Hot Water Music nicely balances aggression and craft on Exister.

Tillman had released solo records before joining Fleet Foxes in 2008, but none of them was as vivid as his latest.

The result is a stunning reboot.

Frontman Tom Chaplin continues to imbue it all with freshness and wonder making Strangeland an inviting place.

B.o.B.'s sophomore record shows he is one of the top hit-makers in contemporary pop.

Masterful... this new album marks a return to the pop chops and killer hooks that initially made Wainwright so celebrated.

This is a striking changeup.

The album is brimming with fabulously skewed turns of phrase that make sense from different angles, as White's protagonists wrestle with what it means to be alternately besotted and gutted.

The album finds the group covering some favorite songs and tying them together with its own rootsy flair.

The songs about heartache don't detract from the optimistic vibe of this 12-song collection.

This marvelous album will resonate with sons, daughters, parents, spouses or those mindful of their mortality. In other words: everyone.

This good old-fashioned rock and soul quartet make good on their buzz with a debut that not only shakes, but also rattles and rolls.

Full of surprises and refreshing detours, this album sometimes feels like M. Ward on steroids.

This is thrilling, catchy and complex music that satisfies even if you haven't a clue what they're singing about.

Befitting a blues album, nearly all the songs contain the word "love" and feature simple beats that have you bobbing your head and tapping your toes after just a couple listens.

His latest is the closest he has come to making a masterpiece in a very long time.

When Dekker and company mate them with the spare and echoing folk of "The Knife," the rollicking, steel-and fiddle-driven country rock of "Changes With the Wind," or the stately swell of the "Quiet Your Mind," they produce something of understated yet resonant beauty.

Richie and his guests are having such a good time and the songs themselves are so irresistible it's easy (like a Sunday morning) to get caught up in the spirit.

The introspection suits Earle's subtle shift from raucous country to mellow Memphis soul with the tasteful addition of horns and more organ.

MDNA isn't a perfect Madonna album, but it greatly surpasses its immediate predecessors when Madonna cracks that hard candy shell and allows us to get at the gooey emotional center: This is a Madonna who is angry, mournful, occasionally funny, and most of all, specific.

Even though the album produces only a handful of great moments--Earl Sweatshirt's presence is still sorely missed--there's relief in knowing that everything remains raw.

Wexler honors the past, but far from staring into its sun, Dispossession feels like a trusty flashlight that can only point forward.

It is a stunning achievement in contemporary pop. Yet, unlike so much of contemporary pop, it's timeless.

The pair's [James Mercer and Greg Kurstin's] proclivity for spacious, languid moods helps Port of Morrow move smoothly from mod throwback shimmies (like the spindly guitar jam "Bait and Switch'') to the hypnotic, near trip-hop of the title track.

For all of their sunset tints, fake congas, and overall indulgence in artifice, the songs neither feel cloyingly ironic or haplessly naïve.

The Canadian vocalist Melanie Fiona's second disc is a more fully realized and personal set of songs than her debut.

While Waylon's shadow will remain a constant companion, the younger Jennings continues to prove that he's a great shot in his own right.

It's the most ambitious and evocative they've ever sounded.

While accordions, fiddles, acoustic guitars, and human voices are prominent--befitting the songs' back porch country, folk, and blues vibe--canned clap tracks, woozy keyboards, and whirring sound effects sometimes sit uncomfortably alongside them.

For a record of such minimalist production as this, the latest from LA's Ramona Gonzalez, a.k.a. Nite Jewel, it's surprising how much genre ground can be covered.

On his 12th official album, the 38-year-old's impressive work habits have both loosened and deepened his craft.

If there's any particular conceit here, it's Merritt at his wry best, sharpening his pop hooks and keeping songs tightly wound.

Maraqopa is melodious, sprawling in all the right ways, even a little ramshackle.

Rather than switch directions, or dig deeper into familiar turf, Mouse on Mars sound re-energized here, broadening and brightening their loopy forward vector.

It marks the centennial of Guthrie's birth and is a fitting tribute.

Throughout, Nneka's singing and rapping are inspired and deeply felt.

The church is never far from Foster's vocals, and even though the predominant sound here is a blues shot through with organ and echoing slide guitar, she seems closer to gospel than ever.

It's an album of mixed signals, and while Grimes sounds like she's still sorting out what it all means, her uncertainty is worth sharing.

The Chieftains' new Voice of Ages gives voice to the Civil Wars, the Decemberists, the Low Anthem, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Pistol Annies, and the Secret Sisters, among others, but its identity as a Chieftains album is never in doubt.

A couple of pleasant but less memorable midtempo numbers are saved by O'Connor's still towering voice, one that conjures rage, humor, grief, joy, and unbridled passion in a way that still grips the heart and amazes the ears.

That's not to say that the siren-squeal guitars and drum-machine breakbeats aren't still a blast; but on Reign of Terror, Sleigh Bells have started thinking about what happens underneath them.

A major step forward, this new album sounds nothing like the work of her peers.

Disjointedness and pretension are twin possibilities, but the Punch Brothers avoid both pitfalls; what results is always interesting, and sometimes spectacular.

At once spacious and intimate, Barchords is an album as suited to a brief romance as it is to a long drive.

For a few tracks, like "Magic Chords," her sound starts becoming a trap for a song that never quite coalesces. But the flip side is "All I Can," which reveals a streak of slow-build adult pop craft that's kept under wraps for much of the album.

Not only does the trio turn over new delights in familiar numbers like "Gloria's Step" and "Turn Out the Stars," but it even unearths "Song No. 1," an Evans composition he never recorded.

It isn't perfect, but it's far better than it needed to be to satisfy the requirements of a round of nostalgic cash-grabbing.

The three songs with lyrics are too on-the-nose, but the instrumentals capture glitchy, orchestrated foreboding well.

It's a gift to hear anything from Winehouse in the wake of her untimely death, and this new compilation features true treasures.

The result is a solid collection of good time country rockers ("Am I the Only One," "5-1-5-0"), poignant ballads (the heartwarmingly patriotic-yet-personal title track), and contemporary radio bait (the midtempo ripper "Tip It on Back" and the jaunty "Heart of a Lonely Girl").

Ripatti's restraint is still his strongest suit; he's not so much leading the way as lighting it.

Overall, the charms of the album make it more than a knockoff of more established pop brands; it often feels like Making Mirrors bounces their reflections into fresh focus.

Michaelson is a savvy interpreter of her interior landscape in a way that should resonate with listeners.

First Aid Kit's lustrous new album revels in its passion.

[A] thoughtful new tribute to the Texas troubadour who, outside of Americana circles, isn't nearly as renowned as he deserves to be.

Edwards succeeds in stepping out of the Americana territory where her first three records resided.

Most of this spirited album strikes a natural balance between matters of the heart and causes close to DiFranco's heart.

They're kindred spirits whose affection for these country classics, from tearjerkers to barn burners, is unabashed. But they're also not afraid to put their stamp on them.

All of the tracks are produced by No I.D., with a fluid, melodic head-bobbing nod to R&B, giving Common plenty of room to weave his dreams.

With burping synths, herky-jerky rhythms, intimate vocals, and booming beats it sounds like Finn and friends took everything they love and giddily smashed it together.

The smooth-groove classicism here is just part of Hamilton's mature command of the form, with none of neo-soul's studied Afro-Sheen patina.

All these twists and turns threaten to render Freeclouds a somewhat scattershot affair, but somehow Tanton manages to make it all cohere.

Statik serves up Action's verses over superb beats that should keep hungry fans satiated for months.

Betty Wright: The Movie doesn't reinvent its maker so much as it extracts her essence.

We turn to Rihanna for kicks, sure, but also, thanks to a voice whose limitations give her a supple vulnerability, for a tinge of bittersweet pain. Talk That Talk is at its best when it's working that angle.

Those cameos [Elton john & Stephen Fry] aren't exactly intrusive, but they do weigh down an album that's otherwise content to drift as gently as the snow in question.

His second full-length, out today, is a mighty thing, every bit as turbulent and achingly defensive as Kanye West's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy."

As a gateway drug for newbies, "Part Lies" is a good introduction to the rich pagaent that was R.E.M.'s musical life.

It adds up to an album of left-field soul that's downcast but not at all a bummer.

It sounds like a recipe for a dozen buzz bands this year, but Atlas Sound transcends the fads. Melodies shine through like faint stars through the window.

On a rock solid and expansive set of songs, Lambert mixes backbeats, production styles, fuzzed-out vocals, slinky slide guitars, and other offbeat elements into a cohesive whole.

Someone To Watch Over Me has the makings of a perfectly solid mopey-piano-girl album, largely eschewing chest-beating for a coarser-grained approach that serves the singer rather well.

Welch offers a sumptuous, energizing experience that runs the gamut from ecstasy to fury and favorably evokes forebears like Annie Lennox and Sinead O'Connor and current peers like Adele.

His first album of new material since 2004's "Real Gone," it's also one of Waits's most balanced works in recent memory.

Its new four-song EP continues with that sturdy foundation [from Astro Coast], even as it occasionally hints at larger arena-rock ambitions.

Clancy's Tavern is dominated by songs of a different stripe, most of them about losing love or trying to cope with its loss.

If you like Isaak you're probably already a fan of some of his idols, and nothing here outdoes the originals (and certainly even he knows nothing could). So even though Beyond the Sun isn't strictly necessary, it's great balls of fun.

Slow, spare, and offhand, the song ["I Want to Go Back" ] admits to the restlessness that has led the gifted 42-year-old through many unpolished musical shifts, and it epitomizes the decidedly secular, deceptively low-key revelations on Revelation Road.

The album is ambitious and brimming with all sorts of stray ideas, but it's also suited to Gonzalez's expansive gifts.

They're all delivered, with copious amounts of steel and Telecaster, by Smith's soulful pipes, which are now thickened a bit with age, but still clear, powerful, and emotionally compelling.

There's not a lot of replay value in Björk's new mode, but it still works humbly well and the computer visuals go a long way toward expanding on the fragile, chamber orchestra feel of the music.

Following an uncharacteristic hiatus, singer-songwriter Ryan Adams returns with this lovely, low-key effort.

From its suave title to the very first words on it--"So here we are/ It's the end of the night/ Yeah, I had a good time, too/ You know, it doesn't have to end here"--Mayer Hawthorne's amusing new album comes across like a pickup line uttered at last call.

Jonas isn't the most flexible vocalist for this kind of material, but he manages to convince that there's real hunger.

Evanescence's self-titled third album captures each party elevating the other far above where their proclivities would get them on their own.

If this sounds ambitious, it is. But Russell pulls it off with an engaging nobility.

It's the rigor and directness of the voice-music connection--and the apparent lack of artifice--that makes for the work's stark power.

Its songs are more impressionistic, brash in their knotty arrangements and assured in their execution.

New Found Glory is at its best when sounding highly caffeinated, even if breakneck tempos belie a song's blue mood.

McCreery has plenty of deepening left to do as a performer, but he's off to a good start with this 12-track set about girls, God, family, and small-town life.

Sixteen radio-length tracks that include a gorgeous, ethereal version of "Across the Universe" whose somber violin and country twang could bring on tears; a honky-tonk take of "Revolution" that makes you want to square-dance; a sleepy, dreamy redo of "Imagine" in which Frisell takes considerable care to pick just the right notes not only when he plays the melody but when he improvises; a folk cover of "Julia" that contains not an ounce of cynicism; and an almost ambient sketch of "Give Peace a Chance" that dares the listener to find the original melody buried deep within.

The story goes that Jay-Z told Cole he had his whole life to make his debut album. Cole may have taken that literally, but it was worth it.

Blink-182 again delivers a record with nothing outright awful and enough dynamite songs to pack a punch at future tours.

Brain tickling aside, this is a supremely enjoyable, stylish, and modern-sounding record, which isn't easy to pull off for a guitar band with a tendency to look backward.

Jones furthers the exploratory path he's committed himself to, with tranquil yet compelling acoustic steel-string guitar compositions built from thoughtful open tunings ("Of Its Own Kind"), expressive bottleneck guitar ("Even to Win Is to Fail"), and even banjo ("The Great Swamp Way Rout").

Overall, the writing is richer, peaking with the somber songcraft of "Last Salmon Man."

Mockingbird Time revisits what made the Louris-Olson Jayhawks truly distinctive: the omnipresent, twining, joyous interplay of their voices. That pairing is here again in full force.

Ready for Confetti may be a little different, but it's still very much Robert Earl.