Per usual, the music is skewed and exhausting (in the best way imaginable) and the rhythmic interplay between bassist Jacob Long and drummer Damon Palermo is fantastic.

Longtime Darkest Hour fans should be very pleased by this record; they continue to write good songs and perform them with commitment and power. Because of their consistency, though, this album would also make a great introduction to the band's catalog.

The photo of the band in the CD booklet shows three guys in a tight circle playing heads-down intense, and it feels like this camaraderie and dedication has paid off in a record that may not save their career commercially, but will prove that they are still vital and exciting.

Ultimately, What's It All About is an intimate work revealing Metheny's investigation of composition itself. The notion of song is inherent in everything he does, and he reveals that inspiration in spades here.

The songs on Ruining It for Everybody don't feel slapped together, and despite the fact that they don't seem like they should work, the band pulls off their sound well. Add the album's concise running time to the mix and you have an album that works like Ritalin for anyone with a serious case of heavy metal ADD.

Designated chillout areas and other blue rooms will find Fever Dream a worthwhile soundtrack, while longtime fans get that wistful vagabond indie-hop style once again, only this time it's transmitted from deep, blissful space.

If they keep making records as good as Mountaintops, they will have totally earned their gold watch and pension when they call it a day.

Everything's easy and natural, and the Stepkids sound more like purveyors of the genre than imitators. Quite an accomplishment.

Red is a strong step forward for a very promising band that arrived with an intriguing voice already established and has now made it even richer and more interesting.

With such an ambitiously unconventional approach, it's quite an achievement that Ilo Veyou contains far more hits than misses.

There are some missteps and some rookie mistakes here, but ultimately, the collaged beats and convergences of found sounds stumble onto brilliance more often than they fall to the wayside.

True works as a whole and creates an unbroken mood and feel that is both nocturnal and strangely uplifting.

Even if it's not necessarily the kind of music that would make it into regular rotation, it's inventive and fun, which is more than enough for a project like this.

The bulk of Made in Germany is undoubtedly still an acquired taste, but as an overview of the country's biggest rock export, it's a fairly representative collection and showcases them at their best.

While this is a remarkably process-oriented album, Soft Fall is also some of Barthmus' most engaging work, especially on the tracks where tight song structures give form and contrast to his grandiose tendencies.

All Time Low swallowed their pride, rededicated themselves, and ended up making the best record yet in a very consistently satisfying career.

They actually make the effort to show why they're worth paying attention to across six often lengthy tracks. At points their approach is more like providing catnip to well-inclined fans.

This is the final group of recordings Smith plans to release from the 100 Records project, and it's just as strong as any of the others.

Hard to stack up to the wonder years this far into their career, but Rat Farm comes darn close, and the tracks on their 14th outing are the closest they've come in a long time to the colorful, no-frills brand of twangy alt-rock and informal punk (with hints of Americana, country, folk, and prog) that they instilled on their SST records.

Get There is as pleasurable as anything Hatfield or Nada Surf have offered listeners in recent years.

Chiaroscuro is built to unspool slowly, cut deep, and last a long time.

Lights Out features a broadened sonic palette and a much more robust vocal performance; it's a transformation she's been perfecting since 2009's Everybody and 2012's Human Again.

Love Without Fear is a strong, mature work and it's great to hear Wilson step out from behind his collaborators to present his own work again.

Given its all-encompassing title, it's fitting that ∞ (Infinity) is one of Tiersen's most ambitious albums, but its grand scale only magnifies his music's heartfelt beauty.

While Lee Bains III & the Glory Fires may be a great rock & roll band, they haven't quite cracked the code on making a great album, at least in terms of audio, and Dereconstructed manages to be impressive, encouraging, and frustrating at the same time.

Heavy Reverie does seem a bit like a holding pattern, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, not with a band as good and as maverick as this one is, but it leaves one wondering just how good these guys could be.

Oldham’s intentions behind re-recording these relatively recent songs are puzzling, but the curious nature of the album is just another chapter of the mysterious, and in this case highly enjoyable saga of Bonnie "Prince" Billy.

Like Earle's best work, Absent Fathers is low on flash and high on emotional honesty and perceptive songwriting, and paired with Single Mothers this is some of his most intelligent and moving music to date.