The songs, hard and soft, fast and slow, seem better than ever. Lanegan may sound like he’s done everything there is to do, but he’s clearly not done pushing into new territories and getting better.

Everything glows with a wonderfully forgiving warmth and subtle fortitude, generating the kind of intimate, reassuring atmosphere that feels unique to well-executed folk music.

The balance is the thing, and on Here and Nowhere Else, the balance is very, very good.

Admonitions is a weighty work, long and heavy and inscrutable, but full of contradictions. It’s an impressive studio document of a band that has always seemed to be largely a live enterprise.

Even though two thirds of the songs here land somewhere between the 7th and 8th minute in length, they practically feel like pop songs in comparison. By the time the gently shimmering “Afterlight” winds down Saariselka’s first record it’s clear that even in relatively accessible form this is lovely, head-spinning stuff, perfect for contemplating the night stars.

Both weird and wonderful, Pick a Day to Die manages to boil down the immensity of Sunburned’s oeuvre into a manageable morsel that is digestible by both neophytes and long haulers alike.

It’s the steady pacing of Trouble, the band’s commitment to the thoughtful lyrics and the permission given to influences and early passions that guide Hospitality towards a sound that is recognizable, only richer, deeper and closer what they were aiming for all along.

Stylistically, this collaboration veers from intimate in scope to blown-out and dancefloor-ready. And yet, it holds together neatly, shifting from style to style without really losing cohesion.

“Equivalents 5,” a four-note sequence shifts pitches and timbres amidst constantly changing atmospheres. The tune itself never changes, but it doesn’t have to keep the listener engaged. It’s the qualities of the sounds, such as the swelling bass and swirling high end of its predecessor, “Equivalents 6,” that count. Just as Stieglitz’s images of clouds became things in themselves, the tones cease to be means and become ends in themselves.

It's like Fiery Furnaces with more heart and less irony...and that's not a bad thing at all.

In the end, Wiltzie and O'Halloran's collaboration stands as an impressive album on its own merits and one of the strongest efforts in the world of Stars of the Lid offshoots.

Bubblegum Graveyard is sophisticated when it needs to be sophisticated, funny when it wants to be funny, and its plodding beat lends itself perfectly to that excellent Osmonds guitar move where they bob their head upwards and tap their foot on each count.

Deeper than Sky is just as much a thrill ride [as Disfear’s Live the Storm], coming from the opposite angle--confident that the growling will balance the ornate structures, it hits plainly no matter how intricately it jumps from measure to measure.

The songs here have lost none of the lonely strength of their earlier material, and the band’s performances are no less gorgeous; but the new strength of Gem Club is that their music is capable of being just as joyous as it is devastated, and the result is powerful.

With Held in Splendor, this group discovers their influences, then surrounds and deconstructs them. At its best, the album achieves bliss and demands attention.

All of the sounds seem a little brighter, a little more spiritually charged than their real-world counterparts would be, especially the voices, which float untethered to narrative but imbued with boundless optimism and uplift.

If you want to make good, solid, loud rock music in the new millennium, this is your blue print.

Compared to the negation-for-negation's-sake attitude of their debut, "Beat Pyramid," Hidden sounds serious, holistic, exacting and expensive.

The album is warmly, insistently, alive. Its music makes no grand gestures but offers generosity and compassion in its connective tissue.

It feels like we are in the privileged position of witnessing a great guitarist running ideas out of his head and onto his fretboard.

It’s weird (great album art), lush, hypnotic and impossible to grasp, a dreamlike futuristic soundtrack that only exists in the combined imagination of those willing to follow Steve Hauschildt’s gently commanding vision.

A series of songs that are seriously well-constructed and complicated - yet deeply, deeply odd.

Memories Are Now is a composed but not utterly controlled place, and within that tension, Hoop’s music and message, together, find their highest vibrancy.

There is little time wasted in this record's nine songs, and that Mesirow packs so many wonderful sounds into it without really complicating the chord progressions or basic melodies is perhaps the truest testament to her talent.

The Body’s use of nearly-subsonic bass and samples puts these now commonplace building blocks of electronic dance music to their most infernal purposes. If there is something unsettling about an extended, windshield-rattling electronic kick drum, The Body has found it and perfected it.

Hinds and Co. have dispensed with the neanderthal growls and screams of past records, which might have robbed Crack the Skye of its surprising grace and pushed it closer to the nu-metal end of the spectrum.

Quicksand / Cradlesnakes is a fine display of what they're capable of, and should please anyone in the mood for roots music that's a bit unrooted for a change.

You could hardly spend a pleasanter half an hour than drifting to these slackly tuneful, drivingly rock rhythmed, 1960s-esque songs.

The most astounding thing about Lord Quas is not Madlib going against the grain, but that it’s basically The Unseen 2005, completely devoid of hits, and still ultimately compelling.

Though much of the album is aggressive in its tempos, the mood continues to circle around to the pensive, moving from catharsis to solemnity and back again. Or, to put it another way, it’s a map of a mind that doesn’t feel self-indulgent.

This is a feral, dangerous variety of punk rock, and if your favorite thing is Dry Cleaning mouthing witty asides in a BBC accent, you will probably not like it. But if you have any sympathy for the idea of burning it all down, here’s your jam.

Stone Breaker is undeniably a Mark E product, propulsive disco-house clouded by his trademark ambient haze, with terrific builds and releases. It's easily one of the better dance music albums that will come out this year.

It contains everything that makes Eyehategod the unique proposition that they are. It’s an Eyehategod album in excelsis, if you like.

The rehearsal takes are probably the real draw (aside from the customary production corrections and sonic scrub all reissues get) for those already tuned to the album’s contrary wavelength, and they do not disappoint.

It often feels vast, tracking the curvature of the Earth, but it never forgets that music is made by people, and that there is real intimacy in the consort of two individuals relating to each other through simple gestures like singing, or brushing against six guitar strings.

An enjoyable, at times provocative companion piece, this one's a satisfying musical bath.

It's a body of work that begs deep listening, the better to divine the wild kindness at its core.

The band's grasp of dynamics, both musical and emotional, has deepened, resulting in Long Knives, their most nuanced album yet, with a much more understated approach than on past efforts.

The Belbury Tales can be a potent experience at the high points I've just described, but it spends some time at lower altitudes, too, without ever unambiguously erring.

That link underlines that Red River Dialect’s pensive, acoustic incarnation is not incompatible with the wilder, louder more forceful material before it, that indeed, it funnels the same intensity through quieter, more melancholy channels. Tender Gold and Gentle Blue is a softer album but no less true.

Romantiq is a strong addition to Popp’s compendious catalog, one that unifies certain sound selections and approaches while providing ample variety.

Ultimately, whether The Smile spells the end of Radiohead feels beside the point when the music that Yorke and Greenwood are making at this stage in their career is this damned good.

With The Red River, his best yet, richer, more fluid arrangements tip his songs from straight folk blues into gospel, soul and even hints of R&B.

As an accidental, definitive document of time and place, Vee Vee is up there with Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, No Pocky For Kitty and the Polvo records, strong enough even to offset the hideous cover art.

The narrator’s desire for transformation reveals a hopeful, but tenuous ending to an emotionally fraught and musically ironclad journey. One wishes more concept albums were so authentic.

Don’t Weigh Down the Light is a precise, meditative work, and one that can be rewarding with each successive listen.

I Am Not Afraid Of You is a one-stop jukebox.

Temper is rewarding in a conventional way compared to the surprise of Precis, less something iridescent found in the sand and more the product of resourceful and masterly design.

Bardo Pond's self-titled is a massive, monumental piece of work, proving once again that this long-running outfit can still crank the heavy, mind-numbing psych that it's always been known for.

It still squalls and surges and executes little folk-infused turns of melody, it still uses words with a scalpel to precise and premeditated effect, and it still sounds great.

Just thrill to how rock music this relentlessly complex and irregular (“No Condition”), this shamelessly, gloriously over-the-top (“Do the Method,” a distant cousin to the speedier version of “Radio Free Europe” and the fellas’ own would’ve-been dance craze), this stylistically reckless (“Bleeding,” which almost sounds like a completely derailed club cut) and this gleefully repetitive and obnoxious (“Rang-a-Tang”) can still sound so anthemic and galvanizing.

On Sunergy, Ciani and Smith have created worthwhile, intelligent work, guiding each other, delving into free composition to capture their environment and their influences.

That contradiction between the wistful and the prickly was one of the really fascinating elements of Green Lanes, and it’s gone now, but weirdly Dusk is none the less for lacking it. In fact, this third outing outdoes the second in an unambiguously soft indie rock embrace.

Here’s a band so fond of their particular brand of mid-tempo dream pop that they do not feel compelled to try anything else. At least they take the time to be particularly observant as they comb their territory.

This compilation goes for breadth where Konono’s Congotronics went for depth.

They have earned, through the force of their creativity and sweat, access to new places and social spaces. But even as some of their songs explore what’s newly possible in those spaces, the Mods remain deeply interested in the places from which they came.

It’s successful on pretty much every count for two main reasons: 1. It’s well-written and blearily produced; and 2. It's self-aware and not neurotic.

Spooked sidesteps the icy classicism that could’ve prevailed, considering who’s on hand.

It’s about making art in a capitalistic society, where the artist must cannibalize every part of herself and offer it to a sometimes unwilling and unreceptive audience. It’s all a quest for immortality and staying power among icy cold synths, quiet samples and screaming. Sometimes, Jenny Hval is the vampire, and sometimes she’s the one bleeding.

Untilted’s sound is warmer and rounder, but at the expense of sonic and rhythmic scope, initially a disappointment. It’s nice to report, though, that repeated auditions expose a new tightness in composition.

He's turned a hard patch into something transcendental. However brief, however ephemeral, there's a sense of spiritual overcoming that encompasses not just his own history, but the experiences that listeners bring to these sad songs, as well.

The vocals alone would be a lullaby, but in this broken orchestra, they’re insomnia. Yet spending time with this record allows the burs to break off. If you give in to its strange terms, You is soothing.

World Eater is simultaneously his brightest and darkest album yet, full of walls of noise that could seem forbiddingly remote if not for the way Power consistently brings things back to the human experience.

What Lali Puna does, and it’s very apparent on Inventions, is to really use the simplicity of pop for all it’s worth.

This one is an expression of respect to people whose work shaped his, as well as grateful a shout-out to a few pals who haven’t passed yet.

Overall, Battle of Ages is a genuinely impressive release. More than your standard bro doom, it’s got reach, smarts and heart.

This Is the Kit’s new album, Careful Of Your Keepers, has a wonderfully languid, rolling, fluid quality.

The first two discs make a good introduction to the curious, and following the anthology format, it’s exciting to think that anyone who does come to the band this way, although they’ll have a fine overview of what makes Mogwai compelling, still has plenty of riches to discover.

And indeed, kabong it does. Fun stuff.

Lisbon is, for The Walkmen, a reinforcement rather than a reinvention - but for those listeners already fond of their sound, or of melancholy rock stripped down to its essentials in general, that makes for a rewarding listen.

We worship “cool” in rock and punk. We love the bands that stay unaffected behind their dark shades, from the Velvets on down. But what’s so great about this second Bar Italia album is that it shows how hard that is, and what a cost it exacts.

Get Guilty isn’t an easy album at all. It just sounds like one.

The darkness of gender dysmorphia may indeed be vast, but given the right illuminating gift, Baby Dee proves there's still light nonetheless--even for hir own chamber music.

A buzzing, humming distillation of time and melodic idea that drifts by in sighs and stares and one paragraph written all day and wondering if there’s anything in the refrigerator. It is very much like 2020 in the bunker, hard to see from the road but pulsing with shimmering life inside.

There’s a remarkable continuity from track to track, and its obvious those contributing to Venomous Villain are long-time fans of Dumile’s work.

The album is set in a place that’s warm and brightly illuminated. But it’s there, just outside the circle of light, just out of sight, and it makes Oldham’s place even more lovely for the respite it brings.

The simple wallops that make up most of Personality suit him surprisingly well.

Piteous Gate is an absorbing listen front to back.

N-Space was at best ignorable, but Departed Glories makes a mark. Play it quietly and it shades the atmosphere; play it loudly and you can get lost in its sculpted tones and distilled emotions.

It is damned good, a concise exercise in muscular rock and roll whimsy that, while not quite knocking Bee Thousand off its perch, is perfectly in line with the steady stream of quality guitar rock that Pollard has been churning out for decades.

Two side-long compositions make up this tranquil, contemplative album, each divided into three A, B, and C tracks. ... Consider it more a tribute to filling in the quiet spaces that have arisen unexpectedly out of chaos and disappointment, but which are, themselves, very peaceful and beautiful.

Lust Lust Lust is the best The Raveonettes have ever been.

What makes II so vital on a grander scale is that they have reached a masterful equilibrium with the elements that have made them the preeminent producers they are today.

Motion uses some new approaches, but ultimately it fits in just fine as another solid entry in a rich and rewarding body of work.

They nail the curves and changeups so well that you only notice the complexity in retrospect. While it’s happening, it seems mostly like good rock music

This is a four-way conversation rather than a competition for attention and the musicians display a depth of mutual understanding that belies the fact that they are playing together for the first time. Urselli’s production gives each instrument room to breathe and the tracks swell and recede at a relaxed pace as layers of guitar, synth and sound effects form palimpsests of sound.

The Block Brochure, ponderous though it may be, is curated carefully and put together in a way that will actually hold up over time.

On this LP, Orcutt spells out what he does, and exercises sufficient restraint while doing so that he’ll reach people put off by the treble overload of his live performances or the ultra-raw presentation of records like Gerty or A New Way to Pay Old Debts.

Mazurek is a trumpeter and Taylor a drummer, but each contributes via electronics as well. Despite that augmentation, and that the Orchestra has been more an imagined community than an album-releasing entity, Taylor and Mazurek sound lonely.

These aren't songs simply notable for their attitude or irreverence--they're a fine collection of songs, period.

Though it may be tempting to describe Radian merely as an instrumental post-rock group in the Chicago tradition – they are instrumental, and they’re signed to Thrill Jockey, after all – there aren’t any post-rock bands that are engaging with ideas from electronic and improvised music to the degree that Radian does.

[One track] is expansive enough to be its own album, indeed, perhaps its own universe. The other is just fine, and you will enjoy it if you like Garcia Peoples’ other new jack jammers like Wet Tuna, Chris Forsyth, Matt Valentine and Steve Gunn. ... One Step Behind takes a giant step forward, right off the edge and into the unknown.

Adore Life is a great set of songs. Savages have created an equal-but-different follow-up to Silence Yourself. While it can’t have the surprise of their debut, Adore Life demonstrates evolution and exploration that Savages will hopefully continue to embrace in the future.

Songs of Shame is more humble by an entire order of magnitude, but still contains that feeling of honesty, a feeling that should allow Woods to be more than just some ephemeral pleasure once the hype around the band and their Woodsist label inevitably withers away.

The Underside of Power is even more powerful than Algiers’ debut, starker, more violent and yet leavened with an uplifting surge of gospel.

The result of this multi-layered synergy, and what helps separate it from its soulless similars, is a record that is all at once satisfyingly complex, but also invitingly warm.

It’s as if the drug and crime infested landscapes of Sicaro were Jóhansson’s underworld, but, unlike Orpheus, he did not look back on his return, absorbing and assimilating his discoveries into his increasingly unified compositional aesthetic.

These songs still jangle, still twitch, still pulse, but there's an undertone of serenity and philosophical acceptance that makes them resonate, too.