The Hold Steady's sixth studio album exemplifies what Craig Finn and friends have done better than their contemporaries: They play guitar-driven rock music with smart lyrics.

Drive-By Truckers are back with the tenth album of their nearly 20-year career, and this might be one their finest. The Truckers sing about what they know: real people with real-life problems in small-town America. They deliver their music with conviction, simplicity and grit.

Phantogram's new release 'Voices' is such a series of knockouts, it can give the record the feel of a singles collection, or even a greatest hits album.

Temples, a four-piece band from England, did not set out to make a modern-sounding record; their album 'Sun Structures' is filled with reverb-soaked vocals and fuzzy guitars that whirl around you like a 1960s or '70s blizzard of sound.

Billed as a sequel to his 2002 release, 'Sea Change', Beck's new album, 'Morning Phase' has a heavier gravity to it, writes Steve Seel. Beck's pensiveness is more reflective, his sadness somehow more informed. And the result is an extremely rewarding experience.

With their second full offering, Broken Bells (Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, and James Mercer) are at the top of their game, letting go of any former walls and perfectly blending their musical worlds together.

This new compilation of covers by various artists has, like all love stories, a few bumpy rides along the way, but hopefully by the end, your heart has been won over and you'll have a positive outlook for Valentine's Day.

Jeremy Messersmith's new album expands on the sound of his previous work, with more propulsion in the drums, more deft deployment of strings, more muscle in the guitars and more great songs from Minnesota's current (and Current) favorite son.

Bruce Springsteen is back with one of the more interesting albums he's recorded. His 18th studio album is a kind of an "odds & sods" collection, and the first culled from older material.

'Wig Out at Jagbags' is a refreshing reminder of an indie-rock era when lyrics mattered, and is everything you'd expect from the man often called the smart guy of indie rock.