Modern Streets brings the eerie emotional heft of psychedelic soul into the age of the personal electronic device, working on a small scale towards mind-expanding ends. Nicely done.

It’s hypnotic in and of itself, and all impressions are purely in the ears/mind of the listener.

Berkeley To Bakersfield is the perfect shotgun rider for any road trip. With the breadth of its variety no other music passengers need be invited along for the ride.

This record isn’t just Worthy--it’s essential.

Gone are the raucous “Whiskey River”-style jams, but in its place are an albums worth of lazy afternoon porch songs that you can’t help but love.

An exceptionally strong debut record, Soul Power will make you believe in the title concept.

Half a century later, Look Again to the Wind serves as a stirring homage to an album that remains as daring and defiant now as it was when it was first offered to an indifferent populace.

There’s a Bluebird in My Heart is the sound of a great artist coming back home.

The album is a holiday classic in waiting, even if you don’t own a single pair of skinny jeans and couldn’t grow a beard to save your life.

Mark Kozelek Sings Christmas Carols is a remarkably faithful, utterly transcendent take on what I will humbly submit is the beatific, unadorned side of Christmas music.... This is the holiday release of the year.

With IX, Trail of Dead consolidates its stance as one of the ‘aughties’ most consistently interesting prog bands.

Taken as a whole, Kykeon seems more cohesive, less add-x-to-y, than the self-titled debut.

It’s quite a gift to fans, too. Live in Memphis—which has a corresponding DVD available separately--finds Chilton, particularly, in good voice, his obvious playfulness all the more engaging given that he’s performing before a hometown crowd.

In sum, The Best Day is the Sonic Youth album that Sonic Youth fans feared would never happen in the wake of the band’s split in 2011.

This third full-length, after a slew of singles, fills out his sound, soothing abrasive beats with a floating fog of sustained notes.

Museum of Love is a nonformulaic, hard to pin down, quirky and danceable album.

That’s maybe what’s so remarkable about Faith in Strangers, its uneasy balance between beauty and menace, calm and roiling intensity.

The Fact Facer is a nuanced, multi-leveled listen that stands with the best things Amos--and anyone covering similarly adventurous terrain--has done.

While there aren’t any revelatory moments of creative growth here, the best songs on Still Life suggest Morby still had plenty left in the NYC tank.

He just hides his eccentricities a little better this time. You have to look for them, but they’re there.

Costello, James, Mumford, Goldsmith and Giddens put their disparate origins aside and pull together as a team. They clearly own these songs, and ply them accordingly. Both credence and comradery play crucial roles here, elevating this effort to that of an essential acquisition.

Prophet can be, by turns, both snarky and sardonic, qualities the aforementioned forebears know all too well. Happily though, he himself is no slacker, especially when it comes to both sentiment and sarcasm.

The first sketches of songs that would later buttress both Dylan and the Band’s songbook--“Tears of Rage,” “Nothing Was Delivered,” “I Shall Be Released,” You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” Don’t Ya Tell Henry,” “Quinn the Eskimo,” “Million Dollar Bash,” “Lo and Behold!” and the like--offer a treasure trove of revelation, making the anticipation for acquisition well worth the wait.

Nobody has ever really sounded like Chrome but Chrome, and that makes Feel It Like a Scientist sound as fresh now as it did back in the bad old days.

One imagines certain purist fans recoiling and dropping out while a host of newcomers discover ‘em.

His ability to arrange is masterful and, on Way Out Weather, he establishes this sort of psychedelic roots sound that exists outside of about any recognizable genre or even sub-genre.

This is My Hand is one big ball of skill, imagination and love of musical creation.

There’s an uncommon depth here that hasn’t been evidenced on Williams records in ages, both in the sonics (an immaculately crafted blend of intimate and widescreen) and the lyrics, which at times are deeply confessional and others downright defiant as the songwriter stares down her demons, the vicissitudes of relationships and the rampant idiocy of the outside world.