The Neon is stacked with what Erasure does best: Sharp melodic hooks, efficient, hip-shaking beats, and yearning lyrics that both relate and motivate.

A work of absolute beauty, chaos, seductive darkness and cosmic light.

Elsie functions best as a display of Fallon's underused bottom register and acoustic songwriting skills, proving that slowing things down once in a while can still be a punk rock move.

These songs, and the album as a darkly moody whole, show the band to be growing into masters of crafting modern psychedelia with dark swirls instead of day-glo, and bad trips instead of sunshine days.

The album reaches its apex on the soaringly beautiful "Flight Song," evoking at once the best elements and most reflective shades of Eno, Aphex Twin, and free jazz saxophonist Marion Brown.

Microclimate may be homespun, but it's Porcelain Raft's most cosmopolitan and lived-in sounding offering to date. It's a record that consistently compels, even when it confounds.

Fate & Alcohol is the kind of album that gets into your bloodstream and lingers, ever so slightly shifting the way you see the world and your place in it. If it really is the end for Japandroids, it's a farewell that feels like it could go on forever.

Even with the album's epic length, it never feels meandering or indulgent, as Prins Thomas remains supremely focused throughout the entire journey, finding the duality between the different types of "cosmic" music.

Upon repeated listens, the sorrowful undertow of Everyday Robots becomes a comfort, a balm for moments of alienation; it's the kind of record that when you're lonely, you press play.

The relaxed, hypnotic nature of the piece [Post Encounter Effect] is a little surprising coming after the ecstatic first side, but it's calming and welcome nonetheless.

Lustre takes on a kind of cinematic joy where Harcourt the long-suffering vampiric troubadour steps into the light and shines.

The album has a quality about it that's sweeping without being out and out uplifting, feeling more informed by the rigors of touring than the denizens of the Twin Cities and their lapsed Catholic revelations.

Answers has a heavy downtown spirit, with standard instruments played in a unique fashion, and an aggressive interplay that's nearly antagonistic.

Cohen's poetic vision remains the dominant element on this elegiac set.

Lundgren and crew may have lost some of the buzz they initially had when the band first started, but they've gained grace and emotional strength in return. That's a pretty good trade, and for the fans who have stuck with them, it makes Forever Today their most satisfying record to date.

Unearth boasts enough charms on its own, offering up ten enigmatic, audio time capsules that strike a winning, oddball balance between the cool, Krautrock sheen of Kraftwerk, the naturalistic, glitch-filled hum of The Books, and the melodious pop stylings of early Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark.

It's exciting and unique music, not falling neatly in with any of his dubstep/singer/songwriter peers or the large number of indie-leaning electronic producers.

Lower stand out for their unique blend of cathartic explosions and restraint, creating something remarkably powerful in their use of dynamics and tense pacing.

Arguably his most coherent album to date, while off-kilter touches add a layer of artfulness, the songs themselves are engaging, even riveting by nature, and made more so by Blakeslee's performances.

Along with producer Cole M.G.N. (Beck, Julia Holter), Real Estate seems to both fine-tune and expand an already identifiable sound on In Mind, with engaging and often beautiful results.

Time will tell if Perfect Version is a fascinating anomaly in Julia Shapiro's catalog or a bold step into a new phase of her career, but either way it's brave, powerful music that speaks from the heart and the mind. Anyone who has liked her work with Chastity Belt or Childbirth should investigate this study of the emotional flip side of Shapiro's songs.

While the experiment works, for the most part, in tandem with Devine and Hull's always thoughtful and occasionally profound words, the album becomes formulaic as songs reliably start as acoustic song, then gradually ascend into the atmosphere.

The group does touch on that raucous, open-heartedness with a closing cover of Charley Jordan's old country-blues standard "Keep It Clean," featuring cameos from John C. Reilly, David Garza, and Gaby Moreno. Arriving after such a sweet, soft collection of songs, it's a welcome burst of gusto, yet the rest of Brother Sister is attractive in its own right, highlighting the family bond between the titular Watkins siblings.

The remix collection is considerably more fragmented than the cohesive original, but it's no less forward-thinking, and is well worth the time of anyone who was bowled over by the proper album.

The stricter members of the metal community might see King Gizzard as interlopers with no real metal cred, but after Rats Nest and now this thrillingly massive album, there's no reason the band shouldn't be considered one of the best practitioners of the genre around.

[A] rare sophomore outing that not only manages to avoid the slump, but bests its predecessor in the process.

Cole's voice is sweet and ringing, like a wiser version of Lil' Mo who has had to weather a tremendous amount of drama.

Her self-produced full-length debut feels more elaborate than her EPs while also seeming impulsive and off-the-cuff.