Though Sea Sew is a folk album, the music here is thrillingly lush.

At over 70 minutes, remarkably long for country music, Good Time has the relaxed tone of an album designed to let Jackson do a little bit of everything, to showcase why he’s a star.

Everything about ¡Dos! is a step up from the last go-round, as if the previous LP was a mere dress rehearsal for the proper show,

On Time Is Over One Day Old, there’s always something missing, a mystery hanging in the air, yet it’s the band’s most satisfying album yet.

Merritt's merry band has returned to what it does best, capturing snapshots of love from unexpected perspectives in unforeseen ways.

Though these guys may not have quite perfected their excellent formula just yet, Gangs is nevertheless a step in the right direction.

Innocence Reaches feels like Barnes has found his center again. This time out he’s figured out how to combine his melodic skills with his musical idiosyncrasies in a way that works, for the most part, really well.

While you could say the Weddoes' m.o. is fairly predictable at this point, it nonetheless feels vibrant and engaging enough because of the conviction the band puts into its music, be it the bite of the buzzsaw riffs or the snap of the heavy beats or Gedge's snarling vocals, which can still sneer with the best of 'em after all these years.

Strange Desire most certainly proves at least one thing: Nate Ruess isn’t the only guy in fun. who can write a hell of a pop song. And really, that’s all that should ever matter to anyone who chooses to give Bleachers the time of day in the first place.

Catchy, fun, and even touched with a little regret, Self Entitled is just the kind of album NOFX should be making at this point.

As a hit 'n' run, intimate, artist showcase, Session will have you applauding between numbers and readily swinging your wallets capwards by the end.

Overall, Similar Skin is a very solid record, and it definitely suggests a particular mesh of influences that make Umphrey’s McGee stand out.

On his first full length record, The Good Life, Justin Townes Earle delivers the best debut roots music has seen since Old Crow Medicine Show hit the big time with "OCMS" in 2004.

Griffith presents her deeply felt personal secrets and political fears to sing and cover songs that come from the heart without shutting off her brain.

Starboy has something for each individual, this is without a doubt, but it has nothing for everybody as a collective, a balance he managed on his first three releases.

[There] is lovely thematic unity, which comes close to making Our Version of Events a satisfying album experience rather than just a series of songs that are largely easy-to-love. Unfortunately, by the time Sandé finishes up with "Hope", an unusually cloying, overreaching secular prayer co-written with Alicia Keys, ballad fatigue has already set in.

There is certainly a lot of dumb going on across #METIME‘s hour, but its seamless transition from absurdity to a more pathos-oriented final third creates a dimension that acknowledges 2 Chainz doesn’t have to be a jester to entertain us. He just enjoys the ride.

Kingdom Come is a solid record, and entirely worth the cost just to hear Jay-Z spit a new song, but in the end it just can’t live up the expectations it tattoos all over itself.

Her first first full-length record in four years is a risky, yet utterly sincere, retro-pop gem.

Even with only four songs, Meantime displays a mastery of subtle variation, achieving sonic complexity through the repetition, layering, and balance of disparate rhythms and textures.

At the end of the day, however, Pebble to a Pearl is still a great record, radiating and capturing a nostalgic vibe that would sound faked and forced in the hands of others.

Whilst Aloha Moon isn't quite the immaculate conception, its "Crystal visions, astral hearts and stars" still conjure enough supernatural, spellbinding spectacle to charm the most ardent of sceptics.

The songs on History are great, the arrangements lovely, if occasionally a little overly slick.

The outward textures here are not raw rock but processed pop, more maximalist than anything the band has put forth since. Still, the bones are the same; this is as sincere a face of the group as on any of their international commercial releases, no matter how surprising its sounds. Tinariwen, it turns out, fares well in a number of different aesthetic frameworks, and Kel Tinariwen serves as a testament to their artistic strength.

He is as American as apple pie and as crotchety as Grampa Simpson. You will not find anyone in the music business today who is more real than Seasick Steve.

It's a complex, challenging album that does not meet its listeners halfway; if you're up for spending some time in Watt's world, though, there's really nothing else like it.

One might argue with the programming and selection in a “should have” sort of way, but it is more beneficial to just appreciate the good stuff that’s here and give thanks to Texas as well as Jackson Browne for their respective contributions to music.

If at times Rennen suffers under the weight of its own trendiness, it finds redemption in SOHN’s unmistakable craftsmanship and ear for nuance.

Mister Pop isn’t going to set anyone’s world alight, but it might make yours a fractionally nicer place to be.

Overall this is a surprising, satisfying set, one gives us another angle on a band that seems to be always shifting.

Adrian Thaws is one of his most successful attempts to achieve reconciliation between the strengths of his established sound, and his need to progress as an artist.

With Love and Squalor is pretty much everything you've come to expect from neo-post-punk music: disco beats, prominent basslines, and those ever-angular guitars, all playing under some clipped vocals that have a distinctly British cast to them. And yet, interspersed among the more-of-the-same is a sense of more recent rock history.

What Rainer Maria have lost in scope and audacity they have perhaps gained in sheer accessible melodicism and urgency on Long Knives Drawn.

A new pop classic...

An intriguing effort.

On the rest of the album the strength of his singing is less evident; it never makes your jaw drop while you’re listening. But it’s a key reason this album is so enjoyable.

Very few bands could come back from such a long break and still create a follow-up album that is even better than its predecessor. Joey Jordison and Wednesday 13 have done just that, and in doing so, left fans desperately hoping that they won't have to wait eight years for the third album to come out.

Gravez will compel you, forcing you to look at your own mortality, and leave you feeling like you just saw a ghost.

Suuns have created a record which doesn’t thumb its nose at the existential problems of listener in enjoying and listening to music, but identifies with it and mounts the only truly acceptable response: make music reflective of, and worthy of, our scattered brains.

So take Remember as a legitimate, new way to approach the group’s solid collection of music, but don’t expect an emotional experience. It’s a text, not a souvenir.

Hannon has largely toned down his extravagant look-at-me persona, and decided instead to rely on the quality of his song-writing.

We Are the Night is not a return to past glories, but a brave, occasionally faltering but massively enjoyable lunge in new directions, the sound of two frighteningly smart musicians emerging with confidence from a period of uncertainty.

There's a sense of passion on Order of the Black that we honestly haven't heard since the band's first album.

It’s a rare album that is not only great on it’s first listen, but just as remarkable on it’s tenth.

It’s a good sign for the band that you’re left craving more so intensely once you’re through with The Singles; in many ways, this is the most promising dance music to come out of NYC in quite a while. Now that they’ve primed us, we can only hope Free Blood can deliver more than half a classic next time.

While Continuum doesn’t necessarily contain a sure-thing pop hit, it’s one of the few mainstream pop/rock albums that’s satisfying from the beginning to the end.

Achieving that key balance between accessibility and bravely forward-thinking is far from easy in extreme metal, but The Way of All Flesh pulls it off with aplomb.

Overall, the good songs on this album outweigh the average and just plain boring tracks.

Out of Touch, at its core, is an enjoyable pop album. Kalevi's voice and ever-so-slightly off-kilter electronic sensibilities are what make it distinctly his. He takes the easy and warps it into modern art, and while the sounds can get muddy, especially when it comes to his words, there's something to be said for shying away from the comfort of squeaky-clean sounds. Out of Touch allows for a more luscious aural dive.

An album of solemn splendor, as exquisite as it is emotionally direct, grounded in jazz rhythms and an acoustic guitar.

The haunting melodies and string arrangements enhance the CD's contemplative mood, bringing us into the artist's reverie about emotional pain and art's dependence on such painful experiences.

It’s by turns engrossing, boring, and terrifying. Just let it wash over you and try not to think too much about it. You’ll be glad you did.

Adams should be commended for doing a fine job of showing off Nelson’s considerable talents on a diverse collection of songs and styles.

This isn't meant to be a record to set the world on fire, it's a record meant to capture specific set of places and feelings, which it does wonderfully.

This has turned out to be the album of their career.

The music may be dreamy, but it’s always passionate.

This more electronic, less organic version of John Legend is more or less as enjoyable as the balladeer stuck behind the piano.

Underworld's new album is distinctly Underworld, and has a greater cohesiveness than those previous two full lengths, as well as a greater appeal.

More fun than Come Feel Me Tremble.

This is probably the album that Coldplay will be making a few years down the line, when they finally give up on trying to shake arenas U2-style and work more toward their atmospheric strengths.

With just nine tracks, Orbital once again prove that their chosen genre of music need not be so devoid of emotion or variety, and why they, despite the time off, continue to remain at the top of a heap heavily populated with copycats.

Depending on what’s expected from the band, some fans will likely have an initially lukewarm reaction to what Langford and Van Buskirk are trying to do here. Give it time, though, and the various dimensions of the album open up, revealing a band that’s capable of more than what many people expected of them.

This is no standards collection and Dando isn’t singing the hits. The album is instead a sort of late-career triumph for the Lemonheads.

Generational obligations aside, it would be dishonest to report that, aside maybe from one reggae track too many, they're in anything but top form.

Wolf imposed some restrictions and added something new as well. Ironically though, it's reminiscent of where he came from as well, a little more shapeless and a lot more inspired.

Accept the band for what they are: ironic sort-of-punkers-but-mostly-jokesters who like to pun Axl Rose and play Pixies-infused squelch-rock-which is exactly what they do on their new album, Brilliant! Tragic!

It ultimately presents as bleak a view of life as any of Green’s albums, while also being extremely sweet about it.

I Sell the Circus, in other words, can’t quite shake some of Pollard’s tendencies to keep us guessing, tendencies often employed to the detriment of consistency. Ricked Wicky, though, never goes full oddball.

It’s a confident, balanced work of mass art with only extremely minor flaws.

Glitter in the Gutter truly is a consistent, workable vision, full of memorable tunes and images and should serve to cement Malin’s reputation as a tunesmith with a true grasp of what shakes and moves real people through their real lives.

Twenty years later, this music still sounds surprising, something lo-fi groups today can't easily accomplish, while also sounding like just some dudes goofing around for fun.

Harcourt’s sound might not suit everyone’s taste (it’s fairly dramatic), but to those who are taken with well-sung, introspective piano ballads and gloriously cascading anthems about Love and Death, The Beautiful Lie will in no way disappoint.

So be prepared to hit the shuffle button after you add Landing to your music playlist. But for those times you need a soundtrack for going nowhere in particular, Landing in its entirely will do the job.

What sets Beautysleep apart from any of her previous records is that her voice is front and center, and stronger than ever.

It is, as some tend to be, an accomplished album. It does what it aims to do: good and personally revealing pop music.

What’s striking about The People’s Record isn’t just how different it sounds. It’s how familiar it sounds while also sounding different.

Push the Heart sounds like a transition. The band proved that they could be jangly and fierce, and then they proved that they could make an album that hung together, and with Push they’re hinting that they can do both.

On Mockingbird, she mostly succeeds in making this very fine collection of songs her own.

Hard Islands is the nasty business that grabs a hold of your short and curlies and never lets go until your rocks are off.

Tongues is a record of surpassing depth and ingenuity.

It’s an affair that is much more snarling and punkish than solemn and introspective and one that appears to have been a good representation of what he had in mind.

Sometimes life-affirming, sometimes unsettling, but always a thing of great beauty.

Rooney is the real deal, and this self-titled debut is perfect summer pop fun that aims to bring a little sophistication to the tried-and-true mainstream boredom, referencing the past and updating it for the present.

Pure is Gary Numan's richest, most powerful and most aggressive work in years.

The pedestrian vocal performance allows his true strengths--in arrangement and melody--to be showcased without intrusion, and it’s a testament to his ability that the thrills run far deeper than surface level.

Though the stylistic lucidity of Please and Thank You will sound like monotony to some, what I tend to hear is a consistently strong batch of songs with a casual sort of thematic unity to them.

This is music made equally for headphones, clubs, and car stereos. This is as creative and re-playable as debut pop albums get

Kill careens from pop rock to cheesy metal to variations on funk throughout its duration, propelled by the energetic imagination and musicianship of the band like an all too phallic torpedo. Electric Six is still a juggernaut to admire, so buckle up and ride the lightning.

Uneasy expressions or not, Swords will slay if given the chance.

If you’re up for stepping into an alternate, folk-rock inspired universe, Sea Wolf is deserving of an ear. White Water, White Bloom is an amazing step for Sea Wolf, ranking near if not at the top of Alex Church’s musical accomplishments.

The most admirable thing Prince Rama does consists in its strangeness. The energy of this album is thrilling, though it's not for everybody.

This stalwart Lawrence, Kansas band returns with 28 minutes of what it does best, namely swath the listener in a dreamlike haze.

On his debut LP, Paddywhack, this one-boy act brings together two incredibly disparate styles-nightclub piano crooning and loop-based sampledelica--to create a collection of tunes that sounds like nothing else in modern pop (no, really).

Some of the artists took different approaches with varying degrees of success.

Both of these compilations [A Collection and 1992-2012: The Anthology] offer an embarrassment of riches, and in very different ways excellent overviews of one of the few long-running, still productive techno bands out there.

The overall impression given by this record is of a band that oozes confidence even as it stretches in new directions.

Heartbreaker Please raises one's spirits by accepting the end as a new beginning. He sings about feeling "Brand New", and while his enthusiasm is suspect, there is a sense of relief present. Thompson's not wallowing; he's re-joining the world and out looking for love.

There’s nothing unexpected in the idea that she would release such a strong album right now. In another way, though, it’s just further evidence that magic always surprises.