Danish raven Amalie Bruun integrates extreme intensity into both genres' [goth/black metal's] inherent drama.

The band's post-thrash attack still levels steel, but minor tweaks--snakefinger solos ("Slave the Hive"), waltz tempos ("The Sunless Years"), thrash dynamics ("Luminiferous"), and psychedelic haze ("The Cave")--bolt a crushing new frame on a classic chassis.

To the Sword's credit, variety pulls its sense of melody to the forefront, though die-hards may find the subsequent loss of energy an uneven trade. Yet "change or die" applies to the Sword as much as anyone, so if the tweaks of High Country act more as window dressing instead of a new structure, the additions enrich a manor in need of upkeep.

Eschewing Top 40 twang's shellacked production as well as God-and-guns patriotism, she adopted a gritty, unfettered small-band approach. Pageant Material maintains those standards, but spruced-up production and the "aw shucks" wonderment of her new reality.

Something More Than Free offers further proof of Jason Isbell's preeminent acuity.

"Get the Point" and "Big Decisions" strike a personal honesty James hasn't revealed before, and closer "Only Memories Remain" hearkens George Harrison as simultaneously devastating and uplifting. The personal is the universal.

A two-disc version of The Monsanto Years includes a DVD offering a full hour of songs, some sounding better than on the album proper.

Formulaic song-structure stagnation lingers since the group's 2005 lineup overhaul and subsequent lackluster LP, Wilco (the Album). In Fact, the sextet borders on complacency in its rock-ribbed space-rock safety net, despite that music's surface eccentricity and innovation.

Sparse renditions here add zero insight.

Loaded with fake anthems and wholly failing to capture the anarchistic musical charisma of past work, Freedom is a worst-case scenario. Refused was better off dead.

Danceable grooves and R&B beats heighten the disc's eclectic imagination.

As with 13 and Think Tank, noodling ensues ("Thought I Was a Spaceman") and melodies never dry fully ("My Terracotta Heart"), but that works both ways when "There Are Too Many of Us" marches into deep-cut territory through space and strings.

There's an enduring ebb and flow, and perhaps some intentional indecision, as the Denton-born Sylvester Stewart swings the band from humanist psychedelia to Church of God in Christ gospel modulation, James Brownian run-outs, and even showtune sing-alongs.

Call Me Insane follows the formula with a couple of minor detours.

10 songs over 35 minutes at first feeling slight--yet not a sax bleed, organ snap, or female choral echo combs out as less than true-blue.

The Traveling Kind bests Old Yellow Moon by merging folk ballads, C & W, and a dollop of Texas soul.

Guitars, energy, and emotions are dialed up in a manner that's unique to Yoakam.

Ratchet gambles at every turn and comes up a major player.

While the tale and methods of In Colour are well-worn, Jamie XX, like Burial and Four Tet before him, proves himself a master storyteller.

Constant Bop lights up a whole lot like his main band's 2011 breakout album D by the second song.

The combination of Wennerstrom's singular vocal style and the Bastards' multilayered guitars remains both lyrically commanding and musically transcendent.

Together, these giants deliver a master class on how country music is supposed to be done. It's also the strongest work of their three-decades-plus partnership.

Nine albums in, the newly downsized trio rolls categorically mind-bending and noisy while sustaining creative novelty.

Derivative but entertaining.

Deeper--his third LP--plunges into his most self-assured head space yet.

The vocals are wan and the production too polished.

Primitive and Deadly fares best when Carlson's emotive solos are afforded due perimeter.

Though culled from improvisational jams, this instrumental exploration of psych's deep catacombs never feels anything less than deliberate.