If this record isn't as compelling as Frosties past, it at least signals a veteran innovator still engaged in his craft.

II ain't what doom could be, but it's perfect for what it is.

The pounding "Portraits," gloomy "Severed Lives," and wonderfully odd "Deathtripper" betoken a metal band reaching new peaks in agile brutality.

Offering plenty of catharsis, Eyehategod gives good acrimony.

Boasting enough insidious imagination to evolve beyond easy metallic labels, Agalloch transports The Serpent and the Sphere into its own phantasmagoric astral plane.

Metal purists who still long for Leviathan Part 4 will find new reasons to excoriate their former saviors, but the rest will be too busy marveling at Mastodon's near-perfect fusion of might and melody.

Troy Jamerson remains one "Bad M.F.," most evident on fifth track "Damage," a pointed anthem about pop culture and sociological injustices over a searing sample extracted from LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out."

Garbus' greatest asset remains her voice. That wail she employs as a macabre bedtime croon carries in it more than child's play.

Metamodern Sounds in Country Music uses the genre's classic narratives to obscure right and wrong in the search for higher truths.

Turn Blue pivots on such low-stakes grooves, the same ones sold so effectively to the mainstream. You could do a lot worse, but that of course is both a blessing and curse.

This young Okie's continuing search for his own voice puts Songs in heady company.

Expansive cross-pollination at its finest, Lazaretto's dizzying Pandora's box of funk, blues, and hillbilly soul shakes and bakes enough to require a shrink-wrapped bottle of Dramamine.

Like 2010's The Foundling, this seventh studio LP draws marrow from Gauthier's bones, cauterizing the wounds of a relationship into one of the most devastating breakup albums of all time.

Despite a handful of structurally underdeveloped songs like designated rock-driver "Hummingbird," compelling moments carry the day.

Past its christening Dylanesque by way of Todd Snider – Miller echoing Tom Petty's hard consonants – it's all lyrically downhill across party anthems ("Wasted"), fuck songs ("Let's Get Drunk & Get It On"), drug shrugs ("The Disconnect") and antidotes ("Intervention"), plus a token "This Is the Ballad."

From skittish garage-blues ("Duckin and Dodgin") to pale blue-eyed elongations ("Instant Disassembly"), it all hits like a blast of warm subway air on a cold day.

Kelley Stoltz, Michigander with a heart full of British singsong, delivers pure pop nostalgia on Double Exposure.

The Florida trio's first studio album in a decade and third LP overall revives a signature wall of bassless grunge, strummed on a pair of down-tuned guitars expunging riffs as thick as a Proust box set.

Encrypted menace, lonely tremolo, and herky-jerk rhythms abound on the Detroit quartet's second album.

More assuage than assault, Nothing gives warm hugs really loudly.

Revelation notches BJM's 24th release, as potent a psychedelic experience as you'll find in 2014.

It's only 33 minutes, but it leaves the listener purple--proof that brutality can be catchy when provoked.

The point of psych is that drugs enhance the musical experience, but only 16 hits of trucker speed could focus this droney mess.

San Diego triangle Isaiah Mitchell, Mike Eginton, and Rocket From the Crypt propulsionist Mario Rubalcaba hurtle third studio LP and first since 2007 into the void atop a gloriously earthen pachyderm crunch on four tracks.

Lost in the Dream matches last year's Wakin' on a Pretty Daze from Vile riff for riff.

The epic finally coalesces into an explosive, screaming climax that finds clarity in chaos.

12th album Lousy with Sylvianbriar strums out a more agreeable amalgam for the veteran Athens, Ga., clown car.

A burbling psychedelic rain forest that harks back to the vintage wood nymph traditions that once defined the AnCo legacy.