The sonically arresting album, which couches Li's girl-group aspirations in a sheen of industrial grime, creates tension when the lyrics call for it.

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

The volleying guitars of "My Gap Feels Weird" and friendly ferocity of "Rope Light" signal a group with the same playful spirit that made its best work roar (see: 1994's "Foolish"), but with refreshed energy from a nine-year nap.

It is vintage Truckers for the stories it tells: portrayals, in the first person or the third, of lives far too achingly real and imprinted by such forces as crystal meth, the manufacturing recession, and the Iraq war to warrant the distancing moniker Gothic.

This confident new album is among his finest works, a terrific showcase for his finely honed, deeply humane songcraft.

Unlike his spotty debut, this is a seamless, brilliantly produced affair featuring his unmatched contemporary pop technique and songwriting craftsmanship.

Unlike the haunting ambiguities that comprised the Johnsons oeuvre, Anohni doesn’t traffic in subtlety here; boldface subversiveness makes Hopelessness lethal.

Williams adapted the song from a poem by her father, Miller Williams, and it gives Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone its emotional compass if not its melodic direction. The rest of this double album, Williams’s first, settles into a deep groove that suggests the singer-songwriter was fired up and couldn’t--and shouldn’t--whittle her latest to a standard 10 songs.

The group’s sound has progressed to include ethereal synths, suited to the spiritual subject matter. Deheza’s soothing, breathy voice sits atop this sound as if she’s trying to comfort Curtis about their relationship in songs like “Open Your Eyes” and “On My Heart,” and about his cancer diagnosis in “Confusion.” This album highlights a connection between the two that goes beyond death.

Haunting, jarring, and oddly beautiful, Soused defies the idea of “easy listening,” but its singular vision and harnessing of the avant-garde makes it one of the year’s most compelling artistic statements.

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.

The 1975’s frequently dazzling exploration of life in the iOS era, frontman Matty Healy turns the mic over to--who else?--Siri. Narrating a strangely touching fable about a man in love with the Internet, the bot contributes one of a great many moments on the album.

Another great Superchunk record. What a Time to Be Alive bristles with anxious energy; even by Superchunk’s over-caffeinated standards, it keeps an unrelenting pace.

After his 2005 debut, DeVaughn ups the ante with a sprawling effort that works as a showcase for his lush vocals.

This collection of 10 instrumentals, recorded live with no overdubs along with a trusted crew of accompanists, captures the late Rose’s limber, relaxed guitar style, and the charm of his low-key songs.

Throughout, he continues to challenge us in ways that demand attention.

In keeping with the New England Conservatory alums’ track record, its peaks are so high and so satisfying (and come frequently enough) that the band isn’t sunk by the competent if uninspired jazzy lounge-funk that it falls back on when it runs out of ideas for its songs for grown-ups raised on thinking-person’s pop music from the ’70s, ’80s and beyond.

"23" furthers the group's recent fascination with a sleeker presentation that favors sheen over squall.

For every track that fails to coalesce, Andorra rolls out two more that hum with a peculiar sort of heart.

The quintet adds Gary Versace on piano, and he blends in seamlessly, sometimes as ensemble player with a perfect grasp of Hollenbeck's jolty, elastic sensibility, and elsewhere with a cool pianism that brings the sound back to more familiar jazz terrain.

Now six solo albums in, Vile sounds like no one but himself.

One thing we do know after listening to Leucocyte--the Esbjorn Svensson Trio's grandest achievement--is that its leader had much more to say, much more to explore.

This is industrial-strength Beach House with its hallmarks intact, just bigger and better. With co-producer Chris Coady, Legrand and Scally lift some of the haze that has often enveloped their music...now the band has given us this year’s first classic album.

Levon Helm's "Midnight Rambles" in Woodstock, N.Y., have become nearly as legendary as Helm. Occasionally, he takes the party to larger venues, as evidenced by this fabulous live CD.

The song [This Is Country Music] encapsulates Paisley's status as a premier upholder of traditional country within a contemporary framework, and the 15 songs that follow confirm that status.

On first listen, the disc seems unassuming because of its subtlety, but slowly it reveals its layers. The tracks about love, devotion, and transcendence are refreshingly honest and (mercifully) lacking in leering lasciviousness.

Utopia is both resolutely avant-garde and absolutely beautiful, a combination those who associate experimental music with dissonance and ugliness will find utterly paradoxical.

When Joyce Manor cracks open its sound the results are satisfying despite (or maybe because of?) being delivered in bite-size form.