There's a warmth and life in these songs that goes beyond tribute or reenactment.

This album is just a few hairs (a couple of tracks and/or segues) short of being a transcendent gem, or masterpiece.

Isidore doesn't really feel like a "side" anything. It's a main event.

Sweetheart of the Sun is something special, easily the second best album of their career.

There were many musical spirits in the room when White and his Spacebomb band went to recording the seven farmhouse-soul spirituals found on Big Inner, but what ultimately renders this record truly special is the band's ability to synthesize all these elements into something that is uniquely their own.

While it has been out in their native land since January and only recently been made available in this country through tiny New York-based What's Your Rupture?, this 12-track typhoon is exactly the kick in the ass our sorry punk community needs in the wake of Jay Reatard's untimely death.

Meat and Bone stands as quite possibly the band's best album to date. The Explosion breaks everything down to its root and reconstructs it all in a perfect way; it should show a generation of cool kids that may have missed him the first time around that Jon Spencer is among garage rock's main guitar slingers.

The textures of this material will transport its listener in ways that few albums of its ilk have achieved in recent memory, implementing the hallowed harmonies embedded in the Sunday mornings of Coldwell's Catholic upbringing to a new level of impassioned cohesion.

Icky Mettle rocks. Hard.

Worden does "brave the war" and becomes quite the victor on All Things Will Unwind, the third studio release and a wowing conclusion to the trifecta of work she has produced since 2006.

This is pure, un-concentrated psychedelic boogie rock rooted in West Coast mysticism, Stax R&B and Memphis blues without pretext or pretense.

The Pearl Sessions with newly found studio outtakes, live performances and chatter rarities, the tumult of its original 1971 (three months after her passing) comes through loud and clear.

Every bit as riveting as the groundbreaking music is the ever-present studio chatter.

There's a sadness, a backwards-looking air to Tarnished Gold that's new. Once the Sparks' hallucinatory trippery signaled youth's endless possibilities. Now their songs, even the new ones, are filtered through a golden, dust-moted, late afternoon light.

There's a dose of the otherworldly in these evocative tracks, but laced, in all but a few cases, with recognizable bits of ordinary life.

The 14 tracks here rank among some of the best Bird's ever done.

One of the best records of the year.

Easily absorbing subcurrents from Bollywood and bhangra ("Deeper Water") to fear-of-nature horror film soundtracks ("Out of the Woods"), This is PiL never wanders far from that fierce bass and pulsing percussion at its core.

The Whole Love should make long-running Wilco-ites ecstatic since this is the best and most adventurous set of Wilco songs in nearly a decade.

The lift-off and liberation come subtly, bearing the masterful marks of men who've learned the value of compositional patience (it's no coincidence that Cave and Ellis have also forged a successful partnership as film scorers). This, ultimately, makes the emotional devastation you experience once the record has spun all the more remarkable.

Good News is an immediately infectious work.

Researching the Blues is a goddamn gem, crackling with energy, that totally celebrates the pure bliss and joy that rock 'n' roll can, and should be. In short, it's everything that you were hoping it would be.

Falling Off the Sky is a fresh start for the band that many of us thought should have dominated the 1980s. Clearly, they still have the chops to dominate the 2010's.

The Odds show that Fugazi doesn't need to reunite in order to make music that still very much matters.

Methinks come the end of the year, a lot of people will have adjudged it a keeper.

A treasure chest of riches that provides considerable new perspective on the band's processes and progress through the years.

Interspersed in between the renditions throughout the course of Accelerando... are five outstanding Iyer-penned performances.

Outside Society serves as an excellent primer for the young person looking to delve into the genius of Patti Smith for the first time as well as an essential addition to the record shelf of any seasoned fan well versed in the catalog of this high priestess of rock 'n' roll.