Even if Junto isn't quite as brilliant as Basement Jaxx's early EPs or nearly flawless first three albums, it doesn't sound irrelevant or like the duo is chasing after past glories either--instead, it's some of their most exciting music in quite a while.

Manipulator is a reminder that Ty Segall knows his rock & roll, but he knows a lot more than just that, and this '70s-inspired madness results in one of Segall's best and most pleasurable efforts to date.

J. Mascis is developing a distinct persona for his solo work, and so far it dovetails nicely with his other projects, sharing certain virtues while having a mind of its own, and Tied to a Star is another step in an unexpected and quite welcome career evolution.

It sometimes walks the line between close listening and a wash of sound, but it's intriguing from whatever angle it is approached.

There is a warmth, joyfulness, and sly humor to Bahamas' sound here that keeps you listening even when Jurvanen turns toward melancholy sentiments, as he often does.

If you have a grand desire to take on the world and want a suitable indie rock soundtrack, Brill Bruisers will certainly do the trick, and if this isn't the best effort to date from the New Pornographers, it most certainly doesn't disappoint.

While it's unlikely to define its own era, it calls forth some classic elements from a prior era to great effect, and with some top-notch songcraft to boot.

The highlights continue, and come from many different styles of underground hip-hop, so put Statik somewhere between Tony Touch and the Alchemist on the short list of producers/DJs who also offer solid albums.

The album's middle third is exceptional, where Moiré's output once again draws from Parrish, Lawrence, and also Moodymann with raw, almost jacking beats, sustained high-pitch strings (either sampled or synthetic), and entrancing, downcast melodies.

Impressions is a wonderfully fun and deep listen that stuns right away with its channeling of ABBA, but also sticks around thanks to the craft and invention that went into its creation.

On Neuroplasticity, her ear-popping sophomore long-player, she takes the "doom soul" architecture to an exciting new level, pumping it full of nervy post-rock and no wave, resulting in something that sounds akin to Santigold, St. Vincent, TV on the Radio, Laura Mvula, and Macy Gray at their most despondent.

There is little time for respite during their breezy debut album that bridges the gap between heavy-hitting rock and digestible pop/rock.

For his second album, also released on Warp, Rustie indeed slows it down a bit and peels away some layers, but he does so without making any concessions to politeness.

They've made a lasting impression, and fans of indie pop looking for a band that isn't afraid to work to win them over should be forking over their hard-earned cash for Chorus as soon as possible.

Certainly more mature and thoughtful, with no "Friends of P" in sight, but plenty of songs that sound like timeless hits, and plenty of powerfully felt and delivered songs that hit hard right in the nostalgia zone, drawing blood and tears with every blow.

Dry the River's best asset is the conviction with which they sell each moment, and the aptly named album, for all of its cacophonous posturing, always feels like it's coming directly from the heart, even as it's set to explode.

Foster is wearing her open heart on her sleeve but she's never pushing too hard, never overselling her message; she's charming with her warmth and sly skill.

Just as poetic, mysterious, and bewitching as Blonde Redhead's more baroque albums, Barragán is a quietly audacious set of songs that ranks among the band's finest music.

Durvitz's raspy voice and lucid, lyrical stories always hold just a hint of desperation, and even decades into a staggered career, these new tunes can’t help but feel like part of a larger narrative that began during the band’s '90s glory days but finds further, greater refinement here.

[A] well-crafted album, which was made with love and intention by seasoned artists who have landed on a combination that truly works.

Whatever the reason, Seen It All: The Autobiography shakes off all the challenges of Jeezy's lesser releases and finds new inspiration from the same old rap sheet.

Stripped of some its flair, the band sounds both invigorated and a tad unsteady (an Albini trademark), but never have they sounded more muscular.

Even more ambitious, rewarding and exciting than its predecessor, Carnival of Souls is a thrilling album that raises expectations for the trilogy's final installment to the skies.

These songs puncture the gloss, so they make the greatest first impression, but that glimmer remains the reason to get lost within Ryan Adams: his blend of song and studio craft turns this eponymous album into the equivalent of a substantive, new millennial version of the Eagles' Long Run.

What makes Picture You Staring so deeply enjoyable is the band’s acute sense of when to obscure their sound and when to let it shine through. Walking this tightrope, TOPS never go so far off the deep end of their experimental recording side to completely hide their sad-hearted hooks.

The surfaces of Overjoyed might surprise a few longtime Half Japanese fans, but at heart this is still the passionate expression of a man who has embraced this life and its many curious possibilities, and that certainly fits with this group's narrative while allowing just a bit more room for new explorers to consider his world view.

Where the self-titled record felt like a vivid explosion of feelings, sounds, and ideas in line with the end of a summer full of motion and conflict, Anchor sounds grounded and wintery, a little older and making the space to look before it leaps.

Don't call it a comeback, call it a triumphant return of the conquering heroes, and next time you want to rock unapologetically, this album ought to be among the first options.

While the rest of us went to work or college or worse after graduation, Avi Buffalo hit the road, but they too spent those formative years navigating the strange cognitive duality of post-high school young adulthood, and the sad, strange, and beautiful At Best Cuckold does an awfully nice job distilling that unease into audio form.

Four albums in, Lateness of Dancers reveals the arrived-at maturity in Taylor's songwriting, and his ability to convey, in the first-person narratives of his protagonists, a way through the complex notions and pain of living in the world by embracing them on their own terms, with no attempt at escape.

A really strong album that shows Mazes growing in just the right way, adding some maturity and substance without sacrificing the things (great songs, youthful energy) that made them worth hearing in the first place.

Though "exciting" isn't exactly the word, there is a sense of both purpose and drive in all of Bitchin Bajas' blurry, diversely composed drone-scapes, and this album as a whole is easily their best and most carefully crafted work up until this point.

That penchant for edgy refinement, along with frontman Joe Newman's impossibly fluid voice, remains the band's most effective weapon, but it's hard to pinpoint where and when that magic occurs, as it's so effortlessly woven into the group's sound.

It puts together all the elements they've worked with in the past and added a few more, and the result is an emotionally powerful work that sounds great and is easy to dance, dream, or get bummed along to.

If False Idols was the return, Adrian Thaws is the great diversification, and if being disappointed with your universally accepted classic inspires greatness like this, then Maxinquaye be damned (but only in Tricky's presence).

There's no denying that Zeus are very good at what they do, and refining their process with each album; there's no real call for false modesty when you're making albums as good as this.

The whole thing succeeds as a sort of night music, and Parry's engineering team, sending the music rock-style among several different studios, gets superb results.

There are moments where Single Mothers feels like art therapy as much as music, but this album communicates its pain with intelligence and a gentle touch, and as a singer and lyricist Earle grows with each album; there are more than a few moments of brilliance on this set if you don't mind sharing a rough and lonesome road with Earle for a while.

Perfect Hair contains all the usual reasons Busdriver is wonderful, just with a little more sugar baked in.

When you put together the sympathetic production, the strength of the songs, and the power of the performances, it adds up to another great record by a band whose members are in complete command of their thoughtful, tender, and sneakily hooky sound.

By adhering to the fidelity of a side, there's a dramatic arc within every four songs and, combined, the sum is greater than the individual parts--which is how it should be with a band.

Delta Spirit's commercial aspirations may be more apparent this time around, but they've done an awfully nice job in pairing that inclination with material that benefits from the slick production, resulting in their most cohesive (and television- and film-ready) collection of songs to date.

On Worship the Sun, their subtle excavation is even more impressive, richly rendered, and worth checking out than before.

As direct as a touch and as subtle as feelings, This Is My Hand is exciting in a way that's different from Worden's previous work--when she sings "this is my time" on the title track, it's hard not to agree with her.

The gorgeous and haunting ending leaves more than a few questions unanswered, and begs listeners to play the album again from the start to seek them out once more.

It all makes for riveting listening for anyone willing to let Vessel punish--and reward--their ears.

This set manages to be reverent to Waller's original recordings, but since facsimile was never the goal, it also manages to create a completely new veneer for them, and the end result is a marvelous tribute that still retains its own shape and coherency.

Equally bold, vulnerable, concise, and expansive, Too Bright dazzles.

I Don't Dance may sink its teeth in slightly slowly, but that's Brice's style: he lets the listener come to him and, once they're there, he offers a warm seduction that lasts not just for a night but for a relationship.

It's hardly fair to wish hard times on songwriters just so their work might sound more real and meaningful, but if they have to suffer, one can at least hope that they are able to turn it into the kind of revelatory art that Lerche has on Please.

Weirdon feels more lighthearted than its predecessor, offering just as many aggressive guitar freakouts and blasts of antagonistic noise, but handing them over this time with a smirk instead of a scowl.

Low on frenetics, Syro is anchored by rotund and agile basslines that zip and glide, and it's decked in accents and melodies that are lively even at their most distressed.

There are times when tracks drag slightly, but it's safe to make an assumption that soon there will be a change in style, rhythm, BPM, or dimension, resulting in a complex and magical record with many twists and turns.

Add to the mix boundary-pushing production and what might be his most developed set of tunes so far and the album immediately shuffles to the higher tiers of an already stellar body of work.

All but the most stuck-in-the-'90s shoegaze fans will see that Sway is an album that would measure up to almost any album made by the first wave of shoegazers. And by the current wave of revivalists, grave robbers, and crafty thieves as well.

This double-disc live album, recorded during a 18-month-long tour in 2013 and 2014, reveals a clearer and more in-focus look at what Clark offers than Blak and Blu does.

This is something better: a record designed to carry on the tradition of smooth, fizzy bubblegum into the new millennium and, against all odds, it succeeds mightily.

Some of the songs could have been fronted by anybody. Hudson occasionally sounds disconnected from the material, but the singer, as powerful as ever, still leaves her indelible mark on everything.

This music is taut and soulful, but also a document of one woman baring her spirit and mind to the world, which has always been the case with her best music, and if this isn't a masterpiece, it's as pure, straightforward, and compelling as anything she's done since Essence.

A feeling of acceptance underpins Everything Will Be Alright in the End: there's a sense that Weezer made another record of massive, hooky rock not only because that's what the fans want but because they know it's what they do best.

All told, Our Love stands as the most straightforwardly danceable Caribou album to date, but holds on to both the experimental bent and composition-minded musicality that helped build the project's one-of-a-kind sound world.

For as much as Way refers to other acts, this is a thoroughly original work, a vibrant reflection of all his artistic obsessions.

On their 2014 record, Feel Something, the History of Apple Pie do a fine job of delivering a second album that has much of the same sterling properties as their debut, while giving their guitar noise with sugar-sweet melodies some tweaks here and there, just enough to serve as a progression instead of an unwanted stylistic leap into mediocrity.

With all the elements in place, the late-era The Violet Flame sits on the top shelf of Erasure albums, and considering all the greatness in the back catalog, that's no easy task.

It's in Mended With Gold's second half that the band feels the most engaged.

Somehow at once entertaining, comforting, and challenging, Lily-O sees Amidon again pushing his distinctive perspectives through songs that belong to everybody.

It's a welcome return for Car that shows how fun and powerful his music is when it's focused and direct.

His musical language has evolved into a sound that is not only ambitious, but instantly recognizable.

Peaking Lights simply push for greater clarity and articulation on Cosmic Logic, refining their approach but keeping the blurry balance of rhythm and sun-dazed psychedelia.

All this means that Playland is superficially more pop with all its style and flair, but it plays more like a rock & roll album, always in a hurry to make its point understood as quickly as possible.

As with the self-titled album, this is all glacial, entrancing ambient-neoclassical--with O'Halloran's sensitive and melodic piano a central element--that soothes, suitable for both foreground and background listening.

They're all laced with small details, subtle twists, and gradual intensification.

A World Lit Only by Fire makes it crystal clear that Godflesh have a long, unfailing memory, and that their punishing work has only just begun.

Morris is lucky to have such a sympathetic group of musicians to play with, and the well-produced combo of words, vocals, and music make We Come from the Same Place another treat for fans of thoughtful, painfully adult indie pop music.

Thought-provoking, sonically dazzling, and sometimes bewildering, Let's Dance Raw is a lot to process, but it feels like a wish for honesty and intimacy in a world bent on destroying itself.

Rips mixes simple pleasures and complicated ones into a completely life-affirming debut.

Even if The Night Is Young could have been improved by better editing, it's still a welcome return from one of dance's most endearing acts.

While it might be counterproductive if Field Report were to shrink past a quartet, the streamlined approach of Marigolden is a superb example of how less can truly be more.

Quite possibly We Were Promised Jetpacks' most vivid album to date, Unravelling finds the band making music that's harder to place than ever--and that much more interesting for it.

The album is at its most gut-wrenching when it puts the humanity behind its creation on display.

As defined here, Soused accurately means "drenched" in sound. Walker's and Sunn 0)))'s individual identities, while always on full display, are brought jaggedly and thunderously together in an enthralling recording that equals the sum of its mighty parts.

Give My Love to London is as complete a portrait of the artist--at least from the late '70s on--as we've ever had. In total, it reveals no abatement in her creative renaissance.

Shame he's keeping a twice-a-decade pace, but this album should stick to the bones for twice that long, likely longer.

I've Been to Many Places sounds like the record Shipp had to make for his own edification, one that chronicles his expansive, fearless push toward the spirit of the unknown with purpose, one that deepens and widens the already expansive reach of his language.

However they dress up their music, it remains easy to connect with and this album proves it.

Righteous anger, razor-sharp songs, and killer music is a trifecta few punk bands can claim on their first album, but Single Mothers hit the jackpot on Negative Qualities, and if this doesn't turn out to be the best punk debut of 2014, then the music has been having a truly great year.

The Carpets have also crafted a set of songs as strong as any of the records they released in the '90s, which means this is a surprisingly effective comeback.

All in all, Hungry Ghosts is another solid album from one of pop's most versatile and charming bands.

Indian Ocean is sad, sweet, and warm as an August afternoon, and while its charms may feel old-fashioned and better suited to vinyl, the hardships it details are undeniably contemporary, and their conclusions oddly comforting.

Listening to the album, it's clear that even though Slipknot aren't over the loss of a dear friend and colleague, they're able to channel their grief into a productive album, allowing them to continue moving forward while paying tribute to a fallen comrade with one of the strongest albums of their career.

Bright, big, and Pharrellian, Paperwork still finds T.I. at the center of its well-funded variety show, allowing him to bounce back to his streety Trouble Man persona after schooling all the Iggy's and Macklemore's in such vital uptown slick.

What makes a difference here is the general lightness of his new songs and Was and Lee's sympathetic production; the two play off each other perfectly, turning this into the first latter-day Diamond record to feel quintessentially Neil Diamond.

While the album's roots are deeply embedded in the past, the band has never sounded more present tense.

Ultimate Painting may not reach the commercial heights of either guy's main band, but it is fully the equal and in some ways more interesting.

Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave's naked emotions and sophisticated music mark a new high point for the Twilight Sad.

The energy and spark that Ought base their sound on carries much in common with the best of their influences, finding new ways to sound fresh and exciting even in this short sampling.

A record with an expansive world-view delivered with a kinetic kick and infallible melodies, a record that gives no indication of where it's going upon first listen but remains compelling upon further spins, after all the dazzle dissipates and Little Big Town's craft shines through.

If the first album was the supernova, RTJ2 is the RTJ universe forming, proving that Mike and El-P's one-off can be a going, and ever growing, concern.