Call it the signature of a surfer so bleached by the sun that he rushes nothing, but To the Sea substitutes the sunset strum-alongs of his earliest records for a sleek daytime sheen that might glimmer too brightly for hippies but it makes for a better overall pop record.

This triumphant self-possession comes so naturally to Christina that it's hard not to wish that she acted so boldly throughout Bionic, letting the entirety of the record be as distinctly odd as its best moments.

The blood doesn't really get pumping until the fifth track. Up to that point, however, the band creates some of its most downcast and alluring material, covering solitude, self-destruction, and just about every planetary ill.

Even with some of the smoke and mirrors removed, Ariel Pink is still a singular talent.

Revolutions Per Minute is an album that’s been a long time coming, and Kweli and Hi-Tek prove once again that there’s more to rap than club bangers, delivering another dose of socially and politically conscious music that’s more about opening people’s eyes to what’s happening in the world than telling them how to feel about it.

Capturing the freedom and loneliness of independence, Body Talk, Pt. 1 is a concise set of songs on its own, and an impressive first third of the whole ambitious project.

There's a modesty in Tift Merritt's music that makes it more compelling than a lot of artists who make a grand show of their joy and/or grief, and See You on the Moon finds Merritt weaving her spell as effectively as ever; it's marvelous music well worth your time and attention.

Songs written to sound like old pub standards helped to gain the group attention, but these heartfelt tunes gleam with McCauley's individuality.

The prevailing feeling throughout this album is that American Slang represents a more mature sound from the Gaslight Anthem, showing us a band that has grown up enough to start attempting to fill the shoes of their influences.

It feels like they could keep making these records forever with no diminishing returns; the level of quality and imagination never drops an inch on LP4.

Thanks to the rich and nuanced production and Drake's thoughtful, playful, and intense lyrics, Thank Me Later is a radio-friendly, chart-topping collection of singles but also a serious examination of Drake's life that holds up as an album.

While We Are Born occasionally lapses into the anodyne, overly tasteful pop-folk balladeering of Sia's past, overall it's a charmingly cheery, light-hearted romp looking nowhere but sweetly, sanguinely forward.

Mason's career has been one of constant starts and stops and side-project misdirections (for his fans, at least), so the straightforwardly eccentric Boys Outside is clearly a record to treasure.

While this is definitely a darker album, the fuzzy synthesizers help to give the songs warmth, preventing the album from becoming suffocating.

Whether or not Flesh Tone remains a stylistic outlier, the disc will always be a bright standout in Kelis' discography.

Aphrodite is the work of someone who knows exactly what her skills are and who to hire to help showcase them to perfection.

The thicker, more driving songs resemble a polished, warm Curve, whipping up squalls of noise over robust played-and-programmed rhythms that soar more often than batter.

They've gone back to the coiled, furious sputter of their debut but there's no disguising that Korn is an older band, substituting precision for frenzy without diluting their power.

It may not be flashy but it's sturdy and expertly honed, reflecting Finn's craftsmanship on a song-by-song basis but holding together better as an album than any Finn project in recent memory.

Blood Like Lemonade exceeds expectations, coming in a close second behind fan favorite Big Calm.

Rick Ross keeps a very good thing going on Teflon Don, arguably his best album to date.

There's an ease to this record that's not often heard on Sheryl Crow's albums and its light touch is thoroughly appealing.

The stated intention for The Way Out was for each track to be "its own rabbit hole," and the album does indeed manage to survey an impressively disparate set of worlds and modes.

Praise & Blame winds up an undeniably excellent album that you're either ready for or you're not.

It's serious without being preachy, cynical without dissolving into apathy, and whimsical enough to keep both sentiments in line, and of all of their records, it may be the one that ages so well.

Wavves sometimes gets carried away--"Neon Balloon" and its sea of synth gurgles and helium vocals is near silly--but when Williams finds his stride and carves the tube of punky psych sonics, the results are totally awesome.

On Tin Cast Trust, Los Lobos prove that tough times don't last, but tough music does, and those are words we can all live by.

As it stands, Transit Transit is a beautifully executed work that would have made the band solid contenders if it had been released back in 1992.

Drifting between order and disarray, Menomena's fourth album is like an exercise in controlled chaos.

Crazy for You is meant to be an album that creates a mood, a feeling of gentle despair and wistful longing that grows with each song. On that count, it's a complete success.

Masts of Manhatta walks this line [the pull of the two extremes] throughout, sometimes getting quite a bit livelier, sometimes indulging in decidedly moody textures, always twisting just slightly from the expected, making for a record that's quite intriguing upon the first listen and better on repeats, where the songs begin to dig in and all the textures gain resonance.

How exactly these songs fit together with "Holes"' delicate plucking and the title track's pixelated folk might be locked in Fol Chen's brains, but even if there are more pieces of their puzzle-pop missing here than there were on John Shade, Your Fortune's Made, The New December is never boring.

This may be the most subdued of Richter's Fat Cat releases, but every nuance shows the care with which he crafts all of his music.

This disc does gather the duo's most-known material, including "Destiny," "Distractions," "In the Waiting Line," and "Polaris," all of which were licensed for several compilations and/or used in advertisements.

Beach Fossils may be very 2010 but they aren't just along for the ride, they're driving the bandwagon.

Come and Get It!--his third LP and first for a major label--feels a bit like an unearthed relic, built on songs and sounds that could pass for unheard gems if it wasn't for Reed's unapologetically white voice, free of affectations and ticks.

Release Me wipes away any memories of the band's previous work as well as any boring talk of their famous fathers, and re-introduces the band as first-rate purveyors of thrillingly fun rockin' retro pop.

This is a heartfelt, creative, and deeply inspired album that should appeal to fans of intelligent pop music.

For backpackers and underground fans, it's a must, but anyone who wants their hip-hop both a bit stranger and a lot deeper will fall hard for this one.

Unlike some underground bands, Indian Jewelry just get more uncompromising and honed as they go, and this eerie, unsettling album is a perfect culmination of the duo's work so far.

Somehow, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World's music remains true not just to the comic, but to the work of everyone involved in the story at every stage, with plenty of fun and heart to boot.

This debut only strengthens Lissie's potential to become one of folk music's newest sirens.

While fans of Darker My Love's earlier albums may be a bit put off by this sudden sea change, Alive as You Are marks a pleasant sonic shift for the band, offering anyone willing to listen a love letter to San Francisco's psych-pop past and the sounds of the paisley underground.

That Black City is Dear's most creative and individual album is not, however, up for debate.

Rivers isn't as immediate as either Heartcore or The Snake, but fans should find it satisfying once they've had time to let it soak into their ears, brains and hearts. Rivers isn't as immediate as either Heartcore or The Snake, but fans should find it satisfying once they've had time to let it soak into their ears, brains and hearts.

Strange Weather may get some static for not being groundbreaking or risk taking but that's okay. It's just !!! at their best and that's good enough.

Hawk isn't as startling [as Ballad of the Broken Seas], but it's encouraging to know that the magic between Campbell and Lanegan not only hasn't worn off, it's manifesting itself in new and compelling ways.

Nearly everything else here is loving, sincere, and worthy of hearing by fans of the Beach Boys or Broadway.

No Better Than This proves that good songs need very little to communicate instructive narratives and complex emotions, and that primitive recording methods are still sometimes the best ones.

While nothing can capture the true feeling of being flattened by one of Mogwai's shows except attending one, Special Moves is still a great live document.

Memphis is the most thrilling debut album since the Apples in Stereo's Fun Trick Noisemaker and should be embraced by anyone who likes pop music that sounds small but thinks big. These kids truly have some magic in them.

While Root for Ruin isn't the creative reawakening that Let's Stay Friends was, it might be the band's tightest and most polished album yet.

What really sets Disturbed apart from other 21st century metal acts is their ability to consistently re-package and resell their sound in a way that avoids redundancy.

Like most live albums, Dream Attic is more about the playing than the material, which is a bit different from the way a new Richard Thompson set works, but when it captures a band this good playing with this authority, that's hardly anything to fret about.

Bingham has delivered a set of songs that mirrors our uncertain times in a musical language that doesn't unduly distort or romanticise them.

Two thirds of the way through the Body Talk project, it's clear that this experiment is reaping rich rewards for Robyn and her listeners.

Cuomo doesn't suppress his emotion; he just prefers sentiment, but what he loves most of all is a pure pop song and Hurley offers up its fair share.

His voice is clear over the sparse arrangements, and his words are more direct than before.

The Reason Why is mature, exquisitely crafted, and radio friendly; it ups the ante for contemporary country in songwriting, performance, and production (the latter by stripping away excess). It's as near to a perfectly balanced recording as one will find in the genre.

Despite lushly detailed arrangements, Bareilles never pushes this distinctly commercial gift too hard, letting the songs flow easily and this gentleness is almost as appealing as those classically constructed melodies, tunes so softly insistent they could conceivably appear on adult contemporary charts anytime from 1971 to 2010.

The tempos on Reckless are more varied than those on their self-titled debut, but even the slower tracks pack the big emotional punch that bluegrass fans love, the kind of feeling that used to make country music dangerous.

Even if it's not as cohesive as Mahjongg's earlier work, it's easily some of the band's boldest, most confident music.

Lisbon, like the rest of their music, is meant to be savored, the fullness of its songs allowed to develop over many listens.

While it's easy to see why some listeners may prefer the completely unhinged sounds of Grinderman's debut, this set, with its expansive sonics and studied bombast, is still full of so much adrenaline, nastiness, and rock & roll sleaze that it stands in its own league and kicks serious ass.

Though it's a little long and a couple songs veer toward filler, it's a return to form for of Montreal and more than justifies the hype and attention their live show has garnered.

They get a little too close to trip-hop for their own good on a few songs, and their widescreen drama is missed occasionally, but Penny Sparkle is still another beautiful reinvention for Blonde Redhead.

They may not be the hippest band around in 2010 but they sound as fresh and important as they did in 1990, 1995, or 2001, and Majesty Shredding is the kind of album that'll make you glad to be a fan of indie rock.

Given its wonderfully crafted and performed material and stellar production, it is the country album of 2010.

It's recognizably the Charlatans--it's hard to disguise Tim Burgess's laconic drawl or the light psychedelic pull of his melodies--but they're unexpectedly abandoning their dad-rock handbook and taking risks, winding with their freshest, best album since they traded the Happy Mondays for the Rolling Stones.

Crush is a fully realized progression, and one of the best indie rock albums you'll hear in 2010.

Harlem River Blues is utterly balanced, skillfully crafted, and exquisitely written and produced. Earle proves that he is a force to be reckoned with; in these grooves he embodies the history, mystery, and promise of American roots music.

This a major step forward and for the adventurous hip-hop fan, it could very well be appropriately titled.

As a whole, Imperfect Harmonies is its own animal. Tankian proves that he can pull off his grand ambitions in a maximalist approach that creates something new from the ruins of everything he destroyed to get here.

This is a band built for flexibility at live shows and for stretching numbers out, but thanks to Brown's easy, natural honky tonk singing and sharp songwriting, ZBB also deliver confidently in the tighter restraints of a studio setting.

All this serves to underscore that My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky is a mercilessly intense and beautiful record that only Swans could pull off, and that no matter who plays in the band, Gira was and is Swans: their sound, their musical and poetic vision, their heartbeat.

No Age's brief moment of near-mainstream notoriety may have passed by the time Everything in Between was released, but their growth as recording artists was progressing nicely and the album stands alongside Nouns as two of the finest noise rock/pop albums of the new millennium.

The ultimate irony and triumph of Record Collection, is that on an album all about how Ronson's own obsessive music tastes have defined his life, we finally hear him step away from the turntable and produce one of the best albums of his career.

It's not as immediate as previous Deerhunter albums, but Halcyon Digest has an appeal all its own: It's as difficult to grasp - and as hard to shake - as a memory lingering at the back of your brain.

Most won't have the skills to follow his playbook, either on or off the field, but Cube's utterly unique I Am the West shows the younger generation how to cross 40 while retaining their freedom and baller status.

At the surface, the temperature is icy. But like a cold lake's waters, the music of Public Strain becomes less drastic; comforting even, given time.

Not many bands bring together bluegrass' past and present the way Chatham County Line do, and fewer still can do it this well; Wildwood shows they keep getting better as they follow new stylistic detours in their music.

Throughout all of King Night, the feeling of a séance being held or a spell being cast is palpable, but Salem's ability to be affecting and menacing at the same time is pure alchemy.

Duppy Writer ably serves either of two purposes, an alternate career retrospective or a remix record of taste and distinction.

Bachmann's contributions play a back-seat role to those by Taylor and Fink, who sound as convincing after a seven-year break as they did during Azure Ray's heyday.

It's definitely a change from Clinic's brash art-punk and wicked folk, but it's one the band had to make to keep their music vital. Fortunately, Bubblegum's sound is so inviting that it sticks.

If you are looking for big-hearted, easy-to-swallow guitar pop, you could do much worse than Guster. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to do much better.

Though almost nothing on the record will appeal to the people who liked their earlier work because of the girl group connection, fans of cotton-candied pop sung by girls who sound like they live on a diet of helium and gummy bears will find Earth vs. the Pipettes just about perfect.

Swanlights, the fourth full-length by Antony and the Johnsons, reveals that 2009's The Crying Light was a stepping stone that furthered his sophistication as a songwriter, arranger, and singer.

Song for song, it's as strong as any of their records -- if anything, these 11 songs are the tightest they have ever been -- and Stuart Murdoch remains faithful to the aesthetic he essayed at the outset of his career, finding sustenance in the fine details, his obsessions carrying the weight of passion.

It's always great to see a band that's able to tweak its sound without watering it down, and that's exactly what Stone Sour have accomplished here, showing that it's possible for hard rock bands to make their sound bigger without necessarily making it blunter.

With such a tight, urgent sound, Songs for Singles is an EP that'll give Torche fans enough new music to whet their appetites, but it's definitely going to leave them hungry for more.

The result is part retro, part avant-garde, and part polyrhythmic elevator music, which is to say it sounds wholly Dungen.

Fin Eaves' mix doesn't have anything in it you haven't heard before, but you've never heard the elements put together like this before, either. It's a powerful, massively textured thing whose heavily treated grooves (yes, grooves) are drenched in ambiguous, deeply poetic beauty.

Not only is Ring one of the few albums to feature the Nepalese stringed instrument the sarangi and a structure inspired by Homer's The Odyssey, it's also a fresh, creative debut that more than fulfills Glasser's potential.

Tt's refreshing to hear him so candid, even if that forthrightness is festooned by enough bells and whistles to wake the dead.

Our Cubehouse Still Rocks has no shortage of guitar firepower, and with tough six-string snarl dominating much of the album, these 16 songs have more than enough rock & roll muscle to give shape and power to Pollard's pop-flavored melodies.

The album's back half doesn't boast an outlandish moment like "I Invented Sex," either, but it is the strongest, most varied side of a Trey Songz album, just about flawless. It smoothly shifts through several moods.

Ultimately, Mirror is another Lloyd triumph. It may not shake the rafters with its kinetics, but it does dazzle with the utterly symbiotic interplay between leader and sidemen.