Fortifying her monstrous singles "Galang" and "Sunshowers" with further molten munitions, Arular is primed for worldwide insurrection.

Pianos bounce, strings swell, and the band gets down to business on all 12 tracks.

The 17-year-old sensation takes pop iconography and musical status quo and lacerates it, opting out of femme fatale for tomboy cargos and goth macabre, and sleek soundscapes for creepy eccentrics.

Gone are any remnants of yesteryear's "rock music" ideology, thrusting Radiohead into a mature state of potentially their best work still to come.

The album brims with delicate moments like the title track and standout "Victor Roberts." In the former, plumes of electronics caress empathetic lines with genuine emotion, while the latter introduces new associate Victor Roberts with crystallized observations of childhood trauma and grimy electricity. Exhibition of vulnerability and invincibility, Ginger blood-lets an emotional palette where wounds are finally left to heal.

Where Rufus' work is fabulously bedazzled, Martha's remains earth-hued and loamy--rich, deep, complex--making Married well worth the wait.

With its durable theme and shambling demeanor, United States makes a different kind of sense with each successive spin. It's adult rock music in the best sense of the oxymoron.

Cotonou Club is first and foremost a tribute to that place and time – a period partially documented on 2009 Analog Africa compilation Legends of Benin. The 11-piece Orchestre reprises some of its best material, most notably the rebel soul of "Von Vo Nono" and standout "Gbeti Madjro," the latter featuring Angélique Kidjo, and both for the better.

[They] have taken their love of Fifties kitsch and Sixties pop off the Jesus & Mary Chain Gang of Love and down to the Velvet Underground.

The cameos (T.I., Janelle Monáe, Gucci Mane) hit all the right spots, the skits are delightfully juvenile, and Big Boi's idiosyncratic delivery and tightrope cadences throughout teeter toward Jedi mind tricks. Stank you very much.

New Multitudes is a resilient tribute to Woody Guthrie based on the folk pioneer's unpublished lyrics.

My Love Is A Hurricane ransacks David Ramirez to emerge bloody but unbowed.

Crack the Skye is a prog-metal classic, void of pretension or hesitation.

By the Way is orchestral, taunting, sinister, beatific, rousing, jocular, nervy, ethereal, and dare I say it, mature.

If you're a fan, The Storyteller is something you'll treasure. If you're not, it's sure to make you one.

Their music is an amazing nexus where surgical precision, ace musicianship, and thrifty minimalism intertwine joyously.

Much of Play sounds like it was beamed directly from planet Sad Guy, but it's far and away Moby's most cohesive and affecting work to date.

The album's trap-psych spaciousness blends so that most of Astroworld plays out like a single long, spectacularly mixed track.

Thompson's never been less than inspiring in concert, but here his singing seems especially urgent, while a few of his guitar leaps will leave you shaking your head in wonderment.

This year's 40th anniversary of Woodstock brought many tributes and recollections, but none as satisfying as this 6-CD collection of music and more.

If the Datsuns' retro sound is currently getting them Strokes/Stripes levels of hype, their blow-the-doors-off passion should allow them to leave their peers in the dust.

The craggy acoustic set sandwiched between electric workouts (metallic "Black Queen") counts off the hits ("Only Love Can Break Your Heart," "Guinevere," "Teach Your Children"), never better than Nash's breathtaking piano rendition of "Our House" at Wembley. Glimpse it on the rather short-shift, bootleg quality 40-minute DVD, where the foursome's harmonies cut through the cynicism of the times like a dove finally vanquishing the hawk.

Green Twins realizes a sound that's truly Hakim's own.

Here Be Monsters, the Brit expat's latest under the recurring Skull Orchard banner, embodies all of the qualities of Langford's best work, emphasizing the bittersweet, introspective edge that's become increasingly prominent in his work in recent years.

Follow-up Take Care, Take Care, Take Care largely forgoes the wide-screen expanse of the band's Friday Night Lights film soundtrack (2004) if favor of a more insular experience, casting intrigue in the minute details.

He's the finest true soul voice of his generation.

"Fool" embodies this power structure as she manages to forge together all ranges of her nostalgic vocalizations and eclipse them outright with a full-on frontwoman wail. Feats such as that can only be pulled off with pedigree and talent, both of which Molly Burch debuts in spades on Please Be Mine.

Rather than adapting Kerouac's writing into the usual frantic jazz inflections, Farrar lifts lines into rootsy blues and Americana shades, surfacing the author's uniquely skewed and stunning phrases.