With Birthmarks, Born Ruffians bring us a deeply personal album.

It stitches psychotic school dance vibes among the surf garage in a hurried splendor.

So no, you don’t get a remastered version of one of your favorite albums. But you definitely do get your money’s worth.

The album will satisfy those wondering whether the band can achieve the nosebleed heights of its formidable back catalog, and it’s once again evident that Ashcroft needs guitarist Nick McCabe, bassist Simon Jones and drummer Peter Salisbury to keep his shamanistic flights of fancy tethered to earth.

Soft Airplane is a little scary (and dark and dank), yet filled with untold creative surprises and delights.

Tell Tale Signs subtly makes a good argument that Dylan’s later work is richer than expected.

Emanuel Lundgren has a rare knack for catchy melodies and bouncy rhythms that grab the ear, and also for arrangements that enlarge these simple elements into the enveloping emotional weather accompanying these tug-of-wars between adolescence and adulthood, escapism and reality.

The Crying Light, reaches out from the band’s investment in gender issues to grapple with nature of a different sort: the earth, familial relationships and a life-force passed on. The scope of the record spans generations, but retains a sense of communion with its listener.

This album isn't merely a single peak, but a whole mountain range.

Reminiscing on lost love and lust, Mould impresses with his songwriting skills.

With a little luck, this collection of mostly obscure covers could, on a smaller scale, do for Dando what the Rick Rubin-helmed American Recordings did for Johnny Cash.

The foursome weave a dizzying web of traditions into their own rough-hewn sound, dragging vestiges of alt-rock, punk and blues through the mud to achieve an album rife with brash dissonance.

Working out of his home studio, Sweet--joined by drummer Ric Menck and multi-instrumentalist Greg Leisz--nails every sonic nuance, buried under cumulous clouds of glorious boy/girl harmonies.

The songs Jarosz wrote herself more pull their own weight. The eleven originals bubble with questions, toe-tapping impatience and a dreamy yearning, and they're strung through with twinge of poignancy that's completely refreshing.

It's a wonderfully weird parade of sonic delights: an arresting consummation of the Lips' two-and-a-half decade career.

For those who self-identify as Tom Waits Fans, Glitter and Doom Live succeeds on pretty much every level.

On Tiger there's more than a whiff of tequila in the air-yellowy-green shots knocked back fast followed by hazy mornings filled with nagging regrets. This could perhaps be considered "folk" in some generous sense of the word, but let's not be afraid to call it what it really is: unbridled, unselfconscious, swirling, head-pounding pop.

It's this combination of lo-fi sounds and lyrical complexity that makes Cape Dory a great debut record.

With alt-country lyrics that are more Tom Waits than Guy Clark, Hayes Carll continues to impress, giving us more to think about than just honky tonks and heartaches.

It turns out the two are even better in cahoots than they are solo, each buttressing the other with her own set of complementary idiosyncrasies.

It's Kafka meets Mahler at the hipster club, and it's easily one of the musical highlights of the year.

The Hunter, their finest album yet, is proof enough.

Nothing's Gonna Change... is ultimately the kind of album you can curl up into, let the warm tones surround you and rest easy.

Nootropics, the latest record from Baltimore quintet Lower Dens, connects layered loops and trippy chants with catchy rock 'n' roll arrangements, delivering a pure punch of sonic bliss.

Even putting aside his berserk, imagination-defying technical skill--he stays deep enough in the pocket to get lost there--there's not a wasted breath on R.A.P. Music.

Given Ben Keith's death last year, it's the perfect merge: Young's rough-hewn organics and the raucous Crazy Horse.

By opening up, by giving a glimpse into the heart behind those heart-stopping melodies, Newman's written his best songs in nearly a decade.

The more charming pockets found within The Narcissist II's peculiar symmetry are worth waiting for, so long as you're willing to suspend your disbelief long enough to ingest the entire record. Otherwise, you might be missing the point.