The resulting album Look to the East, Look to the West is both a fitting tribute to what the band once was and a powerful new beginning.

There's no fat, no excess, so the craft that services the emotion is difficult to deny.

He doesn't merely juxtapose instruments and sounds, he painstakingly combines them, bringing joy, intensity, political, social, and spiritual poignancy in a vision at once focused, restless, and playful.

Despite its lyrical intensity, there is an abundance of passion and joy in Mdou Moctar's music that can't help but spill over with communal energy. This is a band and artist working at their peak, and Funeral for Justice is a career highlight.

Reasonable Woman gets Sia back on track, joining Fear and Acting as one of the most compelling and listenable efforts in her post-breakthrough catalog -- a huge relief for anyone who thought she had lost her touch.

Setting its heavy heart aside, the album still affects with an emotional roller coaster of musical material, recommended together for a good dance-cry.

Her songs are still wounded and far away, but the expanded instrumentation gives them a prismatic glow and makes for one of the most fascinating and repeatable sets from an artist who was already in a class by herself.

A Dream Is All We Know mixes up its subjects of study but chooses obsessively detailed replication over the hints of originality and vulnerable emotions that start emerging when the Lemon Twigs let their guard down.

With its loping, relaxed grooves and patina of sweetened strings, $10 Cowboy could be mistaken for a product of FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, not an album originating from a small studio in Austin, Texas.

Cole's bars concentrate primarily on how far ahead of everyone else in the game he is and how his skills are unapproachable.

It's that sound of love, the fantasy vs. the reality of a relationship, that fascinates McAlpine and makes Older such a lovely and bittersweet experience.

WE STILL DON'T TRUST YOU is a nearly 90-minute sprawl divided into two parts.

While that song ["No One"] is hard-hitting enough to count as a standout, One Million Love Songs is nothing if not consistent, with 11 gifts for the lonely-hearted.

Fun sonic flourishes abound, like the heady call-and-response of "Incognito" or the winding melody that gives "Explorer" a phantom of the discotheque vibe, but ultimately, Hyperdrama is neither catchy enough to play to the duo's pop strengths nor bold enough to highlight Justice's experimental skills.

The slow crawl through the nightmarish "Murder of Sunrise" doesn't need to be 17 minutes long, but otherwise, That Delicious Vice finds Kid Congo Powers going from strength to strength as a frontman, and holds a special place in his stellar resumé.

Wiggle Your Fingers' ten songs are canny and beautifully executed pastiches of West Coast soft rock, sunshine pop, jangle pop, and polished psychedelia, and he's even moved forward enough to add a dash of new wave to the formula, as evidenced in the slightly angular keyboards on "Second Chance" and the power-pop crunch of "The Dropouts."

Beam has done this kind of thing before, but he seems to be digging a little deeper lyrically here, while crafting arrangements that are truly lush and lovely, better than any on previous Iron & Wine albums. That's a high bar, but he soars over it with plenty of room to spare, and in the end Light Verse turns out to be one of the most enjoyable, varied, and well-crafted of the band's records.

Clark has more than earned the freedom she gives herself to express so many different sides to her music, and it's a thrill to hear her stretch out on these ferocious, heartbroken, and ultimately life-affirming songs.

The first half verges on sluggish -- the call to "Release the pressure -- big, big fun" comes across as unenthusiastic, maybe even sarcastic -- but most of the songs do have an alluring quality. There's considerably more verve and buoyancy to the second half.

While the feelings here are melodramatic and overexpressed, sometimes to the point of ridiculousness, this also has some of Swift’s best work, and much of the best pop music ever made.

It's rough-around-the-edges fun, with the warmth of familiarity and kinship that Neil Young & Crazy Horse have built by playing together for more than half a century.

Hawkwind still sound like themselves and nobody else on Stories from Time and Space, and if it doesn't break new ground, it's the work of a band with interesting ideas and the talent and imagination to make something of them, which not many groups can manage, let alone one that's been doing this for more than half a century.

Final Summer is another strong album from a remarkably consistent band, but it's the wisdom, maturity, and joy Cloud Nothings bring to it makes it an especially satisfying listen.

Jim White is undoubtedly a masterful musician, but All Hits: Memories never quite gets off the ground, and it feels like the type of record that might be of interest to fellow drummers but will have limited appeal for anyone else.

It's a richly orchestrated, superbly crafted effort that veers between several different emotional states before its time is up.

Most bands don't sound as fresh, confident, and willing to take chances three decades into their career as the Old 97's do on American Primitive; they've quietly but firmly matured into one of America's best roots rock acts.

Blue Eclipse is fully realized, a 12-track, groove-intensive set that's so smooth and delicious it's a top candidate for the summer soundtrack of 2024.

Time will tell if Lavers is snatched up for work in scoring or if he will develop his songwriting on future albums, but based on this under-30-minute taste, his handiwork seems destined for continuation.