Built on Glass isn't so much limited as it is a wonderful mood piece, so think calm and cool with purpose, and then get hip to the restrained and resonating sound of Faker.

They work hard to make it a true collaboration, and due to that effort and the high quality of the songs they each brought, it works amazingly well.

Big Head Todd & the Monsters will never be a gutbucket, down-and-dirty blues-rock outfit, but Black Beehive proves that's fine: they have found their own friendly spin on the blues and have become a better band for it.

Artful and ambitious throughout, Oh, Common Life may not bring cheer to most listeners, but the passion informing both the lyrics and the music shows that Fireworks offer something genuinely life-affirming despite their dour surfaces.

As displayed on I Am the Last of All the Field That Fell: A Channel, it's also simultaneously holistic, maddening, erotic, bleak, bright, and most of all, visionary.

Pattern Is Movement display their visions of skewed pop in bold, vivid colors, with faint echoes of their mathy past buried but still audible through the walls of joyous noise.

While words like "fun" or "entertaining" aren't likely to ever be used to describe I Shall Die Here, those with the fortitude to endure its savagery and stare into the abyss will definitely know what they're made of.

It may not deliver a knockout punch but it's not intended to be powerful; it's a grower, sounding better with repeated exposure, repeated listens revealing the craft in the songs and the subtlety in Nail's execution.

While the pedigree of this project is certainly strong, Inventions stands strong on its own, so although fans of Eluvium and Explosions in the Sky won't have any trouble digging into the album, being a fan of the duo's previous work isn't a part of the price of admission.

nes. Skillfully strung together by ringleader Inglish, these flights of fancy turn into a substantial party album with plenty of fun and flash.

Between the airless production, the clunky arrangements, and the songs that are bereft of hooks, the album is their worst to date by far and hopefully signals either the end of the road, or rock bottom.

The 14 songs of Under Color of Official Right see an already incredible band moving even further forward in their development, approaching the same instant classic standards of their best contemporaries and turning in their most intricate work so far.

There's warmth in Was' production and honey in McBride's voice and if the combination can sometimes result in too-sweet tea, it's nevertheless soothing.

This time the emotional waters run just as deep as the musical ones, and it stands as some of the best brainy, heartfelt pop around.

The Future's Void's often dazzling vignettes aren't quite as striking as Anderson's debut, but they show she's an artist unconfined by any one sound or perspective, and more than capable of engaging minds as well as hearts.

With music like this, the line between undercooked and overdone is a pretty fine one, but II: Void Worship shows that Pilgrim are a band more than capable of walking it with an album that's sure to find purchase with doom purists looking for something less fussy than the post-metal albums the genre influenced.

Though they might lack the minimal lyrical subtlety of the bands of that era, musically Steel Panther will scratch the itch of anyone craving a little hair metal excess.

Regardless of where you place them categorically, Malachai are deeply entertaining and Beyond Ugly shows that one more dip into the well was indeed a good move for the band.

Psychic 9-5 Club is indeed a new chapter for HTRK as they strip away nearly everything, finding unexpected strengths.

On Carter Girl, Carlene Carter has confronted the mighty legacy of the Carter Family's songbook and allowed it to strengthen her music rather than buckling under its weight, and this ranks with her finest recorded work to date.

Equal parts whimsical and despondent, it's Disintegration-era Cure wearing an Imagine Dragons hoodie that's trying to have an LCD Soundsystem, "All My Friends" moment, and while the Faint don't quite pull it off, they're all the better for trying.

So It Goes is as pure as they come, so strap in and get ready from some rich rewards and hard truths because this one returns hip-hop to a time when it was "dangerous," and in the best, most progressive way possible.

Tweens may be a little uneven, but its successes and opportunities for growth make it a promising start.

As it stands, it's a hard album to get your head around and it's a hard album to fully embrace.

In the end, what keeps Tremors from drowning in its own paralyzed sadness is the feeling that Sohn himself has defeated these dark feelings through the painstaking process of crafting an album so beautiful.

It's overflowing with excitement, optimism, and overwhelming beauty that distract you just enough to disregard the sounds of rustling footsteps behind you growing closer.

They're among the very best American punk bands of their day, and show there's plenty of snarling, howling life left in the beast after all these years.

Angel feels like a continuous, slow-motion sunset on a coastline in a dream. It's new territory for Pure X, but when the elements of '70s radio rock and Sunday-morning soul come together, it results in some of their most tuneful moments.