A satisfying mix of adult pop-soul love songs that evoke his early work. These amiable, adroitly produced and arranged songs confirm his inimitable knack for graceful melodies and effortless hooks.

Amazingly, "Beyond" picks up where 1988's "Bug" left off, with only slightly more streamlined polish but with the old love of volume and excess still sweetly intact.

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

Like the pianist and composer’s other trio records, it makes for a satisfying, portable Iyer.

The Rhumb Line--defined as a straight-shot line across all meridians, for the geospatially uninitiated--mostly just thrums with an uncommon sort of pop radiance.

Zapotec has a regal, brassy sort of sweep--check the martial melody 'The Akara'--and the best songs on Holland twist and turn over a warm, buttery backbeat.

After releasing two albums that bored even its most ardent fans, . . . And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead is back to blowing minds with The Century of Self.

As for “Sweet Reward,” a marvelous moment-in-time narrative sketch delivered by the murmur of Doe’s voice, and “Rising Sun,” where a reverberating guitar line gives way to a singer sounding like a Sonoran Sinatra amid the song’s slow, swirling rise and fall--at moments such as those, Doe simply is making some of the most striking music of his career.

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.

If you like the country side of Lovett, which is how he started in the ’80s, you’ll love this record.

This elegant, elegiac disc is filled with emotionally direct, expressive songs confronting loss and mortality.

All at Once is an accomplished, expertly crafted album, the kind that’s the product of years slugging it out in dank basements and half-empty bars.

His first solo production, the brooding music on Skelethon is often as intoxicating as the stentorian rhymes.

Having gotten an Édith Piaf tribute (and a baby) out of her system since, she reorients herself admirably with Come Home to Mama.

Jones and company sound at the top of their game.

Whether tackling Broadway showtunes or John Prine, or Simon and Garfunkel, the laconic alt-rocker nimbly transforms songs until they sound like they could be his own. That pixie dust extends to Varshons.

It's rare to find a musical package this self-consciously stylized that isn't designed to cover up for a lack of substance.

It's at once more lithe and more aggressive an album than we've heard from Eno in years; and while sometimes the pieces feel too short (or, in some cases, just plain incomplete), Small Craft offers a promising sampler of sonic possibilities from an artist as immune to fashion as his music is to time.

A new Paul Simon record is predictable in the most comforting of ways: gentle world music affiliations, keen narrative, righteous guitar work, effortless vibe. Though his voice retains its coy, boyish charm from 40 years ago, Simon's gift for melody has now been superseded by a knack for rich texture and complex rhythm.

Produced by Aaron Dessner of the National, the Brooklyn, N.Y., indie rockers who once took Local Natives on the road as the opening act, the album feels like a pronouncement, as if to highlight how much the quartet has grown since its last outing.

Pratt’s home-recorded songs are quiet gems cradled in the rudimentary but delicate fingerpicking of her acoustic guitar.

The tension that fills The Civil Wars, giv[es] the songs a sense of weight and purpose that wasn’t apparent on their 2011 debut, “Barton Hollow.”

As on much of Magic, Springsteen leaves the interpretive driving up to the fan, offering his most straightforward rock music in years.

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.

She wanders back to Nashville for her seventh release, Thorn in My Heart, and doesn’t miss a step.

Snaith has made himself at home on the dancefloor, but he's never come more off the grid.

As usual, Krauss and Union Station have produced another gem.

While it chafes against pop-musical expectations and outright defies them at times, “Madame X” does embrace that planet-altering ideal lyrically as well as musically, making it Madonna’s most compelling album in years.

A singular listening experience, Kannon is best consumed at extreme volume and with an open mind.

The foreboding melancholy of "Turn on the Bright Lights" has eroded into a sound that's less idiosyncratic; by design or accident, that broad-brush aesthetic coincides with the band's move from an indie label (Matador) to a major one (Capitol).

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

Over the slack strum of guitar, Spaltro tells a spectral tale that feels like a hazy dream until a violent outburst yanks you elsewhere. That’s precisely where Spaltro likes to keep you: on edge.

At 67, Streisand’s gorgeous tones and powers of interpretation are utterly intact, and also front-and-center thanks to producer Diana Krall’s class-conscious pairing of her own understated quartet with Johnny Mandel’s velvety orchestrations.

This is essentially an R&B record with Ghostface sounding a bit like Barry White on a bender. Tracks such as 'Let’s Stop Playin’,' featuring a typically lush John Legend, are very good, with Ghost’s lyrical skills as fluid as the track he rhymes over.

Cantrell's voice bears an affinity to Wells's, but it's her ability to capture what she points to as most affecting about her predecessor--the simultaneous restraint and emotiveness of her singing--that makes this tribute fittingly evocative.

Red, Yellow & Blue delivers a splash of color to a vibrant indie soundscape.

With Oberst, there is little filter; the gems and the rubbish all emerge from the same place. Oberst's talent and his unevenness are all of a kind.

Could this really be Chester French's first album? Love the Future sounds too wise--and too catchy--to possibly be the debut from recent Harvard grads D.A. Wallach and Max Drummey

The band’s grim outlook remains bearable after all these years thanks to strong songcraft.

Why Make Sense? is another branch of the band’s tree, an album of infectious pop riddled with bigger questions and dilemmas that ripple well beyond the dance floor.

Corgan rebuilt the band with new members and finally marshals them through a solid hour of grandiose guitar rock.

Add Lauderdale's terrific musical stylings, the twangy expressiveness of his singing, and his backing ensemble's crack playing, and what results is a classic bluegrass sound that is yet just a turn off-center.

All of Legend’s strengths are present: keen melodies, smooth vocal understatement, and artful arrangements.

Knowle West Boy marks a long-overdue return to form from one of the founding fathers of trip-hop.

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

Bringing in an unknown vocalist, Minneapolis alt-rocker Wendy Lewis, may sound like a risk, but it works exceedingly well.

This is a striking changeup.

[An] unsparingly intimate, deeply moving 11-song cycle.

Often built around little more than the words, DeMent’s homespun warble, and a piano sometimes fleshed out by stringed instruments--is closely aligned to DeMent’s best work.

Leo manages to skip from tender, unadorned romantic pop crooning to full-throttle punk yowling to Celtic-flavored folk-rock without losing the listener, the beat, or the message.

For a sophomore effort, Combinations makes for yet another strong debut.

The driving finale, 'Home,' finds her asserting, "Let's live in the glory," and hitting a magnificent buoyant piano bridge that says as much.

Paper Trail tops them both [previous two albums] simply by being content driven, from the plot to the refined delivery.

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

Stelmanis’s voice, as ever, remains the focal point, swooping down hard on notes with a tremor that belies just how sturdy her songs are.

More important, the intimate atmosphere and the effortless rapport between Jarrett’s radiant chords and Haden’s eloquently simple bass lines remain.

Whether he is grappling with his confusion with the modern world in the searching title track, mulling the delightful aggravations of relationships on “If It Wasn’t For You” and the joys of making up on “A Little Smile,” or working up a froth on his rage, rattle, and roll version of Television’s “See No Evil,” Jackson is in peak form.

While the sound of mbv is reassuringly familiar--openers “she found now” and “only tomorrow” tread melodic paths that seem strangely familiar even as they wander--its newness is remarkable.

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

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

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.

The man's wordsmithing is even headier than his beautiful songs.

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.

The veteran rock 'n' roller manages a few neat tricks on this sprawling head-spinner.

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

The album closes masterfully with “Time to Go,” a look at an older musician and the indignities he’s facing as an opening act far from his peak. It is one of several tracks making this an album that every Harry Connick Jr. fan should own.

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

No matter how many boasts and taunts she drops, it's clear Minaj is proud of how far she's come.

Chesney returns to that reflective, often acoustic, place for Life on a Rock and again hits a high-water mark.

Like its namesake, this music has healing properties: the beauty of its melodies and the wisdom of its words soothe the soul and remind us what a peculiar treasure Jones is, a fact too easily forgotten in the rush of passing fashions and the wake of the artist’s own pocked path.

Cooder is mad as hell, but because he's a virtuoso with a wry sense of humor that balances indignation and despair, the songs stand as songs, not just soapbox speechifying.

The players clearly thrill in wringing every possible sound out their instruments, making La Di Da Di one of the year’s most satisfying trips into the sonic unknown.

Though Milosh remains focused on exploring the full range of his vocal instrument, he infuses the album’s 11 tracks with a sultry, often carnal warmth and raw energy that Rhye’s debut eschewed in favor of hushed, slickly produced ambience.

Crow's strong, eclectic new album, "Detours," is filled with optimism about finding a way to correct her course.

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.

Working more closely with his band, Hammond has given his songs more dimension, and the ambition.

If most B&S records can be considered indie-pop, short-story collections, you might call this a bildungsroman in shorts. And while the pages of this musical story are dog-eared and familiar, as with any favored paperback, that’s just a testament to its continued readability.

There’s definitely an epic heft to it, aided by a deep, varied bench of guest talent.

Each of those sessions turns out to have a distinct sonic character. The Helsinki tracks have an urgent, constructed intensity about them. ... In contrast, the Paris songs, which make up the bulk of the record, have an organic immediacy that encompasses both the jazzy and the poppy. ... The two collaborative songs offer yet another change-up.

Gilmour’s fourth solo record summons a heady dose of the grandeur he brought to Floyd.

[A] backstory is meaningless unless there are songs to back it up, and, like Mellencamp's other recent releases, Better more than walks the walk.

There are a couple of strutting blues-rock winners, a couple affected synth-rock stinkers, but most of the rest, like the infections “One Girl/One Boy,” flash new-wavy funk moves reminiscent of late Chic, early Prince, and prime Rick James.

It’s an accomplished, enjoyable record from start to finish, regardless of references or lineage.

There are 19 songs here, and at some point one feels replete, but they are concise--some in the manner of a sketch that leaves options open, others more decisive, like the sharp coastline vista once the morning fog has cleared.

There is no successor to “Zula” on C’est La Vie, but that doesn’t make it a lesser album. The album is bookended with two expansive instrumentals; Fleet-Foxy harmonies and gently cycling guitar propel “Black Moon : Silver Waves,” and closer “Black Waves : Silver Moon” lifts high on rolling percussion and Houck’s keening falsetto. The rest of the songs occupy the flexible, fertile territory of not quite country, folk, or rock.

At the heart of the mood is something that only comes naturally: the plaintive croon of hand-in-glove brotherly harmonies.

The album's Gothic-tinged Americana is an uneasy road but blazes a trail worth exploring, one that is more about the journey and not so much about the destination.

His dance-pop tunes are surprisingly fresh and emotionally meaty, without a hint of complacency.

Sometimes things sound more Jimmy ("I Lost My Job of Loving You"), sometimes more Buddy ("It Hurts Me," a searing ballad written by Miller's wife, Julie), but as with every good duets record, their combined voices have produced something greater than the sum of its parts.

It builds a rich sonic arch around Young's voice and guitar, bottling the essence of what makes him such a compelling singer-songwriter at 64.

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

His fifth solo record, after a four-year absence, is his most focused and affecting effort, accenting his funk-soul side and melodic instincts.

Burma’s ragged and raging record is a start-to-finish blast, but don’t miss out on the party’s substance: crafty vocals, heroic guitars, dark humor, steely resolve.

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

The magnificence here comes when a gang of Jersey punks try something big, while acknowledging how small they are.

The singer-songwriter co-produces with Rick Rubin accentuating immediacy and intimacy. The originals, especially a poppy, introspective “Cat & the Dog Trap” and trenchant “Gold Digger,” are among his finest since resurfacing in 2006.

Most of all, the music packs as much punch as ever--and more variety, as Staind sometimes departs from its rock-metal power ballads for tunes that suggest Pink Floyd and even Brit band Oasis in the chiming-guitar pop of 'All I Want.'

Even outside the context of the movie, the songs are compelling portraits of dashed dreams.