Toujours is an album of true originality, executed with humor, warmth, and spark, and captivating from beginning to end.

Bless Off is a single-minded beast of an album that seeks only to inspire the listener to hit the streets and take some risks, making a case for the idea that a life that isn't lived dangerously is a life that's barely lived at all.

Ragan's insightful writing lends itself to both anthems and love songs, revealing the singer/songwriter's maturity and savvy. He just needs to trust his vision more.

Its varied tones and moods settle into an exciting, vivid bigger picture and represent a clearer collection of Wilson's intelligent lyrical portraits and shifting stylistic muses.

Tokyo Police Club worked with co-producer Doug Boehm, who has also collaborated with the French Kicks, and Forcefield often recalls how that band managed to sound sophisticated and unpretentious at the same time

Somewhere in between his rich, weathered baritone and his self-deprecating lyrics, the listener is charmed into submission, and it all goes down like a perfectly sessionable ale, albeit one with peculiar origins.

World of Joy's second half isn't quite as cohesive as its first.

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.

The vocals, the songs, the music, and the production work together to make Singles a one-of-a-kind experience that's nearly perfect.

This new direction is one that suits the band well, and although it may seem like they've put their bar rock days in their rear view mirror, it's seems pretty clear that the band is heading toward a big, arena rock future.

Out of the box, the Melodic don't sound much like anyone else in British pop, and their individuality, imagination, and vision already make them something special.

The set is essential to any fan, and these records are near-perfect documents of the roots of indie rock and D.I.Y. culture that started growing in the unheard music and handmade expressions of the early '90s.

The result is an electronic album that sounds nothing like electronic music, and manages to relate complex, well-crafted moods with a deceptively spare sonic palette.

If E Volo Love was his breakout, Piano Ombre should be the record that will truly resonate with fans.

This already busy album becomes even busier with so many cooks in the kitchen, and shoots off nonstop fireworks as if this was Skrillex's audio variety special, sponsored by the wing of the stereo industry that sells, re-cones, or fixes subwoofers.

They're as committed as ever to rocking and having a good time, and that's something that thankfully seems to be getting even stronger the more they figure out what they're doing.

The Imagined Savior Is Far Easier to Paint is provocative: its moodiness, myriad musical directions, and 79-minute length may be initially off-putting. What is revealed with repeated listening, however, is that this set's achievement is commensurate with its ambition.

Every one of these seem like they could have some kind of potential on the charts, so the fact they were shelved is a bit of a mystery because, when taken together--despite misguided novelties like "If I Told You Who It Was"--it adds up to one of Cash's stronger '80s albums.

Though Sex and Love tries hard to walk the tightrope between the personas displayed on Iglesias' two previous outings, he leans more to the club side here. Your feelings about the album will depend on which side of the divide you lean toward.

All told, Daughter of Everything is a promising, if somewhat scattered collection of wry guitar pop that nods to the best of the '60s and '90s.

Wildewoman can feel a little rote, but to its credit, never dull, due in large part to Wolfe and Laessig's commanding performances.

It's Alive is a debut that should appeal to both lovers of old-school surf pop and anyone who's into the modern "surf" noise-pop style, but always wanted more waves and less whine.

There's a bit more maturity and personality to some of these tracks that speaks of a band coming into its own. Still, for fans of their first two releases, Weird Kids provides plenty of the snarky sendoffs and he-said/she-said breakup rockers that drew people to the band in the first place.

The Soul of the Hour confirms that Gallon Drunk are bloodied but unbowed, still raging against the world around them and just as powerful as ever.

Ultimately, The Pink Caves has a haunting, surrealistic quality that, while melodic and song-based at times, also feels abstract and organic, as if these songs were not so much written by the band as cultivated as they grew out of the earth.

Though they took over a decade to follow up their first album, Two still sounds like a band a decade ahead of its time.

Think of 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin' delivered by an inspired rapper in a post-Nicki Minaj world and you're close to the thrill of this inspired debut.

Ibibo Sound Machine is an auspicious debut. The producers molded their rhythms around that beautiful voice with taste, creativity, and integrity, and the band plays the hell out of it all.