RiYL

Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, Action Swingers, Lydia Lunch, Mick Collins -- Bob Bert has kept the beat for some of the best. This year, the drummer's own name finally graces the front of the album, with Beach Bongo Bloodbath. Mixing original with wildly original covers, the record puts the percussion's unique voice on full display.

If anything thing, Sorry Kid's existence is a testament good bookkeeping. Gaps Johanna Samuels discovered when making her latest record had been with her for years -- decades in some cases. A mix of wisdom and hopefulness, the album offers a wide ranging guide to a singer-songwriter discovering the heights of her powers.

Forty years after bursting onto the So Cal punk scene, Kira Roessler officially released a self-titled debut. Its followup, Enigma, is due out next month. Plenty happened in the intervening decades, of course. She'd spend the next few years dual majoring in applied engineering at UCLA and bass with Black Flag. While legendary, her stint in the latter was fairly short-lived, though the middle of the decade saw her joining forces with betrothed fellow bassist, Mike Watt for Dos. More recently, Roessler has made yet another name for herself as an award winning sound designer for television and film.

The whole singer-songwriter bit mostly got put on the back burner for the successful Broadway career. It's an all too familiar story. Win a Tony, star in a couple of wildly successful musicals, maybe some Hollywood films, and next thing you know that bit of your life is derailed. The last few years have found Gallagher back on that track, however, including the newly released EP, Almost OK, which finds the musician joyfully reconnecting with a creative spark.

Trained in opera and world traveled with an NYU master's in international relations and music diplomacy, Alicia Waller truly finds her voice on Louder, Then. As a lifelong student of jazz raised on the socially conscious soul of Marvin Gaye, Waller refers to her on-going dialog as, "the sound of a Black woman in conversation with the world."

Fifteen years later, the melodic noise punks have returned. Now with twice as many drummers. Set of All Sets marks an unexpected comeback, as the one-time Brooklyn-based band's parts are now spread across the continental U.S. Though band members are never too far in the age of group chat.