White Chalk is more chamber music, and a dark chamber at that. The only flickers of light come from Harvey’s voice: high, airy, and imperiled as she weaves her echo-coated and darkly soulful spell till the story’s bleak finale.

Their fourth album isn’t substantially different from their first three: Jones’s delivery, alternately muscular and tender, and the band’s total empathy with the genre’s rules elevate each tune to lost-classic status.

They don't make bands like this anymore.

Almost dreamlike in his flow, Thundercat totes us along by way of his agile bass-neck work, sly Rhodes riffs, and vocals that sound filtered through daisies and sunshine.

These tricks crop up throughout the album--sly moves familiar to house fans are retrofitted to a pop framework, and the result is an entirely new (and very livable) structure

Praise & Blame casts away the extraneous baggage that has weighed down many of Jones's previous recordings and puts the focus squarely on the voice.

The lyrical immediacy and intimacy lift Black City leagues above much of the disassociated drivel that's labeled vocal house.

Teeming with B-sides, live tracks, and demos, much of it previously unreleased, 21 is both exhaustive and indispensable.

The music is neither bastardized nor precious, just a riveting reflection of the ongoing allure and paradox that is the Congo.

Ocean brings substance with style, rather than style demanding to be considered substance.

The fact that Greatest Story didn't drop on a major just attests to how perverted the industry is. That said, the delicious and anthemic Just Blaze beats, money cameos, and precise orchestration that spoiled deals afforded render this the last great major-label rap album of all time - even though it's on an indie.

Phillips captures the imagery, as well as the heart, of an era’s underground.

Middle Cyclone is her most fearless and arresting record, ruthlessly composed and beautifully recorded.

Anyone digging into Maya (or MAYA, as it's being promoted) expecting club-banging pop hits will be . . . not disappointed, but definitely confused.

Ay Ay Ay, the second full-length effort from Chilean-born, German-raised Matias Aguayo (who now splits time between Buenos Aires and Paris) is, in source and spirit, one of the most human dance-pop records of the year.

Elsewhere we get lots of the usual earthquake bass and keening synth arpeggios and staccato horns, and, of course, Jeezy’s hypnotically commanding flow, all of it amounting to one of the hardest mainstream rap albums in years.

Of special note is the 10-minute instrumental 'Suicide and Redemption': listening to it, you almost forget that there are supposed to be words in rock songs, since it’s filled with building riffs, escalating volleys of tension and release, and moments of frantic drum abandon from Lars Ulrich that should do a lot to redeem his standing in Modern Drummer’s Drummer of the Year polls.

The album is full of this kind of mish-mash, but it never feels forced or too clever. In fact, it's the apparent lack of thought that makes the whole thing work.

The only thing Dirty Projectors' fifth album leaves me wishing for is a fifth rating star to wedge in.

From the opening "Variation 1" to the acoustic closer, "Sous le ciel de Paris," Ribot's phrasing is slow and contemplative, so each elegantly chiseled note stands as a beatific example of his virtuosity.

Fear of a Blank Planet is not only their most vintage-sounding album, it’s also their best.

This is his best since his 2000 collaboration with Eric Clapton, "Riding with the King."

The good news is, this album is going to garner a dozen swoons in her direction for each romantic woe she professes on it.

If the down-and-out, early-MCR-worshipping emo set need the equivalent of an "It Gets Better" video to remind them how awesome life can be, no document could be more spirited and persuasive than Danger Days.

AMOK is as heady and immersive as any great Radiohead album, but those comparisons eventually wilt: Yorke's new band has discovered a symmetry all its own.

It can be tricky to pin down Parts & Labor's busy sound - it's noise pop that's not too noisy, or maybe post-punk that's cool with cracking a fat grin - but it almost always has something entertaining going on.

It could have easily gone any of several wrong ways, but Green Day's punk has long since been tempered with pop's most attractive attributes, and 21stCentury Breakdown, like its predecessor, is unapologetically accessible and relentlessly exhilarating.

Most of the songs light up, shine for a while, and pull back so suddenly that you feel a little betrayed. It's a shame these dry lullabies didn't surface earlier in our dreary summer.