Quasimoto

Yessir Whatever

Stones Throw

Rap

Twelve years of rare recordings from hip-hop producer Madlib's alter ego are collected on this weird and woozy set.

— David Jeffries

Randy Newman

Monsters University [Original Score]

Walt Disney

Stage & Screen

Randy Newman's music for the Monsters, Inc. prequel builds on the orignal film's sprightly score with a rah-rah college feel.

— Heather Phares

Kanye West

Yeezus

Roc-A-Fella / Universal International / Virgin

Rap

Anger and ego both overfloweth, but West's stunning, punkish sixth solo album is unlike anything you've heard before.

— David Jeffries

J. Cole

Born Sinner

Columbia

Rap

The Roc Nation rapper get ambitious on his sophomore release, taking on Jay-Z's big Black Album style and generating plenty of exciting hip-hop.

— David Jeffries

Sigur Rós

Kveikur

XL

Pop/Rock

Sigur Rós' seventh album finds the band exploring a darker sound that mixes the soothing with the unsettling.

— Gregory Heaney

Kelly Rowland

Talk a Good Game

Universal Republic

R&B

Rowland dispenses with European dance-pop and laces her fourth LP with more suggestive/explicit content, as well as a powerful ballad.

— Andy Kellman

Primal Scream

More Light

1st International / First International / Ignition Records

Pop/Rock

Primal Scream pull together all their disparate influences on the bold, rather brilliant More Light.

— Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Zomby

With Love

4AD

Electronic

Street and chic, enticing and elusive, the masked producer's second 4AD LP is another forward-glancing spin on past and present electronic sounds.

— Andy Kellman

Empire of the Sun

Ice on the Dune

Astralwerks / Virgin EMI

Pop/Rock

The duo's second album dials up the pop quotient, masterfully and with thrilling results.

— Tim Sendra

The Mowgli's

Waiting for the Dawn

Island / Virgin EMI

Pop/Rock

The sophomore full-length studio album from the laid-back, yet exuberant Los Angeles folk-rock outfit.

— Matt Collar

Rick Moranis

My Mother's Brisket & Other Love Songs

Loudmouth Entertainment / Warner Bros. / Warner Music

Comedy/Spoken, International

Eight years after his country music-flavored album, the comedic great returns with a joyful tribute to his Jewish American heritage.

— David Jeffries

Statik Selektah

Extended Play

Duck Down Entaprizez / Showoff Records

Rap

The hip-hop producer enlists the help of all the rappers in his Rolodex for this thickly crafted, golden age-themed album.

— Jason Lymangrover

3OH!3

Omens

Atlantic / Photo Finish Records

Pop/Rock, Rap

The fourth studio album from the irreverent Boulder Frat rap duo is a mix of humorous party jams and a few earnest electro anthems.

— Matt Collar

Austra

Olympia

Domino

Pop/Rock

Their first album as a six-piece, Olympia reveals a more intimate and more elaborate version of Austra.

— Heather Phares

Heitor Pereira / Pharrell Williams

Despicable Me 2 [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

Universal Studios

Stage & Screen

The second time around for Pharrell Williams and composer Heitor Pereira is just as winningly despicable as the first.

— James Christopher Monger

Hanson

Anthem

Three Car Garage

Pop/Rock

Hanson go big and bold on the appropriately titled Anthem.

— Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Bill Frisell

Big Sur

Okeh Records / Masterworks

Jazz, Folk

Commissioned by the Monterey Jazz Festival, the guitarist delivers a magnificently performed suite by combining two of his best working groups.

— Thom Jurek

Lou Doillon

Places

Barclay / Decca

Pop/Rock

The French actress and model's accomplished debut album has an earthy elegance that evokes Karen Dalton, Joni Mitchell, and Cat Power.

— Heather Phares

James McCartney

Me

Burnside / ECR Music Group

Pop/Rock

James McCartney's debut album Me is a collection of subtly crafted melodic folk-pop.

— Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Melt Yourself Down

Melt Yourself Down

The Leaf Label

Jazz, Pop/Rock

The self-titled debut from this freewheeling combo delivers irresistible Nubian party punk.

— Heather Phares

Polysics

Weeeeeeeeee!!!

JPU Records

Pop/Rock

After a decade's worth of releases, the Japanese group continues to make its unique brand of synthesizer punk fun.

— Jason Lymangrover

The Secret History

Americans Singing in the Dark

Cloudberry

Pop/Rock

The group's second album burns with same desperate passion as their debut, and comes with added confidence and inspired songs.

— Tim Sendra

The Mantles

Long Enough to Leave

Slumberland

Pop/Rock

The group's second album is mostly quiet and melancholic, but still full of energetic jangle and hummably psychedelic songs.

— Tim Sendra

Beach Day

Trip Trap Attack

Kanine Records

Pop/Rock

Modern update of summery girl group sounds by a Florida trio with a knack for hooky, breezy tunes.

— Tim Sendra

Valient Thorr

Our Own Masters

Volcom Entertainment

Pop/Rock

Valient Thorr deliver a sonic high five on their sweaty and super fun riff-fest of a sixth album.

— Gregory Heaney

Lemuria

The Distance Is So Big

Bridge 9 Records

Pop/Rock

The third outing from the Buffalo-based trio is a love letter to all things Pavement-era Matador Records.

— James Christopher Monger

Phish

Ventura

Jemp Records

Pop/Rock

Ventura is a six-disc archival set containing two complete Phish concerts from 1997 and 1998.

— Stephen Thomas Erlewine

High on Fire

Spitting Fire Live, Vol. 2

Entertainment One

Pop/Rock

High on Fire's live set takes a turn for the psychedelic on the second volume of their two-part live series.

— Gregory Heaney

Tunng

Turbines

Full Time Hobby

Pop/Rock

With their fifth album, this long-running U.K. collective seamlessly blend mismatched elements of earthy folk and sterile electronics.

— Fred Thomas

Woody Guthrie

Woody Guthrie at 100! Live at the Kennedy Center

Legacy / Sony Legacy

Country, Folk

What quickly becomes obvious is how varied, versatile, poignant, literate, and lyrical Guthrie was as a songwriter.

— Steve Leggett

Sublime

3 Ring Circus - The Bootleg Series: Live at the Palace

Geffen / Hip-O

Pop/Rock

Sublime deliver a killer live set in 1995, unaware of the tragedies and triumphs they'd face the following year.

— Gregory Heaney

Spectrals

Sob Story

Slumberland

Pop/Rock

The sophisticated indie pop group's second album improves on their debut with better songs and a scuffed-up sound.

— Tim Sendra

Bill Kirchen

Seeds and Stems

Proper Records

Country, Pop/Rock

Bill Kirchen revisits many of his great songs on the tremendously fun Seeds & Stems.

— Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Heliotropes

A Constant Sea

Manimal Vinyl

Pop/Rock

Extracting the weighty dread and punishing riffs from doom metal, this Brooklyn band's debut is some of the heaviest indie rock imaginable.

— Fred Thomas

Glen Clark / Delbert & Glen / Delbert McClinton

Blind, Crippled and Crazy

New West

Country, Pop/Rock

After 40 years, this singing, songwriting pair reunite for a good-time set of rootsy rock, roadhouse blues, Texas R&B, and country.

— Thom Jurek

Donna the Buffalo

Tonight, Tomorrow and Yesterday

Sugar Hill

Pop/Rock, International, Country, Folk

Still sounding like a string band at some Appalachian summer hoedown, even if electric guitar riffs mingle in with the fiddle and washboard reels.

— Steve Leggett

Iasos

Celestial Soul Portrait

Numero Group

New Age

A fine compilation of early sounds by an outsider electro-acoustic pioneer from the dawn of ambient and new age music.

— Thom Jurek

Joel Harrison 19

Infinite Possibility

Sunnyside Communications

Jazz

The guitarist and composer's first foray into writing for jazz big band is wildly creative, disciplined, and thought-provoking.

— Thom Jurek

James MacMillan

James MacMillan: Magnificat

Challenge Classics

Classical

MacMillan gets very sympathetic results from the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic and Netherlands Radio Choir, marking strong performances of his work by non-British musicians.

— James Manheim

Julian Cope

Revolutionary Suicide

Head Heritage

Pop/Rock

The Archdrude's feisty 29th album is a winning combination of solid songwriting and experimentalism that harks back to his mid-'90s heyday.

— Timothy Monger

Piotr Beczała / Łukasz Borowicz / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Heart's Delight: The Songs of Richard Tauber

Deutsche Grammophon

Classical

There is a sense of fun about this whole thing that puts across something of what Tauber must have been like.

— James Manheim

Tripwires

Spacehopper

Frenchkiss Records

Pop/Rock

Experimental production blends with '90s alt-rock tendencies and shoegaze guitar atmospheres on this lush debut.

— Fred Thomas

Wadada Leo Smith / Tumo

Occupy the World

TUM Records

Avant-Garde, Jazz

The prolific composer and trumpeter delivers five lengthy, often startling new compositions with a large Nordic ensemble.

— Thom Jurek

Philippe Jordan / Paris National Opera Orchestra

Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune; Stravinsky: Le Sacre du Printemps; Ravel: Boléro

Naïve

Classical

Three classics associated with the Ballets Russes are presented by Philippe Jordan and the Orchestre de L'Opéra National de Paris.

— Blair Sanderson

Jeffrey Biegel

A Grand Romance

Steinway & Sons

Classical

These pieces are generally played as encores and for the most part the mood is lyrical and the mode of expression concise.

— James Manheim

Emerson String Quartet / Colin Carr / Paul Neubauer

Journeys

Sony Classical

Classical

Not content with simply recrossing safe territory, this is a bold move from some veteran musicians.

— James Manheim

Matthias Schorn / Minetti Quartett

Mozart, Brahms, Sulzer: Clarinet Quintets

CAvi-music

Classical

This performance makes Brahms' music crystal clear, and the final variation set has a kind of transcendence.

— James Manheim

Steve Gunn

Time Off

Paradise of Bachelors

Pop/Rock

This guitarist's guitarist leads a warm, sophisticated, and creative trio date that focuses as much on his songwriting as his playing.

— Thom Jurek

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