The music presented with such care here is lovely, soothing, and seductively beguiling; taken in enough times, it becomes utterly magical.

Goat Girl's wealth of ideas is one of their biggest strengths, but Below the Waste lacks the focus that united their music into a cohesive whole on On All Fours.

Citrus is as good a shoegaze record you will ever hear, regardless of release date.

Toth's gift for songwriting gives emotional resonance to the album's softly lit, somewhat dazed ambience, and the result is one of the more interesting chapters of Wooden Wand's always twisting oeuvre.

Manic showcases Halsey at her nerviest and at her best.

It's clear after four albums that the best Bon Iver is the one that manages to keep the arrangements in check and doesn't swing for the fences. I,I takes many mighty swings and at best knocks out a few infield hits, while striking out far too often.

Overall, Roots Manuva may have a lot to say during the verses, but when his choruses consist of little more than a repeated line shouted over and over ("Awfully Deep," "Too Cold"), listeners won't be hanging around long enough to decipher his rhymes.

He is writing and recording music that is profound, funny, topical, worldly, and ultimately, necessary.

Hollandaze is an impressive debut.

Filled end to end with grindcore insanity and covered in a sheen of sonic grime (thanks to Converge guitarist and engineer extraordinaire Kurt Ballou), the album is an exercise in relentlessness, offering no quarter and asking for none in return as it stampedes from track to track on a merciless metal rampage.

Toxic City Music is a truly daring, captivating release, and possibly Caminiti's best solo work yet.

The Hard Quartet reject no idea on their debut, and the results are usually familiar, strange, and fun, and at its strongest, the album reframes the individualized sounds of all four powerhouses as something new.

Capturing the intensity and raw emotion of her captivating live shows, Anna Calvi is an ambitious and always intriguing debut which heralds the arrival of a unique and inventive addition to the plethora of U.K. female singer/songwriters.

Unlike Dunger's previous albums, which tended to have a specific musical theme, there's a kind of scattered, everywhere at once quality to Here's My Song.

Anathema's trademark emotional resonance and musical adventurousness purposefully re-engage earlier electronic forms to make this album a compelling--if controversial--undertaking.

This album does find the fine band reaching for something different, and they hit their target with skill, assurance, and clarity.

A definite improvement over leaving meaning, The Beggar is a riskier yet more successful effort that feels like a step in a more fulfilling direction.

This is a life-affirming triumph of an album that dares to be uplifting during difficult times.

The sound of three people ripping through hooky tunes without regard for pleasantries and taste is one of the joys of rock & roll, and Vivian Girls do satisfy on that account.

Noisy yet nuanced, Electric Brick Wall delivers some of the high points of Herrema's discography.

Like his two previous studio albums, Solitary Man is sparsely produced by Rick Rubin, and continues the themes of love, faith, and loneliness that their previous collaborations have chillingly embraced.

A bakers' dozen of their most focused and cohesive songs. Where their earlier albums were eclectic to the point of being scattershot, this release manages to limit the band's style-switching to dreamy, sweeping epics like "Godless" and "Nietzsche"; sussed, sleazy power pop like "Horse Pills" and "Cool Scene"; and country and gospel ventures like "Country Leaver" and "The Gospel."

The front placement of two T-Pain collaborations gets the album off to a strong, strutting start. Several of her established associates, such as Blac Elvis and Pop & Oak, eventually arrive to ensure a familiar mix of traditional structures and contemporary dressing.

There's just enough looseness in these performances to honor the punk side of their personality, but LiE finds them rocking as hard and as confidently as they did in their heyday, if not more so.

A Legacy of Rentals captures him at the peak of his powers. It's art wrought from real life which is all the more devastating for it's easy recognizability.

Ultimately, there is real growth here, subtle and unpretentious as it is.

These ten songs sound almost designed to be played on repeat, and keep with the always colorful and ecstatically fun sound audiences have come to expect from one of the best acts going in retrofitted classic soul.

His previous album's excellence made it seem like Daedelus was working at his peak but amazingly he not only equals that album but surpasses it, creating his most satisfying album since his debut.