Amid synth-y disco ­dalliances ("Alive Tonight") and soul-funk workouts ("Your Girl"), she leaves room for snarling riffs on "Look What We've Become" and acoustic boom on "Empty Heart," reminiscent of Sheryl Crow's "Leaving Las Vegas."

The music is spacious, paranoid and sultry; the lyrics are ­suggestive and knotted.

Even in English, even without bachata, Royce hasn't lost what makes him ­special: his ability to emote, to deliver lyrics as though he believes them vehemently and make the listener do the same.

Despite its numerous flaws, Compton is still one of the most engaging listening experiences of the year.

Legend, like Gunplay’s professed diet, is a potent mix of uppers, downers and hallucinogens; it makes for a weird, and weirdly satisfying, trip.

On Yung Rich Nation, the band of brothers shows it’s reliable enough to deliver hits, but ambitious enough to rise to a challenge.

Stone is clearly still finding her sound and, if Water is any indication, herself, too.

The achingly good Something More Than Free, captures the mix of excitement and fear that comes when the sun rises on a new day.

The tunes are competently rendered, but that actually makes them worse: That these guys are selling out shows as what amounts to a cover band is the kind of thing you need to be super-baked to wrap your head around.

Produced by a handful of trusted Atlanta trap producers, DS2 is gothic, narcotic and full of overcast skies.

Monroe sings these songs, many of which she co-wrote, with exquisite, bruised sensitivity.

At this point, the Brothers are effectively ­historians, and the album's most thrilling moments are often references to their own past or inspirations.

Behind the dance bump, Communion is confessional synth-pop with a heart full of heavy feelings.

Dreams Worth More Than Money is surprisingly focused, presenting an uncomfortably lucid, non-pensive character study detailing the underside of the American Dream.

She's confident for a new artist, but this promising debut backs up her big words.

Finally, a deluxe version of their 1971 masterpiece Sticky Fingers that includes a bounty of concurrent outtakes and live material, along with a companion DVD/CD release of a live-for-TV performance.... [Sticky Fingers itself] is indisputably one of the greatest albums of 1970s, if not the entire the rock era. The end.

[A] promising, unapologetically dense debut.

Taylor is at his best when he brings his fuddy-duddy charm.

There's nothing on Wildheart to make one lose faith in Miguel's promise as a major creative and popular force of the decade, but neither is there enough to feel like he has satisfied his warring sides. Instead, it's a case of his sense of space still sharpening, and the hope for his full emergence, repping for a generation that won't accept outdated double binds, yet to come.

Deja-Vu is at its best when it sounds like a victory lap, not a labored attempt to keep up.

Grand Romantic has some moments more danceable than dour.

This is an even better album than her last, with more consistency and variety.

As an ode to nuptial bliss, the album is both ­convincing and surprisingly coquettish.

Lantern is a beautifully restrained--by HudMo standards, that is--concept album that mirrors a full day, yawning awake with palate-clearing drones and ending ecstatically in the wee hours of a club utopia.

The band hasn't lost its sense of wonder--it's just seeing the world through a more realistic lens.

Muse is one of the world's biggest rock bands, but for all its missionary zeal, Drones preaches to the converted.

The album lacks the obvious potential hits to guarantee that, although the moody, Jeremih-featuring single "Like Me" is easy to get lost in. The album does, however, strike a graceful balance between gritty roots and big-budget sheen.

Jamie xx is among other U.K. electronic-dance acts, such as Disclosure and Four Tet, that are tapping the genre's past to forge its future. But no one has nailed it quite like this.