Each and every song is a living, breathing entity, separate in their own way even as they meld into a single cohesive collection.

Awesome As Fuck captures the intensity of a live Green Day show while giving you a nostalgic throwback into what made you fall in love with this band in the first place.

Angles is the best Strokes album since their 2001 debut, and they still sound just as fresh and youthful as they did when they released that record.

When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes isn't Yellowcard's best work, as Paper Walls still retains that title in my mind, but it's exactly the album that fans should be hoping for.

The only thing I want to do at the end of Vices & Virtues is hear it all over again.

They have dared to venture in the loud, the textured and the big sounds, instead of the more minimal, tangy and clean indie rock we are hearing far too much of these days.

Top to bottom this album feels like a classic; a show stopper. No thrills, no cheap tricks and gimmicks.

while the 7 or so songs on What A Pleasure have different names, it never really feels like anything ends or begins. It just kind of is, much in the same way that after listening to Beach Fossils, you know something happened but you can't remember why it did so or what it meant.

On their second go-around, the production is a lot cleaner and the transitions move a lot smoother.

While fans of the band's previous albums might find fault in Last Night on Earth's less cluttered, electronica-tinged songwriting, it is Fink's simple songs and flexible voice that carry the most enjoyment.

The record isn't bad, it's actually enjoyable. But the band has continued in its trend toward becoming more of a hard rock band and less of the punk icon it used to be.

Fiasco has since gone on record as saying he both loves and hates this album. After all he went through to get it released, it's hard to blame him. But all the hard work he supposedly put into making sure Lasers remained true to his vision seems all for naught.

Almost two decades later, and they prove why everyone continues to keep tabs and standards for not only the band, but everyone around trying to live up to the influence.

Pyramid of the Sun not only remedies the sporadic deficiencies of Inventions for the New Season, it does proud the legacies of Jerry Fuchs and Manuel Gottsching; it also serves as both a challenge and heuristic experience for the alarmingly proliferating post-rock contingent.

The Valley is equally intimate and gorgeous as it is rough and realistic.

It's good to listen to a record like The People's Key, if for no other reason, just to appreciate a songwriter who knew exactly what he wanted to do and executed it perfectly.

Although The Greatest Story Never Told almost never saw the light of day, Saigon is an artist that needs to be on every hip-hop head's radar if he isn't already.

The final outcome of this is an extreme lack of consistency. The high spots are high, but the low spots are even lower.

Welcome to The Low Anthem's Smart Flesh, where folk music doesn't need to be reinvented for it to come alive – just performed. If you're looking for a solid folk spooker to open the year, your search ends here.

The themes present on Killing Time aren't too in-depth or out of the norm for what you might expect from Bayside, but this band has steadily improved on the lyrical front as it has released more music and Killing Time is no exemption from that rule.

Much like the band's discography in general, Little Joy is new pair of shoes you have to comfortably break into. Best played as background for a while, you'll find yourself losing track of your tasks and picking out some beloved tracks and parts in time.

Hardcore Will Never Die has a good amount of brawn to it but ultimately falls into the category of breathtaking music that isn't made too often.

Gutter Rainbows may be the most accessible and varied album in his discography.

Shad's most recent album, 2010's TSOL, builds right where The Old Prince left off, and is even more impressive.

This is The Get Up Kids years later folks. The familiar nuances have been rearranged and built into something stronger, but the attitude and depth is all the same, if not more adhesive and much more endearing than before.

Full of heart and soul, it's clear the band is putting in a daily grind and continue to impress in terms of ability & energy - it simply lacks the hooks, the feeling and everything we've previously seen in stellar fashion from a legendary band.

On The King is Dead, The Decemberists decided to fully immerse themselves in a style they've flirted with for years.

Showroom of Compassion, is an amiable disc, even somewhat pleasant, but entirely too much of the effort feels tepid, ho-hum and downright uninspired.