He sometimes comes off a bit like he's exploring the idea of a genre more than actually writing a song ("Eyes Like Pearls" get dangerously close to Kravitzing) but generally has enough enthusiasm and hooks to make his celebration of musical freedom worth riding along with.

The band gives a rootsy, gently spacey and slightly eccentric lift to Chesnutt’s songs, like a straightforward late-'60s folk group that’s been turned on to electric rock and become both more playful and more soulful.

All told, the album feels like a hand-crafted work of art, put together carefully by its creators, charmingly imperfect but much preferred over a mass-produced piece with no stitch out of place, and no soul to match.

While the album bolsters the band’s brand of sound rather than showcasing any significant amount growth in writing and arrangement, The Speed of Things is an exercise in consistency and accessibility. It’s refreshing.

Prelude to Ecstasy is one of the strongest debut albums in recent memory, an incredible introduction that creates an inescapable feeling that we are bearing witness to the birth of a generational talent.

Crack-Up, is at once sumptuous and ambitious, a serpentine journey from the center of harmony-drenched folk-pop out to the edge of Pecknold’s brain and back. It is lovely, strange and generous, and ultimately a very welcome return for the Seattle band.

Desperate Ground is easily the best Thermals record since The Body, The Blood, The Machine.

The record is equal parts spontaneity and calculated charm.

With their third LP, New Material, they dive into it headlong, getting closer to Munro’s stated goal than ever before.

If the album does anything right (and it does a lot right), it is capturing the contradicting emotions of a life and trying to reconcile them, so that the listener doesn’t have to do the same.

One could get away with lazily DJ-ing a late-night party by hitting play and letting Late Night Feelings run all the way through, a possibility that attests to the record’s consistency and the comfort it offers despite its darker themes.

To give oneself over to the world of colorful unpredictability is easier said than done, but it makes for a rewarding experience that leaves one grinning ear to ear.

The Silver Gymnasium grows on you, and sooner or later its nostalgia becomes your own--only the names and places are different.

Fuzz’s eight songs smartly clock in at a taut 37 minutes.

Lightbulbs shows the same attention to sonic detail as its predecessor, but the four also love words as much as objects.

Like Warm and Warmer, Tweedy’s requires a bit of patience to crack open. The songs tend to seep in slowly, but it’s worth the effort to burrow into them: Beneath that low-key exterior, Love Is the King displays luminous depth from a veteran songwriter who continues to grow into his craft.

Mount Moriah has certainly found more confidence in their identity, and Miracle Temple will be what defines them moving forward.

The Neon Skyline is another pleasant journey lovingly crafted by Shauf. He has once again proven himself to be up there with maple syrup, Ryan Gosling and Schitt’s Creek as one of Canada’s greatest exports.

A ferocious solo debut. It’s jagged, chaotic and mesmerizing in a way that pulls you inevitably into the thick of it, as if the songs were exerting their own inescapable gravity.

After a two-album stale patch a decade ago, The Hold Steady have rebounded to become more adventurous than they were before, and Finn’s storytelling has never been stronger.

On Today We’re the Greatest, they make great music sound effortless.

Each one is charming and sturdy and well put together, evidence of an artist who is at the very top of his game and ready to reach even higher. Here’s looking forward to Volume 2.

While casual fans may miss the novelty of the duo’s more familiar classic-rock covers, these 11 originals show the duo expanding its sonic palette.

Truth hasn’t aged a day, completely bypassing the tell-tale late ‘90s mope-core veneer in favor of introspection that is musically lush and lyrically harsh. From the Beatles-esque sitar on “Tsunami” to the bitter-candy guitars on “Black Dog On My Shoulder” the album is melancholia for adults. ... The reissue also contains two discs of demos, remixes and b-sides, which are always fun for the collector but may be overwhelming, or, in some cases, repetitive for the casual listener.

New Ocean sounds like a surging rebirth to one of underground rock’s most overlooked songwriters. Welcome back.

Overall, Get Along has something to offer everyone, no matter where they lie on the spectrum of fandom.

Abysmal Thoughts is a fun, lovely record, radiating sunshine in every melody and shadows in the lyrics. It’s whole and complex and captivating, a treasure chest of an album in which you’ll find something different and unique hiding within each listen.

A hot mess of an album that’s simultaneously the most indulgent and most disciplined record he’s ever made.

The seventh Xiu Xiu album may be the most playfully arranged and colorfully textured in the band’s catalog.

[An album] for those expecting (and experiencing) heartbreak at every turn.

Though High Violet lacks the front-to-back consistency that made Boxer such an unmitigated revelation, the new album's peaks absolutely rival Boxer's best tracks.

While the singer and his band are drawing on a classic form, their interpretation makes for an exciting and contemporary sound.

Both poppy and heady, intelligent and reckless, and sometimes bordering on absurdist, The Seduction of Kansas calls into question the social landscape of the American heartland and poses Priests as punk’s resident anthropologists. First heralded as post-punk heroes, Priests are now much more than that: They’re post-genre saviors bringing vital discourse and sharp observations to the table, still preaching the punk gospel along the way.

As the title suggests, The Open Door is full of fresh air, wide spaces and rollicking melodies--a welcome change from the tangled Big Sur woods and claustrophobia of "Narrow Stairs."

If Love Notes is their best album, it's because it's also their most emotionally conflicted.

Tight Knit’s arrangements are rather tightly wound, with the album’s soothing vibe finely calibrated enough to excuse an outlying foray into languid funk.

It took a childhood-and-a-half to come to fruition, but Wildflower is another album that snatches elements from the past but sounds like the future.

There still seems to be something especially right about how Twin Peaks are retaining a level of familiarity with anyone who likes rock music while getting to be better and more songwriters with each passing album.

For all their obvious musical ability, the band’s real skill here is blending so many unexpected elements into a coherent whole that is at once adventurous and accessible, even if--or maybe because--you have to hustle a little to keep up.

Someday, other band names will disappear from Kiwi Jr.’s reviews as the quartet further develops its sound. Football Money is evidence they’ve clearly got the ability and the point of view to do exactly that. Until then, they’re working from a world-class playbook.

Haunted Painting is a record full of exciting dance bops courtesy of Dupuis. Overall, it contains layers that make it perfect for the Halloween season and aware of the current social and political climates. Dupuis is able to happily immerse listeners into her world—one filled with the thought-provoking lyricism that becomes easily consumed through addictive instrumentation choices, be it synths, larger-than-life orchestrals or punky performances.

On The Line, her best solo work to date, finds her trading chaos for peace and pain for parties. And West Coast rock combined with piano glam and Lewis’ lyrics makes for a most celebratory listen, indeed.

The considerable power of The Greater Wings lies in how Byrne makes that specific feeling universal, and how resonant it becomes in the artfully woven tapestry of her music.

Soft Sounds is full of pretty interludes of ambient noise, mixed with shoegaze and electropop touches.

It's not quite as immediate as pop-rap requires. As for overestimating his audience's intelligence--or their interest in geopolitical unrest--there are worse ways to fall from the top.

While this might indeed be a coming-of-age record, it's very clear that this is an acknowledging age and existence experience.

The album is a statement of self-sufficiency born of creative tensions, between man and woman, people and land, performance and recording. Within these dualities, Zammuto has created something whole.

About to Die manages not only to seem vital in comparison to the other Dirty Projectors' art projects of this year, but also stirs hunger for the 25 other songs from these sessions that will hopefully see an eventual release.

Althaea sets the tone for ambitious future work by Trailer Trash Tracys and provides a perfect soundtrack for in-between days like these, when music maintains a bridge to the lushness of summer as the melancholy of colder months begins to approach.

This is exactly the type of ambition you want to hear from a young band. After making such a peppy, instant classic debut, they weren’t intimidated by the thought of a Sunday stroll album, and they reached newfound emotional and sonic heights in making one.

Musically, this is not a Low album that will catch anyone by surprise.

Shelley’s light is absolutely irrepressible. She is a tremendous talent, poised for a long and productive career in folk music, with a breakthrough into much bigger things very easy to envision.

Aly & AJ are releasing career-defining music (and have been for the past six years), and With Love From might top a touch of the beat as their best album to date.

So while Undivided Heart & Soul explores both the past and the future of roots music, McPherson shines brightest when he blends both influences to stay rooted in the present.

This Mess Is a Place is exactly the kind of album we need in 2019. It sounds like rainbow sherbert and friendship bracelets. It eschews irony and defeatism. It calls us all to build a brave, colorful new world together--and have one hell of a good time doing it.

A little bit Sleaford Mods, a helping of The Fall and a dash of Pulp, the group craft smart vignettes of modern life with a confident, witty delivery across their debut full-length, The Overload.

Common to all these songs is the confidence of a band who have leaned on each other through trouble and grown stronger for it, learning to better work together and making the most of their hard-won creative chemistry.

While the mostly mid-tempo, mostly acoustic continues the trajectory from college rock to radio-ready adult alternative, Gomez has yet to succumb to anything resembling blandness. The album’s best songs are its most experimental, which will continue to frustrate those who want these Southport boys to more frequently embrace the strange.

Though the message in all the static and clanking chains isn’t humanist, there is a humanity that comes through in everything she does. There is a spirituality too, though it’s the kind that is rooted in the material world.

With Grant’s new Icelandic roots and electronica loyalties as a foundation for the sonic properties of Pale Green Ghosts--likely a far cry from the Midlake-backed organ-roots rock of Queen--the album somehow retains everything that’s made Grant such an anomaly in the underground pop world.

Frost captures the best aspects of one of rock’s finest eras: a balance of structured songwriting and loose grooves, catchy choruses and meandering solos, hard rocking songs and easy-going attitude.

While the songs here aren’t as instantly stick-in-your-head catchy as much of The Hold Steady’s catalog, they have a subtler staying power of their own.

Miami shows an inventive collective in the act of reinvention, their recorded output transitioning from concepts to compositions to living breathing body-moving songs.

His best impulses he keeps channeling into his music, on seven albums and counting, and the result is a body of work that often feels indispensable. Isbell is a songwriter’s songwriter, but the songs that result are for all of us.

This is the band's best yet. [Sep 2006, p.73]

It’s a brilliant next step into the intersection between alt-pop and New Age, offering an over-the-top spiritual experience with enlightening reflections on the power to crush and regenerate.

Their debut comes off as lacking cohesion at first; then you realize it’s supposed to sound that way.

A broader sonic palette--including more overt silliness--gives Murdoch a chance to explore more moods, including some that are deceptively light. [Feb/Mar 2006, p.102]

Like the best moments on any Neutral Milk Hotel album—or, frankly, any emo album worth a damn—the whaler excels when it feels like Home Is Where are at its slipperiest as a band, conjuring something capable of breaking beyond a simple genre signifier.

It’s that refusal to paint in a single shade that makes The Take Off... such a fully formed listen from front to back.

Subtitulo seems slight at first listen, but the songs eventually marry, suggesting the progression from a dead end to a new start. [Apr/May 2006, p.103]

Cox blends rock instruments with organs, harps and his haunting, languid voice, and the result is a gentle, richly textured wall of sound.

At the end of the day, White's still an enigma, and so is Blunderbuss, its mysteries unfolding in odd ways when you least expect it.

Ranks with Lunapark and Penthouse as one of its best. [#13, p.119]

The clear standout, though, is 'Kim & Jessie,' which convincingly recaptures the magic gloss of Tears for Fears with a propulsive undercurrent and an elegant use of space. One of the best songs of 2008 so far, it’s the key destination in a stunning journey.

Divisive, peculiar but undeniably unique: Kyle Craft is a strong contender for outsider of the year. An unlikely hero of rock music, he’s nonetheless created a noteworthy, potentially groundbreaking debut album in Dolls of Highland.

Stretching past 70 minutes and shifting through a spectrum of moods, it’s a lot to digest--but well worth the effort

With Beautiful, she sounds liberated in sprawl, veering from soulful shouters (“Delilah”) to measured electro-pop ballads (“St. Jude”). The breadth alone is impressive--but Welch shows even more growth as a vocalist.

The personal nature of the lyrics shouldn't be overlooked. It's what makes Moms feel less like an exercise in sonic exploration, and more like a flesh-and-blood rock record... that happens to also be an exercise in sonic exploration.

This messy-pop template is nothing new for the Pornographers, but they've never applied it to such satisfying ends. Add in some guitarwork by St. Vincent's Annie Clark, a trumpet cameo from Beirut's Zach Condon, backing vocals by Okkervil River's Will Sheff and work by the ultra-reliable Dap-Kings, and it's the band's most colorful patchwork to date.

Desert Dove thrives on clarity of purpose and craftsmanship: Anne’s voice rings pristine from one song to the next, clean and clarion, never wavering, never striking false notes.

Like debut "Apologies to the Queen Mary," the band’s sophomore LP is as shaggy and sharp as the its lupine muse: Fierce, but Wolf Parade is too cagey to sacrifice discipline for ferocity; they attack with tact.

Rolling Golden Holy is a contemporary folk classic with songs that wouldn’t have sounded out of place 50 or 100 or 150 years ago. It’s an ageless album for the modern age, by a group coming into the full scope of their abilities.

It slowly and steadily comes into focus over the course of its running time.

Their lyrics are just as endearing as ever, with delicious moments like England’s confession on the title track that she’s “eating dinner for breakfast because first impressions are always the best.”

It's like watching the sun rise over distant mountaintops, over and over, familiar and captivating all at once.

Maraqopa's experimentations aren't those of a young musician set loose in a studio full of new toys. Rather, with this newest release, Jurado demonstrates that, at this late date in his career, he may just be hitting his stride.

The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons boasts some of the band’s most exhilarating material in a career that has never lacked any superheated songs or top-shelf showmanship. Maybe that counts as maturity after all.

On this mesmerizing third album, she’s mostly outgrown the obvious Lucinda Williams and Neil Young comparisons (the Crazy Horse-channeling “Oh Canada” aside), using her lustrous folk-rock melodies to dull the sting of her unsentimental tales.

As with all of the songs on Plaza, when the sum of that triptych of voices converges, it’s really a beautiful thing to hear.

Nothing short of breathtaking. [#14, p.119]

Bright Green Field is easily Squid’s most musically varied and ambitious work yet.

Perhaps the most appealing part of the album is that regardless of what sound, style or location these songs came from—British folk, New Orleans soul, Bakersfield country—they sound cohesive and of a piece in the hands of Plant and Krauss. In other words, the singers make these songs sound like their own.

A unified effort from these two proven hip-hop vets. [Feb/Mar 2006, p.96]

Frances bursts at the jewel-case hinges with Comatorium’s trademarks: musical inventiveness and wildly emotive vocals.

Make Do With What You Got is proof he still has the mojo to deliver the goods.

If all seven of their previous studio works represent a layer in Wynona's castor Taco-Bell repast, then it's appropriate to say that Green Naugahyde takes a big bite of the whole thing.

Doughman's songs are fragile pieces that threaten to disintegrate if you grip them too tightly. [Feb/Mar 2006, p.96]