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Over a grungy guitar riff, singer Hutch Harris brings his anthemic howl roaring back again and again, but anthems aren't usually this nuanced. "Returning to the Fold" is one of the smartest, most honest depictions of religious anxiety in pop music, and it rocks to boot.

Zero 7's newest album, The Garden, might just be the band's best yet. Filled with lightweight-yet-powerful pop hooks and vocal harmonies, the collaborations with singers Jose Gonzalez and Sia that dot the record help render it organic and beautiful.

Immersing yourself in Dmitri Shostakovich's complete works would take days, but familiarizing yourself with his music should take no more than an afternoon. Shostakovich scholar Simon Morrison picks his three favorite pieces.

Forty years ago, four wacky moptops called The Monkees bounced onto the nation's TV screens and into the hearts of generations of teenage girls. The band made a brief comeback in the late 80s when reruns of their TV show popped up on MTV. That's when producer Petra Mayer became a lifelong Monkee-maniac.

By the time Dr. Octagon's science-fiction caper in miniature ends, countless styles and funk attitudes have been blurred together, subsumed into the rare bit of contemporary hip-hop that fully commits to celebrating genuine weirdness.

The backbeat of Gov't Mule's "Mr. High and Mighty" is a heavy-lidded blast of '70s stomp-rock — Foghat's "Slow Ride" functions as a not-so-distant cousin. But rather than extol stoner virtues, the song expresses indignation over the doings of the craven and powerful.

With each beautiful and jarring chord change, Paul Simon and unlikely collaborator Brian Eno evoke raging rivers metaphorical and literal. It's easy to imagine this song — one of his best — carrying on for hours, an index of torments natural and manmade.

At a gallery in Bay Saint Louis, Miss., artist Lori Gordon has quite literally picked up the pieces in the wake of Hurricane Katrina... and is trying to make sense of the storm with bits of the rubble left behind.

Medical schools and residency programs are under increasing pressure to turn out doctors who are good communicators and compassionate in their interactions with patients. It's a huge challenge, but one program is addressing the issue with monthly lunch for first-year doctors.

San Francisco's Fillmore District is known for its namesake rock venue, but once it was home to legendary jazz clubs. A new photo book preserves the record of a neighborhood that fell victim to "urban renewal."

Sadness permeates Greg Trooper's new album, though he says it wasn't planned that way. "I always... try to leave room for hope at the end," but a couple of songs on the CD "don't really have any doors out."

A national collaboration of radio producers, artists, iron workers, bond traders, historians, widows and widowers commemorate the life and history of the World Trade Center and its neighborhood. A project of Lost and Found Sound and the Sonic Memorial Project.

The saxophonist, who began his career in the '70s, has played with notable names like the Beach Boys and Cannonball Adderley. He's still flowing with music.

Democrats can still advance the nomination of Steve Dettelbach to lead the ATF using procedural moves.

Pink Nasty is a young and talented singer-songwriter whose quirky alt-country songs nicely complement her pretty but powerful voice. She gets her moment in the sun with Will Oldham on "Don't Ever Change," which smartly sums up all of the contradictions, tensions and aggravations inherent in relationships.

By the time 1974's Small Talk came out, Stone was viewed as a has-been — a young, brilliant innovator burnt out by drugs and megalomania. A fresh visit to Small Talk, though, counters that assessment, as evidenced by the wry "Wishful Thinkin'."

Fujiya & Miyagi isn't a duo, and its members aren't named Fujiya or Miyagi. A U.K. trio consisting of David Best (Miyagi), Steve Lewis (Fujiya) and Matt Hainsby (the ampersand), the group mixes the minimalist beats of Krautrock bands like Can, the angular new-wave guitars of Wire and the swirling electronica of Aphex Twin.

Ani DiFranco has spent her entire career living up to the implicit promises that she set down in 1996's "Napoleon." The song still serves as a mission statement, and with the weight of experience behind it, her guitar playing grows claws and the vocals go for blood.

Le Loup is making some of the year's most original and mesmerizing music. The Washington, D.C. band uses plucked banjo, programmed beats, and triumphant harmonies to produce complex and enthralling experimental pop. While the seven-piece group has a full, multifaceted sound, it's all built around a brilliantly crafted melodic core.

For all its impeccably timed swoony grandeur, Band of Horses' Cease to Begin peaks during its subtlest moment: a sweetly lazy ballad with the inexplicable title "Detlef Schrempf." The song is a study in rich, friendly atmosphere.