Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
It’s hard to decide what the most impressive thing about Veckatimest is: Grizzly Bear’s ambition, which is seemingly boundless, or the fact that this boundless ambition never eclipses these songs. The band already made such an impressive leap from Horn of Plenty to Yellow House that an album to catch their breath would have been understandable. However, Grizzly Bear are most comfortable when they’re challenging themselves, and Veckatimest delivers everything that Yellow House did and more.

Mandy Moore – Amanda Leigh
Amanda Leigh is Mandy Moore’s full given name, so it stands to reason that this, her sixth album, finds the pop starlet turned singer/songwriter getting real — not necessarily confessional, but intimate, a record that follows the form and feel of her AAA makeover, Wild Hope. Amanda Leigh improves on that mannered, earnest record not by abandoning or heavily reworking the template (one that has essentially been in place ever since Mandy discovered ’70s singer/songwriters on her 2003 covers album, Coverage), but by strengthening its foundation through working with sympathetic collaborators, chiefly Mike Viola, the singer/songwriter behind the Candy Butchers who has also written period-specific pastiches for the films Walk Hard and That Thing You Do.

Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Realigned with Philippe Zdar, the half of Cassius who mixed United, Phoenix make adjustments on the polarizing characteristics of their second and third albums — the pokey and occasionally listless Alphabetical, the jagged and tune-deficient It’s Never Been Like That — with some of the most direct and enjoyable songs they’ve made to date. The two opening songs, the bopping “Lisztomania” and the buzzing “1901,” are so immediate and prone to habitual play that the remainder of the album is bound to be neglected.

A’s – The A’s/A Woman’s Got the Power
Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women – Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women
Beausoleil/Michael Doucet – Make the Veiller
Black Moth Super Rainbow – Eating Us
Bloodhorse – Horizoner
Boyz II Men – Cooleyhighharmony (Expanded Edition)
James Brown – The Singles, Vol. 7: 1970-1972
Dave Brubeck – Time Out (50th Anniversary Legacy Edition)
The Gary Burton Quartet Revisted – Quartet Live
Bury Your Dead – It’s Nothing Personal
City Center – City Center
Crash Kings – Crash Kings
Creedence Clearwater Revival – The Concert
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Creedence Clearwater Revival Covers the Classics
Miles Davis – Sketches of Spain (50th Anniversary Legacy Edition)
Dimitri from Paris/The Idjut Boys – Night Dubbin’
Thomas Dolby – The Singular Thomas Dolby
Electrik Red – How to Be a Lady, Vol. 1
Sammy Hagar – Street Machine (Bonus Tracks)
Hillsong United – a_CROSS//the_EARTH: Tear Down the Walls
The Intelligence – Fake Surfers
Gary Lewis & the Playboys – Complete Liberty Singles
Lil’ Flip – Certified
Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas – Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas II
Marilyn Manson – The High End of Low
Julian Marley – Awake
Master Musicians of Bukkake – Totem One
Charles Mingus – Mingus Ah Um (50th Anniversary Legacy Edition)
Neaera – Omnicide: Creation Unleashed
Noisettes – Wild Young Hearts
Tito Puente – Dance Mania (Legacy Edition)
Mason Ruffner – Mason Ruffner/Gypsy Blood
Scratch – Loss 4 Wordz
Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens – What Have You Done, My Brother?
Michelle Shocked – Soul of My Soul
Sarah Siskind – Say It Louder
Slakah the Beatchild – Soul Movement, Vol. 1
Luciana Souza – Tide
Sunn 0))) – Monoliths and Dimensions
Super Furry Animals – Dark Days/Light Years
Johnny Winter – The Johnny Winter Anthology
Wand – Hard Knox
Jenny Owen Youngs – Transmitter Failure
Zap Mama – ReCreation
Various Artists – The Man of Somebody’s Dreams: A Tribute to the Songs of Chris Gaffney
Various Artists – Not Given Lightly: A Tribute to the Giant Golden Book of New Zealand’s Alternative Music Scene
Various Artists – Twenty First Century Twenty First Year