They’ve plied a unique blend of jazz, world, pop and soul for more than a quarter-century, and now they add heavier beats, craftier production and a wider arsenal of sounds and styles.

The more scrutiny you give these seemingly straightforward songs, the more mysterious they become, even as they grow more familiar. That said, while this expanded edition certainly helps provide context, opening new windows on a classic, long-inactive lineup of a band that was oozing with inspiration and still had something to prove, even listeners above the casual-fan threshold should exercise caution before taking the plunge a second time around.

Despite its success, Give You The Ghost only hinted at what Poliça can do. Shulamith is a wilder, looser ride, both more experimental and more fully realized.

Empath’s mix of melody and noise is so effective, it’s not hard at all to squint a little bit at Visitor and see the potential for some sort of breakthrough success for this band.

Lionheart sounds amazing, with tasteful production and nary a note out of place. It’d probably benefit from a rough edge here or there, even. But in terms of songcraft, performance and message, it’s an impressive step into the solo spotlight by McEntire.

This is their most listenable album, one that dials back the heavy-handed metaphors and overwhelming musical gloom for something more danceable and upbeat, though still dour as ever lyrically.

She hacks away at the extra fluff and molds every song to feel as cathartic as an enlightening sob session with your therapist. We’re left with 10 raw, rock-solid tracks that feel just as restorative for us as they clearly do for Jordan. Valentine is proof that a breakup album doesn’t have to be sad—it just has to be powerful.

The result is song after song with earworm potential, finishing with a masterful four-song stroke that culminates in “Dusty Trails.”

Unreal Unearth is packed full of poetic lyricism, heavyhearted remorse, hopeful anticipation and an honest expression of the joys and sorrow of being a human. This is undoubtedly his best work. The more straightforward tracks may be too saccharine at times, but Hozier’s gravitational artistry more than makes up for any slight missteps off the path.

Weird Faith is a level up in every regard for Madi Diaz, and it’s hard to see a world where it doesn’t accomplish the goal of raising her profile.

With the vocals more out front than ever before, Several Shades showcases a wounded, fragile weariness that I'd never realized until now was such a huge part of Dinosaur Jr's ragged, heart-wrenching appeal.

It is a beautiful sleeplessness captured in Surrounded; in those channels and eddies, fans of his musical landscapes can drift for hours.

The record is too weird to turn heads in quite the same meteoric fashion that Emma did but is a nice addition to Vernon’s canon and an indicator of just how high he can let his freak flag wave and still sound just like himself.

Rose declares on “Swimmer.” “I hope you’re listening to me wherever you are.” With a record as authentically beautiful as Mythopoetics, we should be.

At 37:17, Pure Heroine doesn’t take long to take down modern values.

One Million Love Songs delivers exactly what it promises—an unflinching look into the seemingly endless ways that love (and loss) leaves its fingerprints on us.

Shattering the myth of “sophomore slump syndrome,” feeble little horse possess an uncanny bravery. They forge ahead with a fearlessness that is palpable even when the lyrics are sparse.

While the more unhinged moments tend to overshadow sugary, buttery pop songs like "No Destruction" (even with the delicious jab: "There's no need to be an asshole / You're not in Brooklyn anymore"), the softer moments balance out the record's tidy nine tracks.

With redneck-underground country, slightly detuned minor-key Southern rock, grungy Crazy Horse-indebted lopers and Stonesy rockers, there’s a little of everything Hood’s done so far, plus a few dashes of discovery.

The power of Tinariwen lies not only in their ability to communicate that idea musically, but most crucially in their ability to make such a simple idea sound fresh and profound.

Though Lost Wisdom, Pt. 2 readily picks up themes and images present in 2008’s Pt. 1, the album just as often gestures toward the poetic abstractions of Elverum’s work with The Microphones as it does the memoiristic approach to A Crow Looked At Me. In effect, that makes this album the easiest point of entry to the Mount Eerie discography in a decade, unburdened (but no doubt enhanced) by self-mythologizing.

The Renaissance is the logical extension of this exploratory work, coupled with Q-Tip’s need to, once and for all, step out from behind Tribe’s long, dominant shadow, and in many respects (if not all), it succeeds wildly in both dimensions.

Yes have released their best work since the '70s.

Clark has said she had to take over production because she couldn’t figure out how to articulate the sounds in her head to somebody else. Listening to the finished product, it’s easy to see what she means. The surreal, slippery “Hell Is Near” is unlike anything Clark has done before—and particularly difficult to fully capture with words. Broadly psychedelic, a collage of 12-string guitar, piano and hydra-synth creates a song that feels like its own pocket dimension.

Flying Dream 1 is in no rush to get anywhere. Its lyrics and music are more lovely than ever before, chock-full of gorgeous piano lines to match Garvey’s husky croon.

It's a brief culmination of practice making perfect, with Earl and his band showing why they make a new album every year--because more and more often they are getting it right.

All of the emotional turmoil that this record holds makes it a thrilling—and kind of frightful—experience from start to finish.

Dedicated to Lieske, English Oceans is a triumph for the Drive-By Truckers, one that capitalizes on Hood and Cooley’s strengths as songwriters and also gives them something to sing for that means more than all those colorful characters put together.

It is brief, for sure, but it is packed with densely packaged rhymes and rewarding musical numbers that are majestic.

Born Under Saturn proves Django Django still has all their ducks in a row three years after their debut self-titled record. They’re still making music as well-suited to dance clubs as to solitary psychedelic journeying.

Given the album’s August release date, this is one of the nearly perfect LPs for the last few hazy weeks of a brilliant summer.

This is still Phosphorescent. It’s just that the man behind the wheel is older and a little bit wiser these days. C’est La Vie is bookended by instrumental tracks. ... In between, Houck’s songs are are consistently wide-eyed and wondrous.

With Only in Dreams, Dum Dum Girls have raised the bar.

Big Thief ultimately nail the different shades of reckoning and self-introspection on their Saddle Creek debut. Many listeners will no doubt identify with and see pieces of their own struggles inside this album.

The result is a cathartic, punk-rock stomper of a record, and perhaps the first in the band’s catalog to accurately capture their sweatbox live performances.

Coming from a band that derives a certain amount of its notoriety from seeming jaded and indifferent, Gallagher's solo flight is actually stunningly pure and beautifully rendered.

What subsequent listens reveal is the startling evolution of Newman’s songwriting.

Even though the album is crushing, the band’s penchant for melody is what elevates Foundations of Burden above otherwise comparable records from this year.

Some grin in the face of the absurd and rotten, and others reflect all the hot air back outward. Dry Cleaning make an art of doing both.

Cruel Runnings is full of upbeat and catchy songs with melodies that’ll stay with you long after hearing them.

There’s still no substitute for the adrenalizing power of the Hold Steady at its best, but the nuance of Finn’s solo songwriting, and the subtler sense of musical adventurism he has come to embrace on his own work, make these songs essential, too.

The album sounds heavy and elusive, like a field recording, and it will surely be studied with the most powerful of cultural microscopes, but its author will just puff cigarettes and chuckle.

Closure in many ways is the ultimate desire, and 25 is rife with it.

Television embodies the sound of the African future while simultaneously nodding over its shoulder at the pain, joy, suffering and beauty of the continent’s past.

Active Listening: Night on Earth is a both resplendent listen and an acquired taste. Not every listener will take pleasure in the band’s blustery dissonance, but those who do will be rewarded with dense pop riches and deeply poignant, poetic lyrics.

She scraped away what is expected and excavated soundscapes that left plenty of room for the ragged edges of her voice--aching and rough where the emotions set in--to stand out.

Sleigh Bells’ heady flashbang of an album.

It’s Lizzo’s energy solidified--everything you love about her, wrapped up in one twerkable package bursting with bold statements, bad bitches and, perhaps most notably, bops.

Burning Mountains plays like a kind of indignant opus, composed within proximity to the epicenter of a psychotropic maelstrom.

It’s as communal as a set of campfire songs, complete with humor, screw-ups and familiarity.

The album’s 11 songs are spontaneous, fluid and entirely indifferent to genre as they pour out of her like the torrential rains of an evening thunderstorm.

The album runs the dream-pop gamut, from dizzyingly energetic to loopy and surreal.

Thank Me Later may not have been the game-changing release everyone was hoping for, but we now have every reason to believe that the hype will ring true on his next album.

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers rejects conformity and leaves its flaws in on purpose, featuring some of Kendrick’s best and worst songs of his career.

Melodic post-punk gives way to a wider sonic landscape, yielding to muted tones that dovetail comfortably with Hamilton Leithauser’s now-audible vocals.

With Mr. M, the countrypolitan grits-glam continues.

He doesn’t miss a beat, doling out material that highlight every facet of his still-underrated talent.

Low’s always been good at making records where it sounds like every note and beat contains some degree of pain and hope you’ve felt. So hopefully it’s compelling when this one stands out even more as one of their best.

This is an emotionally multi-faceted album to luxuriate in.

Coming in at only 11 songs, SremmLife is a lively surge of hedonism and recklessness.

There’s no denying Visions Of A Life top marks for a sterling sophomore effort.

Kidjo is faithfully following her muse in search of transcendence. Here she’s found a rich source of it, like water flowing underground.

Sister completely one-ups the band’s debut from eight years ago.

It ends up being something of a puzzler to behold--at once as crafty and moving as anything in Dylan’s catalog, and yet as improvisational and dashed-off as one of his live albums with The Band or the Dead.

What makes Radical Romantics, like the best of Dreijer’s work, a cut above merely great pop is its subversive streak.

Jinx may not be as immediately jarring and respectable as their debut, but it certainly keeps the ball rolling.

Britpop’s giants are back, and they sound surprisingly the way we had hoped they would: melodic, contemplative and content as a single unit.

Another fine stop in Death Cab’s ongoing evolution.

You don’t emerge from the LP with a sense of linear narrative. Across 16 songs, relationships fail and prosper and then fail again; hope deteriorates and grows, only to deteriorate again. What Zach Bryan is is a moving portrait of life’s knottiest, in-between moments.

Oh! Mighty Engine returns to the land of sublime bedroom pop, all acoustic-based and velvet-vocaled, sincere but never strained, pretty and bittersweet.

On Mountaintops, the band flaunts the dynamics of their past recordings while sneaking in layers of growth.

An artist well suited to take center stage, Ruthie Foster has more fully and forcibly arrived.

The comfort that Lage and his bandmates evince needs those small shakeups to keep from devolving into something pleasant but unengaging. The trio toes that line at times on this new release without completely falling into pure background fodder. It’s a delicate balance that only the best players could attain. Time will tell if they can maintain it.

Mosquito is where this band finally grooves, after long threatening.

It’s the rare album that manages to soothe and calm without burying its head in the sand--like a guided meditation through the reality of living in today’s world.

Pound for pound, Stern’s latest offering is as urgent and electrifying as anything she’s managed in the 16 years since her disarming debut.

There’s a disturbing core of darkness in each song that makes the album come to life, expressing hidden feelings the listener might not want to uncover.

Common stands out from the best hip-hop albums of 2011 by doing what he has always done best since the '90s and standing firm in his style.

A confident album from an artist who isn’t afraid to merge the past and present, Sam Beam continues to audibly demonstrate why he’s one of the most gifted songwriters of his time.

Mascis molds yet another subdued prism through which to glimpse his rare genius as a guitarist and songwriter.

Korkejian has proven her ability to forge closeness and sincerity in past works, but her third album feels like her own secret, not only because the songs haven’t been shared before, but also because her development as an artist and person is now a bit more overt.

The Devil You Know masterfully walks the line between politically charged while remaining , perhaps tragically, timeless. But it’s also an immensely listenable album, a fully realized emerging of the band’s true power in crafting edgy, electric songs.

Ultimately, Bird continues to prove himself to be a versatile musician who’s as capable at fresh adaptations of country-leaning tunes as he is forward-thinking arrangements of his own.

Dying Star is a very impressive effort from Kelly, a heretofore little-known Nashville singer-songwriter with a perfectly fine-grit voice and a gift for pairing heavy lyrics with remarkably graceful melodies. Evidence of both appears all over the album, revealing an artist who is not only ready for a slice of the spotlight, but also capable of his own crossover someday.

Like Creatures of an Hour, Strange Pleasures is a piece of great beauty—albeit, one that’s not for every occasion.

Mo Beauty is an album full of idiosyncrasies, but Ounsworth’s consummate eye to its construction turns dissonance into harmony.

Unapologetically gains in strength as it goes along, mirroring Ballerini’s push away from a particular lover and towards the welcoming arms of a new beau.

Marigold is an excellent portrayal of someone trying to get better, own up to his mistakes and move on in a healthy way for all parties involved. It’s more restrained and defenseless than ever before musically and lyrically as Hall asks both himself and the listener for forgiveness. If you’re so inclined to hear him out, there’s a lot to like here. And if you aren’t, then that’s OK too.

Beware may be the best country-rock album David Allan Coe never got around to making himself.

Vinyl collector or not, it’s ultimately the strength of Segall’s songwriting that makes this four-songer a must-have for anyone who only has, like, seven of his dozens of releases in the past five years.

They’re too big to fail though, so lightning half-strikes plenty here.

The Seattle singer spends much of May Your Kindness Remain exploring ideas of home and what it means to have roots, on 10 new tunes that are lusher and more expansive while leaving plenty of room to showcase her astonishing voice.

Ranging from old-timey to reverential, soul to Appalachian, Mountain stands utterly his.

With its excellent fourth album, Moon 2, the band evokes a cosmic utopia of its own making and yet remains tethered to a relentless, earthbound groove.

These days it’s no easy feat for a band to differentiate itself from the slough of other guitar-pop bands. You need songs, and Ghost Wave has plenty.

It's that mix of dedication to cool and earnestness that makes Dye it Blond endearing and surprisingly timeless despite its obvious wink to the past.

At 15 tracks long, it’s a smorgasbord of Lambert specialties: traditionalist country, vivid character sketches, revved-up rock guitars, double-take turns of phrase, pop curiosity, place names and incredible consistency. It may not be her best album, but it is a very worthy entry in what is quickly becoming one of the best recorded catalogs in music. Period.

More memorable are the tracks where Serengeti simply inhabits the role and goes the direction it takes him.