minogue that can do wrong.

Supermodel unfurls with bright, sunny melodies that bloom on songs that pick up where its Grammy-nominated debut, “Torches,” left off.

They recorded this in James’s studio in Louisville, Ky., and nearly each song has a compelling depth.

It’s not easy packing so many different styles of music into one song--especially ones that don’t stray too far from home in terms of baseline mood--but it certainly helps when so many of them fall between the five-and seven-minute mark, as on the sixth album from British act Elbow.

While there are a few standard contemporary country tracks included in the mix--including a serviceable cover of Gavin DeGraw’s “Not Over You,” featuring DeGraw on harmony vocals--the tracks that stand out have a fresh appeal.

The 40 minutes of Guilty are a storm of shoegaze, noise-rock, and slow-core, surging together into something lovely and lethal.

This overlong record feels labored and bereft of new ideas.

At times a bit too slick and overproduced, her new songs are rooted in the same mysticism and concern for humanity that marked her early work, except now she’s updated her sound with contributions from musicians such as Julia Holter and Ramona Gonzalez from Nite Jewel.

“Happy” is a strong ambassador for the mostly beguiling, sometimes meandering “G I R L,” Pharrell’s new album his first solo effort in eight years.

Atkins’s songwriting has since mutated, so that even songs that would have fit on “Neptune City” (the remix-ready disco track “Girl You Look Amazing”) or “Mondo Amore” (the stomping country-gospel “Sin Song”) represent a progression.

Those elements [musicianship, emotional integrity, and hard work] again make themselves known on his stirring seventh album, Riser.

Recorded in five days with producer Four Tet and musical duo RocketNumberNine, the disc maintains a raw, improvisatory feel.

Morning beautifully captures what makes this album so rich: that delicate divide between grandiose and intimate.

This isn’t a blockbuster--no Drake cameo, no Dr. Dre co-sign--but that’s the beauty of it.

A great overall effort.

["Windows"] sort of upends the rest of Burn Your Fire, an otherwise intensely focused record that sounds like it was written and sung through clenched teeth.

A few tracks don’t feel lived in, as Glover relies too much on technique instead of feel. On songs like the Mike Will Made It-produced “Passenger,” though, she delivers vivid performances.

There’s nothing as immediately grabbing here as the irresistible “When I’m Small” from “Eyelid,” and dancefloor imperatives are in lesser supply, but it’s a deficit made up for by deceptively sanguine, slowly evolving tracks like “Bill Murray,” which borrows some of the actor’s sage knowingness for its tenor.

The tracks that are fragments lack the weird self-contained logic and momentum that carried earlier song scraps. Still, then as now, GbV chucks out some solidly driving tuneage.

The record is overlong and the arrangements are a bit too familiar. Still, these brooding tracks are compelling as they merge into a coherent whole.

Another beguiling collection that merges New Wave and dance sensibilities with winsome pop melodies.

There’s an identity crisis in the way the band veers radically from hard-edged rock to slick, superficial pop. There are too many lyrical cliches.

While their arcadian folk-pop leads toward some bursts of zeal, save for the carousing “Nightingale” and the downright rocking (adjusted for twee-deflation) “I Miss Your Bones,” the balance of the ledger here is reserved for doleful hesitation.

The songs are crisp, uptempo, concise.

Sleek and sophisticated, this third full-length careens from muscular blasts of ’80s guitar rock (“In the Wake of You”) to spectral ballads (“Are You Okay?”).

Grass Punks essentially consists of scaffolding for material to come later, which may be why Brosseau keeps the proceedings under a brisk half hour. Simplicity can be a virtue, but it’s not enough on its own.

Appropriately, each track on the debut from this masterful quintet of Irish and American musicians feels like a freshly flipped spade of sod--its ripe turf’s most ancient facets made new just by touching air.

It’s not always clear where these songs go, but coming back to them, you start to appreciate the understatement.

Ink mostly relies on a nasal singsong flow that, too often, accidentally detours into monotony over slickly produced club beats borrowed from better sources.

Jones and company sound at the top of their game.

Morello is all over this album with mixed results. There are some great songs here.

It’s among her finest work in a 35-year career, assured and at ease, and one of 2014’s first great albums.

While several tunes could appear on a Sugarland album, it is a less commercial, contemporary country-sounding release and there is a sense of individuality stamped on the songs.

Despite comparisons to Bon Iver and Sufjan Stevens, Lee creates folky, orchestral, synth-pop soundscapes that are uniquely his own. Where similar music can sound overproduced, Mutual Benefit has an organic, intuitive quality, more like a hearth-side jam session with friends in a woodsy cabin.

The rapper/musician born Bobby Ray Simmons Jr. tries to recapture the pop success of his debut with smartly conceived hooky songs while also churning out overly familiar trap-informed grooves.

He wonders aloud what happens to ageing punk rockers on “Rumble at the Rainbo” and waxes nostalgic on “Lariat.” “Independence Street” summons his reverence for Lou Reed with lyrics so wry and a vocal delivery so laconic that Reed himself would have approved.

With other contributions from folks like Bon Iver, Regina Spektor, Randy Newman, and Paul Simon, it’s an interesting, if uneven, experiment but Gabriel fans will likely find versions that scratch their itch.

In addition to producing the set with an ear for warmth, Grohl plays drums on “Let It Rain” which definitely gives the band some extra snap. And the group’s signature harmonies are lush throughout. Given the title, we look forward to a possible “Vol. 2.”

This album is a wildly schizoid affair that ranges from open-throttle guitar rock to croakingly out-of-tune ballads and bizarre electronica.

The album was 33 songs a year ago, and it’s 32 now, yet it unfurls cohesively like a film.

The production is as rich as the raps, spanning pop, underground R&B, club music, and psychedelic experimentation. The project is further heightened by Glover’s knowing irony, his gift for hooks, and his visionary theme.

The culture police might have hemorrhages listening to these uncensored tracks, but anyone with a sense of humor and an appreciation for smartly crafted mainstream R&B will appreciate the singer-songwriter’s return to his wild ways.

Give Scholz credit for trying to plug the gap, though with up-and-down results. Boston diehards will be intrigued, but the overall album might not translate to the general public.

The result is a soulful reading that, driven by the sax of the Big Man’s nephew and exhibiting Henry’s characteristic resonant ambiance, ends up on a corner where the Boss and Van Morrison meet.

By its second track, “Down in the Dirt,” this album has already sunk into undifferentiated aural mud, with 19 more doses of thin drums, buried vocals, and shredding guitar to come.

Nowhere does Britney Jean sound like Britney Spears.

These “lost” recordings are generally better than anything the band has done since.

The wildly popular quintet’s third studio album, is buffered to a flawless shine, but along the way they’ve bleached the music of nuance and texture.

If you’re seeking Everlys hits like “Wake Up Little Susie” and “Bye Bye Love,” this ain’t the place, but if you want to hear a cache of lovingly crafted versions of great story songs by two simpatico friends, “Foreverly” is a fine gateway to the Everlys’ catalog. (Then go find the originals.)

Jonathan Meiburg’s weary, swooping baritone (he sings like a sentient cello) and the sighing cabin-folk that works so well for “A Wake for the Minotaur” (an original duet with tourmate Van Etten snuck in on a technicality) flattens out much of the album.

Upon first impression, Milosh’s latest solo effort appears somewhat slight, but it deepens and reveals multiple layers with each listen.

At times, the change is refreshing, yet too often he seems to think the world needs more songs evoking Train or Lifehouse.

The whole set is a treat.

This Welsh singer-songwriter wears her love of the Velvet Underground proudly, particularly on Mug Museum, her third album, which jingles and jangles even when the subject matter turns dark.

When Gaga drops the performance shtick on “ARTPOP,” the album really finds its footing. It throbs with joy and sex and freedom, none of which Gaga has truly embodied since her debut.

She experiments at times with a more gravelly voice, suggesting a bid for more street appeal, but the overall effect is stiff and mechanical, minus the warmth for which she is known.

Most of this is too wan to give Blunt a career boost.

A few too many tone-shifting interludes slow down momentum, but “Free Your Mind,” “We Are Explorers,” and “In Memory Capsule” in particular are a welcoming embrace into a sea of moving bodies and blinking lights that extends as far as the eye can see.

The middle of Matangi, including the masochistic grind of “Bad Girls” and the hard dancehall influence of “Double Bubble Trouble,” contains uncommonly straightforward songs that would’ve fit easily on Rihanna’s last two albums. M.I.A. doesn’t stint on the bangers, though.

It is no mere rehash. If anything, the sequel is more intense than the original.

They aren’t bad songs, but Tin Star is more interesting when Ortega turns her lyrical glance elsewhere.

The lulling confusion of NYC uncannily enacts the unstable identity of the city itself. Ferraro paints it as aggressive, oppressive, and unknowable; then offers an audio tour of its darker depths, rats and all.

Wrapped in Red should prove a welcome gift to fans of the powerful pop star as Kelly Clarkson mixes classic carols and hymns with several originals co-written by the singer.

The follow-up to Robert Glasper’s Grammy-winning breakthrough builds on its predecessor by reframing the sound of contemporary urban music.

It is the Montreal rockers’ most hit-or-miss effort, at once arresting for its audacity and kaleidoscopic swirl of influences but often exhausting with songs that buckle under their own weight.

Despite some deft, defiant turns the set suffers from inconsistency.

Samson & Delilah casts the English singer and songwriter even further afield, a mesmerizing right turn into the murky waters of throbbing R&B and ambient dance pop.

Wenu Wenu lacks touches that give a Souleyman show its full charisma--the shouts to and from the audience, the presence of poet Mahmoud Harbi, who whispers to Souleyman the next line to sing, and Souleyman’s hipster-pleasing visual identity — a wiry chain-smoker in red keffiyeh and shades. But the production by Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) is smart and clean, and the songs offer range.

It is Perry 101: heart-on-sleeve ballads, bouncy party anthems, and brawny odes to respecting yourself.

While nothing here bests the original tracks--and it is strictly for Summer diehards and remix fans--it’s heartening that artists are still drawing inspiration from a woman who loved it when the music moved people.

That’s It! is no radical departure, sonically speaking. Will these songs stand the test of time? Maybe, maybe not; but they sound pretty good right now.

The Boys still sound like nobody but themselves, and to hear them making music again is an unexpected delight.

It’s the love-struck youth of their typical songs striking out against the disappointment, and, like the album itself, coming out on top.

Pearl Jam’s not just still alive, it’s kicki

While there are a few silly love songs in the batch, some of us still haven’t had enough.

If you’re a total Chilton completist, you might want this album, but it’s not for everyone.

While Closer to the Truth is smartly frontloaded with a heap of glossy South Beach bangers--including the fiery, heavenly heave of “Take It Like a Man,” the noir throb of “Dressed to Kill,” and “Red,” which hits you like a rum punch to the face--the second wind of her 26th album, presumably designed for the drive home from the club, seems to insist she’s more than a remix ingredient or Auto-tune fodder.

It’s hard to say what is more ferocious on Anna Calvi’s new album: her voice, her guitar, or the interplay between the two of them. Together they launch a formidable assault on One Breath.

Pusha T is at the top of his game with sharply defined autobiographical tales and defiant, self-aware verses. He often dazzles with his smooth, cold-blooded flow and connects on virtually every song.

It’s the rare number not bracketed by abrasively chintzy guitar noise meant to read as “rawk,” shudder-inducing synths, and jarring percussive machinery.

Although he still goes on a bit long in places, with help from producer buddies like Timbaland, Timberlake--channeling his usual suspects from Michael Jackson to Prince--nails a more cohesive vibe on this follow-up.

What unifies the album is the superb production, which marries indie-rock values to street-rap style.

This is the rare debut that’s smart and disarming and instantly catchy.

On tracks like “Americans” and “Along,” this reverence for the synthetic is almost indistinguishable from his zeal for the real, and it’s a tension that gives all of R Plus Seven a unique sheen--and some potent fumes.

Desolation becomes part of the landscape, the canvas on which Drake puts his words front and center. Guests appear on occasion (Jay Z drops by on “Pound Cake/Paris Morton Music 2”), but no one draws focus quite like Drake.

The three brothers and a cousin reconnect the dots of their career and interrelationships in an impressively catchy set of 11 songs.

It’s prime Mazzy Star, the work of a band that knows what it does well. And then does it beautifully

The Diving Board succeeds where the others did not. It does so by putting John’s piano and voice front and center, offering memorable melodies, and scraping off the production glop to reveal again the musician, the vocalist, the emotional artist still alive under John’s shiny shell of professional fabulousness.