Nothing on the album truly startles or surprises, its sources are clear, and its impact song for song is the kind of satisfying fix one might expect from labels like m_nus and Kompakt as much as Ostgut Ton itself. Where things stand out are in the smaller details.

With a sound this strong, Miglis could quite conceivably have gotten by with a series of random abstractions, but in fact her lyrics show a strong poetic sense that enhances Hundred Waters' promising maiden voyage even further.

Ultimately, while Vital is Anberlin's most challenging album to date, as the title implies, it is perhaps the band's most rewarding album.

On these songs Banks fashions more of an identity for himself as a solo artist outside of anything he's done before, and arguably works even harder here to separate himself from his established project. Some of Banks' songs feel unpredictable even after a few listens.

There's little here that suggests Swedish House Mafia is more than the sum of its parts, and as Axwell, Angello, and Ingrosso split into three equally powered powerhouses, it seems this supergroup was more a fun lark than a focused project. Still, it's as fun as larks come.

Psychedelic Pill [is] yet another oddity in a catalog filled with them: it's noise rock as comfort food.

Going into this with no expectations should prove to be beneficial.

Once again, probably not a highly sought-after sound, but then again, when an album is this well put together, who really cares?

It doesn't quite hit the consistent heights of Stoosh or Post Orgasmic Chill, but Black Traffic more than justifies Skunk Anansie's re-existence.

This balance between seriousness and metal excess is a tough one to pull off, but AxeWound manage it nicely, reining in the songs with enough genuine aggression that they're not in danger of devolving into parody.

Ultimately, the album sounds more like Tangerine Dream than it does Justice, but the songs unfold and soar in ways indebted to both the patience of space rock and the immediacy of electronic party music.

Mirror Gazer is a promising debut, especially when Onuinu keeps at least one foot on pop's terra firma.

It might be nice to hear them amp it up a bit on their next record for a change of pace, but this works just fine as a bummed-out garage trip.

Produced in the same Luddite fashion as Break it Yourself, Hands of Glory takes that austerity one step further by recording all of the proceedings on a single microphone, resulting in a set that sounds both out of time and incredibly immediate.

As far as graduations from mixtapes to major-label releases go, this one is still satisfying and a step forward, plus slicked up and pimped out in a way that's entirely Maybach.

This is by no means an embarrassing stroll down memory lane. It can be quite fun, actually, even if it is somewhat baffling.

She's always been willing to take risks, and despite the initial thought that her music may not stand up to the orchestral treatment, The Abbey Road Sessions is another victory in a career full of them.

If you're looking for music that will fire up the honky tonk all night long, All Over the Road sure isn't it, but if you want to dance close with your baby after a few beers on a Saturday night, Easton Corbin's the man to see.

For anyone who has followed the band, Autotheism feels like part of a logical evolution, with the band expanding its sound from album to album before really cutting loose and diving headfirst into more heady waters.

Instead of sounding labored and forced, System Preferences is gentle and effortless, as if it were recorded four months after Hymn and Her, instead of four years.

It's hard to get offended when everything about Supermeng is so self-consciously goofy.

Whether you want to label it post-rock, post-Krautrock, electro-rock, or some appellation of your own devising, Den does the Kreidler discography proud.

The amped-up chiptunes and film score moments are interesting enough, but the band sound their best when expanding on the lush tones and tension-laden improvisations they've been working on since the beginning.

At times, Rave Age feels like it's missing some of the spark of Vitalic's previous work, but Arbez manages to pull off a lot of changes on this album while retaining enough of his playful atmosphere and kinetic rhythms to keep fans engaged.

It's not uncommon for artists to lose a little of their music's heart when they upgrade their sonics, but The Inner Mansions is equally emotional and polished, and some of Teen Daze's finest work.

The continuing work of Mika Vainio--especially given his longtime association with Touch for a variety of releases--has been at once reliable and sometimes quite surprising, with a certain restlessness that has served him well in his various explorations in sound. Fe3O4: Magnetite continues this.

All Time Low swallowed their pride, rededicated themselves, and ended up making the best record yet in a very consistently satisfying career.

This soundtrack stands tall in the man's wide-reaching discography, offering fans a Wu-flavored vision of a world where both the damned and cursed still swagger.

A sophisticated pop pleasure from start to finish.

[A] completely respectable collections of tunes from a well-oiled machine, but falling short of the almost accidental brilliance of their best work.

Though front-loaded with its most energetic and moving songs, Our House on the Hill is an intriguing statement from a band shedding their better-known affiliations for a whole new ideal.

While Breaking Dawn isn't one of the more dynamic Twilight Saga soundtracks, it is one of the more emotive ones, and just may help fans get some closure as one of the biggest film franchises of the 2000s and 2010s comes to a close.

While a more focused production ethic might have made for a more consistent album, Pale Fire still goes places the last album never dreamed and hopefully opens doors for even more drastic developments to come.

If it's not wholly satisfying as an EP, blame that entirely on how it winds up showcasing promise: hearing it, you want to know what How to Destroy Angels will do over the course of a full album.

Given the discipline and experimentation in the short pieces, and in the creative imagination displayed in rearranging the longer ones to accommodate a larger band, 'Allelujah! Don't Bend Ascend proves, that GY!BE still has plenty of captivating things to say.

While this is a fine, if uneven album, the only way to enjoy a significant portion of it is by taking it as pure entertainment.

Rebel Soul is appropriately rebellious and conservative, a dose of old-time rock & roll at a time when the style is starting to fade.

Still, as the Kasabian-sized choruses stick in the head like the most delicious, stately fluff, The Evolution of Man winds up the dancefloor confessional done right, fist pumping and throwing fits as if it had karma to burn.

Pitbull's Global Warming is the spicy pop-rap place to forget the world's problems, so forgive the fat, forgive the mess, and enjoy the heat.

Into the Future fares better than the stale output of most reunited punk acts and also rises above a weak rehash for the sake of nostalgia. Always true to their original vision, Bad Brains continue sailing on.

Where earlier albums seemed to be meticulously crafted soundtracks to strange dream worlds, Aimlessness lacks the cohesion or attention to detail of those productions, opting instead for a soup of loosely pieced ideas, many of which feel moved on from more than worked over.

While it may occasionally get bogged down by its near constant need to reach the nosebleed seats, the desperation that the band emits ultimately feels inclusive rather than brazen.

After a pair of bombastic anthems--including the oddly written "Girl on Fire," which has her "living in a world, and it's on fire," then "on top of the world" with "both feet on the ground" and "our head in the clouds"--the album loses its grip.

Good news is, the too-pop Roman Reloaded now feels more balanced once this eight-track EP worth of material tips the scales.

With A Wrenched Virile Lore, they offer a set of reworkings that are more cohesive than their previous collection, while still taking the songs from Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will in notably different directions from their origins and from each other.

Given that Ferry doesn't sing on The Jazz Age, the appeal for casual fans is debatable. But for the faithful, trad-jazz heads, and open-minded listeners, the musical quality--from expert arrangements, virtuosic playing, and the brilliant concept--offer something wholly different and rewarding.

The Remixes is as well balanced as it is eclectic, finding room for tracks that clearly bear the stamp of their remixers.

It is pure artistic id, and after hearing it, it's possible to view Rossiter's entire body of work in a new light, gaining an appreciation for his grace, wit, and artistry.

The nostalgia and artistry will take you back and warm your Coogi-covered heart.

This is a promising prelude to Solange's third proper album.

There's also plenty of dubstep and neo-soul (note the very fine vocal cameo from Greg Blackman on "I'm Feeling U"), and unfortunately, there are also some de rigueur sketches and waste-of-time spoken word interludes, but not too many of them.

The 2012 debut is a pretty accurate throwback to the sound of golden age East Coast rap, complete with soul samples and boom-bap beats.

While a good background album it may be, it's not exactly gripping. The songs are too multifaceted to feel cohesive, yet they never seem strikingly experimental.

Carry On might be the most personal Willy Mason record to date and finds him unafraid to use traditional blues motifs--narrow roads, one-way streets, and fugitives--to fully express himself as a songwriter.

This time around Murs delves into even more of a funk sound, and tracks like "Troublemaker" and "Hey You Beautiful" bring to mind the sound of such similarly inclined contemporaries as Maroon 5 and the Wanted.

Diehards who have all of Biophilia's singles may not need this, but it's still a fine collection in its own right.

Those who have been waiting for what seems like an eternity for Timberlake to return to the music scene could do worse than check out Contrast, which although rather front-loaded, is perhaps the most confident and mature teen pop debut of recent years.

It's hookier and not as ponderous as ¡Uno! but not quite as breakneck as ¡Dos!.

Bison B.C.'s creations for Lovelessness largely succeed on the strength of those imaginative arrangements and by proving themselves improbably infectious despite their brute façade.

They seem have found a sense of clarity amid the chaos at certain points.

Horror and dark electronics fanatics alike will put this one on repeat for days, but its very powerful specificity will likely cut out a swath of listeners not interested in either ravenously dedicated sub-genre.

COF achieve a victory here. It rocks.

Based on the soul-satisfying evidence of Feeling Mortal, one can only hope there are many more.

Ultimately, though, it is just this diverse stylistic quality, both in the source material and Elling's arrangements, that make The Brill Building Project one of his most interesting albums.

They actually make the effort to show why they're worth paying attention to across six often lengthy tracks. At points their approach is more like providing catnip to well-inclined fans.

Discount the general masses not attuned to UFOmammut's unique but long-established formula, and their dedicated followers shan't have to expend too many of their remaining neurons grasping the full enormity of the band's accomplishment, even though this second sibling falls just short of its elder twin overall.

A solidly enjoyable, radio-ready pop album.

Many listeners won't have the patience to sit it out, but the album has a surprising ability to draw one into its cavernous rooms and pitch black fields of noise.

The skittering, tightly wound sound the band achieves here bears echoes of Vampire Weekend's arch global groove, Peter Bjorn and John's perky indie pop, and the complex art pop textures of Field Music, without ever feeling derivative of any of the aforementioned artists.

The productions are steeped in soul and R&B, offering a more upbeat and clean sound than the usual Wu murk and a Masta Killa companion to Ghostface's retro effort Ghostdini the Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City.

For those who like their electronic music clearly defined, it's a hard sell, but Synthesized is an easy recommendation for those who appreciate Junkie's skill and/or any witty genre-jumping around dance-pop.

Lady from Shanghai intrigues more often than not, and shows that Pere Ubu can tap into paranoia, loathing, and the downright weird with nearly as much ease and eloquence as they did almost four decades before.

While there are some changes in pace here and there--the quicker, tenser "The Promise"; the piano-led title track that concludes the album; the short, fierce instrumental "Easter Island"--generally the album is a bit of a blur, shifting moods here and there without fully distinguishing itself track by track.

It spans decades and styles but it's held together by Tarantino's vision, not unlike the film itself.

While overall, I Am Kloot's sixth album reads like a heartfelt and stylized ten-chapter celebration of classic pop--with the opening half consolidating Bramwell's position as one of England's most unjustifiably overlooked songwriters--it's only a minor disappointment that four of the final five chapters included here sail dangerously close to pastiche.

Compared to that album's [Sirens' Call] half-hearted songwriting and rote sound, Lost Sirens positively shines--leading to the customary questions of why this material didn't replace several, if not many, songs on the original Sirens' Call.

The themes are vague enough that they could be applied to any number of relationships or situations, and far more captivating are the arrangements and dynamic shifts in orchestrations that make up the cyclical nature of the album.

Local Natives' sophomore effort, 2013's Hummingbird, is a more atmospheric and introspective collection of songs in contrast to the band's effusive 2009 breakthrough debut Gorilla Manor.

Ultimately, My True Story is a smooth, mostly laid-back, and soulful recording by Neville.

Despite Nightlands' scientific approach, Oak Island doesn't sound sterile or too calculated; instead, Hartley revisits the innocence of the past with sophistication, like seeing the places you went when you were 17 with new eyes.

When all the songs are put together, it adds up to an album that's easy to enjoy.

A solid, if a little subtle, debut that promises great things while delivering many very good ones.

It's another impressive album that shows Haden to be a truly talented singer and vocal arranger, and one that fans of movie music done in a non-traditional fashion should find quite interesting.

Ultimately, Biffy Clyro's gift as a band is to craft songs that balance immediately catchy hooks with complex arrangements that only help to reinforce the drama of the pop moment. Thankfully, there are plenty of these dichotomous yet rapturous moments on Opposites.

The glinting "Glue" and well-titled "Snap" excepted, they [the nine remaining tracks, all instrumentals] lack the muscle of Chung's earlier releases, but they're more evocative--detailed enough to withstand numerous plays whenever comforting, if downcast and unobtrusive, abstract hip-hop is sought.

Perhaps what's most interesting about the album in the end is how something that theoretically consists of dated approaches in its bubbling mix of electro-rock and '70s dub and more seems to suit 2012 just fine, a sleek collage no more out of place than any other number of similarly backward-glancing efforts around the globe.

Never bland, the Daredevil Christopher Wright rise from good to great when they let their freak flag fly and allow their true weird personalities to come out.

While the Kolars may lack the vocal pyrotechnics of their obvious influences, like true thespians, they have the moxie to make even the most mundane moments seem exciting, which supplies more than enough firepower for the aptly titled Nobody Dances in This Town, a notion that they obviously intend on remedying.

Regions of Light and Sound of God is intriguing and quirky; its songs often pose big questions inside informal, loosely developed pop song structures that are instantly accessible yet whose lyrics are often metaphysically elusive.

The Wagons have a strong track record of their own but there's something special to Expecting Company?; when paired with other singers, the overarching vision of Henry Wagons stands out clearer than it ever has.

Light and pleasant, Run for Cover is also backed by a band that knows how to accompany all this vocal loveliness.

A timely holiday stocking stuffer for the aging mosh pit veteran in your family, but not exactly mandatory listening for everyday metal heads.

This more open, organic process comes through on the songs, providing E and company with a refreshing amount of creative freedom after the relative confinement of doing a conceptual three-album trilogy.

This classic hard rock production touches every song on IV, and the first half of the record is composed of songs that seem tailored to fit the post-metal sensibilities of the record's sonic texturing.

"Annie I Owe You a Dance" has too many strings, and the poignant, "37405," a narrative about a country singer turned convict, could have been leaner. But these are small complaints on a solid and ambitious recording. On Two Lanes of Freedom, McGraw proves he is indeed the artist that Curb never let him be.

At times, Conduit feels like a step backward for Funeral for a Friend, but that's because, well, it is. Fortunately, the album is solid enough to prove that every so often a little de-evolution is just what a band needs, and that it's entirely possible to head into the future while looking toward the past.

Yellen employs a set of pipes that are as deft as a swallow's, allowing the arrangements the space they need to set the tone, and then swooping in to seal the deal.

Lives is a collection of hopeful, almost wonderstruck looks at the human condition, delivered with enough tasteful and catchy hooks to make it one of the best albums in an already lengthy career from this seasoned indie troubadour.