ROD STEWART Time [Capitol] After a decade of lucrative, critically unloved covers records—five Great American Songbook sets, plus collections of rock and soul chestnuts—Rod Stewart has finally gone back to writing songs. The impetus, he’s said, was his 2012 autobiography, which got him thinking back, taking stock, and basically doing what rock stars do when they research a certain age. With Time, the 68-year-old superstar sings his life in 12... 

BAT FOR LASHES The Haunted Man [Capitol] After earning Mercury Prize nominations for each of her previous albums, Natasha Khan, aka Bat for Lashes, remains broody and beguiled on her self-produced third album. On this cohesive collection, she spins languid arrangements of gentle electronics and channels the ’80s heyday of Kate Bush—to the extent that she even mentions running up hills. Khan’s aptitude for subtle yet striking rhythm is particularly... 

THE DECEMBERISTS Long Live the King [Capitol] Even as they fail to hold together in one piece quite like this year’s full-length The King Is Dead, most of the songs on this six-track EP strike a fine balance between frontman Colin Meloy’s literary depth and some easily accessible tunes. The real keeper here is “Foregone,” on which Meloy’s love poetry is driven forward by a homey steel-guitar lick. Also on the simpler side are the Prince-ly... 

JANE’S ADDICTION The Great Escape Artist [Capitol] Two decades have passed since the first time pioneering alt-rock band Jane’s Addiction broke up, imploding from within via a variety of personality conflicts. Since 1997 the group has reunited in fits and starts with a series of bass players filling in for reluctant original member Eric Avery, including Flea, Martyn LeNoble, Duff McKagan and Chris Chaney. Avery finally rejoined the band in 2008,... 

THE BEACH BOYS The SMiLE Sessions [Capitol] In a scene from the classic movie Citizen Kane, the character of Mr. Bernstein (played by Everett Sloane) rhapsodizes about a comely stranger he briefly spied from a distance some 45 years earlier. “I only saw her for one second,” he says. “She didn’t see me at all, but I’ll bet a month hasn’t gone by since that I haven’t thought of that girl.” There is no beauty quite so radiant as that... 

REISSUE R.E.M. Lifes Rich Pageant (25th Anniversary Edition) [I.R.S./Capitol] While the following year’s Document would be the group’s true commercial breakthrough, the stage for that momentous event had been set by its predecessor, 1986’s Lifes Rich Pageant. The indie-rock heroes signaled a willingness to meet the mainstream halfway—OK, at least a little bit of the way—by tapping John Mellencamp producer Don Gehman. Singer Michael Stipe’s... 

DANGER MOUSE AND DANIELE LUPPI Rome [Capitol] Five years in the making, this collaboration between producer Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) and composer Daniele Luppi is an homage to the stylish sound of ’60s Italian film music, especially the so-called “Spaghetti Western” genre. As directors like Sergio Leone were trying to replicate American westerns a half-century ago, so Burton and Luppi journeyed to Rome to summon the spirit of a musical subgenre... 

BEASTIE BOYS Hot Sauce Committee Part Two [Capitol] The long-awaited eighth Beastie Boys album begins on a familiar note. Over a funky, distorted organ riff and clanging, old-school beat, rappers Michael “Mike D” Diamond, Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz and Adam “MCA” Yauch respectively bark, shriek and croak their lines, complementing one another as they have since the early ’80s when the trio busted out of New York City nearly fully formed.... 

THE DECEMBERISTS The King Is Dead [Capitol] Decemberists leader Colin Meloy has a flair for fanciful storytelling—but because America is too young to have produced its own ancient folklore, he and his cohorts tend to look elsewhere for inspiration. On its last two albums the band drew on Japanese and European traditions, creating elaborate fairy-tale song cycles. On first listen, The King Is Dead seems the opposite: a collection of scaled-back Americana... 

JOHN LENNON Gimme Some Truth [Capitol] BOX SET REVIEW “Look at me,” sang John Lennon in 1970, with the Beatles’ bitter breakup just behind him and an uncertain new decade ahead. “What am I supposed to be?” Every great songwriter asks that question in one way or another, but few do so with the ruthless honesty with which Lennon pursued it through a solo career rich with contradictory impulses, wild course corrections and—of course—an... 

SYD BARRETT An Introduction to Syd Barrett [Capitol] The driving force behind just three full-length albums—Pink Floyd’s 1967 masterpiece The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and the 1970 solo albums The Madcap Laughs and Barrett—the late Syd Barrett nonetheless had a profound impact on rock. This 18-song collection, culled from the above albums and fleshed out with three essential singles, shows why Barrett remains such a revered cult figure. “Arnold... 

REISSUE REVIEW Duran Duran Duran Duran [Capitol] As the 1980s dawned over England, both punk and disco seemed to be in decline. Bands like Birmingham’s Duran Duran began weaving strands of both styles together into a form that came to be known as “New Romantic”—a danceable, synthesizer-driven style that placed a premium on cutting-edge fashion and cutting-edge hooks alike. The band’s self-titled debut served as a template for a sound it... 

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM This is Happening [Capitol] The cliché is that people drink to forget, and the same is true for dance music, as care-nullifying a zone as ever existed. But James Murphy dances—or creates dance music—to remember. The music he masterminds under the LCD Soundsystem banner is at least as focused on lyrics as beats, and the one-man band’s third album, This Is Happening, goes for the gloriously neurotic. It’s very nearly a concept...