Unexpectedly, one of the most beautiful and hopeful albums of the year comes from Black Angels singer Alex Maas. Luca capstones 2020 with a reminder of what's truly important and wondrous in the world.

It's a rare occasion of art transcending influence, with Toledo sounding like he's coming apart while doing it.

The music is like some unholy amalgamation of Born to Run-era Springsteen and Billy Joel shazam. This is a good thing.

An enchanting, rhapsodic album of uncommon depth.

The freshest, most exhilarating rap album of 2013.

These anthems drive their points home with unearthly force.

By the time "Everyone's a V.I.P. to Someone" brings Thunder, Lightning, Strike to cinematic closure, you're all out of breath and wanting to ride again.

Most of the album could pass as solo recordings, like the slow-motion slumber of "Earthquake!" and the girl group gauze of "Basement Scene," but that's balanced with more concise, full band selections that sound like half-remembered 1960s pop songs.

With 10 feet in several camps, New Jersey's Dillinger Escape Plan whips back and forth between dissonant thrash and brooding prog rock on its allegedly final studio LP.

The secret to Fountains of Wayne's genius is the ability to infuse personality into a typically personalityless segment of America, making sadness and mundanity both interesting and deceptively fun.

Underneath the blustery sass and cynicism sparkles a tender human being still nursing old wounds.

What a sublime hush of an album. Your iPhone dreams about this music.

It seems Murphy enrolled in the Mark E. Smith School of Pronuncia-shun-uh for several of the tracks, but he manages to jump from messy psych ("Tired") to straight-up jams ("Yeah") without turning in his indie cred card.

Phantasmagoric extras time out at an hour's worth of EPs, singles, and demos.

Often delivered in an off-key falsetto, the vocal stylings of Bardo Martinez aren't technically sound, but like the band itself they overflow with warmth and infinite charm.

The force of Okkervil's last LP, '03's Down the River of Golden Dreams, is strengthened and stretched on Black Sheep Boy, bursting with the heaviness of heart.

The music remained classic rock with the "& roll" restored. Comparatively, the surrounding tunes on the radio were pandering nonsense. An American Treasure demonstrates everything we're missing with Tom Petty's absence. The loss is profound.

More than anything, Shields feels like a deliberate maturation of Arcade Fire's The Suburbs, trading adolescent angst for an older disillusion and heartbreak. The same tension exists between the two, especially in swelling closers "Half Gate" and "Sun in Your Eyes," yet here, they're more intricately expressed and controlled.

Her debut long-player LP1 is proof that talent can only thrive in the shadows for so long.

Feast of Wire is even more intricately arranged than The Black Light, though the sheer diversity of this album prevents it from approaching the grand gestalt of Black Light.

With Stone Rollin', California's vintage soul man is doubling down on the classic R&B while drawing from a deeper well and muddying up the water. Hitsville is still part of the formula, but so now are Howlin' Wolf and Sly Stone.

Indian throws a temper tantrum on From All Purity that goes beyond petulance and into an appropriately pure state of sanity-stomping anguish, purging the demons with sulfuric acid and a nail-studded baseball bat.

The tones and the story told -- wordlessly throughout -- are exquisite.

The characters are memorable, the satire sharp, the music luxurious, and the arrangements maybe the most gorgeous in all pop music.

"Batu" (Indonesia) circles but never lands, while closer "Praise Be Man" gurgles the end too early, but this hot comet Empros is anything but Greek.

Aural adventurers, the mothership has landed.

What makes the seventh Wovenhand LP such a refreshing departure [is] Refractory Obdurate is the unabashed electric rock LP the Colorado fourpiece has hinted at in its last two releases.

While a few songs aren't quite as fleshed out as others, nearly every selection on White Blood Cells provides the sort of bluesy good-time kicks otherwise unavailable in today's pop marketplace.