While there's a mercurial effect to Until the Tide Creeps In at least partly due to its songwriters writing separately, common tendencies, artful execution, and a melancholy dreaminess tie it all together, like a novel that's consistently compelling as it moves through multiple perspectives.

There's no lack of artists making similar sounding music--MGMT, Pop Levi, White Williams, and even Animal Collective come to mind--but Miike Snow is ambitious and fun enough that they're worth checking out.

Coomes knows he's not for everyone, and that lack of self-consciousness is one of the album's biggest strengths, but listeners with short attention spans and a low tolerance for eccentricity might want to stick with a more commercial brand of sonic weirdness.

It should come as no surprise that the second half suffers for its subdued pace; after all, Slaves are fashioned around the idea of being abrasive, not insightful.

A few songs sound nothing like Crocodiles, like the rollicking Latin-inspired ballad "Alita" and the cheerful '60s pop/rocker "Not Even in Your Dreams," but it still works thanks to the focused songwriting and the care they put into the sound. That at least half the songs are among their most powerful and poppiest to date ("Telepathic Lover" chief among them) doesn't hurt, either.

Overall, this is a strong debut with heart, style, and some nice hooks.

Unmistakably influenced by the late SOPHIE, who appeared on Hi This Is Flume, the production has a stretched-out, rubbery-yet-metallic quality, and the songs balance sugary vocal hooks with truly intense beat formations.

While it doesn’t really come close to capturing the lightning-in-a-bottle power of Doggystyle, there’s enough of that original spirit mixed with a modernized production sound to make Missionary one of Snoop’s more enjoyable full album listening experiences in several years.

It may not have the sugar rush immediacy of the Strokes, and at times it's downright indulgent, but Phrazes for the Young shows that Casablancas has more than enough ideas for several albums on his own and with his band--and perhaps most importantly, he sounds more enthused about making music on it than he has since "Is This It."

Jim is most reminiscent of the Southern deep soul of the late '60s, although recorded so well (and so dry) that it betrays its lineage. Add to that an assortment of unobtrusive guests (including Nikka Costa, Gonzales, Peaches, and Alex Acuña) and the result is a record that reveals soul and sincerity.

After spending a little bit more time swaggering than wooing, he's back to crooning and it's amiable and appealing, if not overwhelming.

At their best, they entrance to such an extent, like watching a slalom skier at half-speed, that the plainly worded sex talk is as inconsequential as any random boast about wealth. Toliver sounds anesthetized more often here.

September Girls sound like a copy of a copy of a copy, not quite reaching the heights of their immediate predecessors, let alone the classic bands they're all aiming for.

Its casualness sometimes surfaces in its tossed-off jokes or sing-song melodies, but that only underscores that Jenny & Johnny are having a good time -- and it's a good time that's easy to share even if one of the hosts doesn't quite hold up his own end of the bargain.

Eric Clapton has never sounded so relaxed on record, either as a singer - he is supple and casually authoritative, a far cry from the tentative lead vocalist of his earliest solo records - or a band leader, sounding at peace with his past yet harboring no desire to recycle it, even if he's reaching back far beyond the blues that initially sparked his interest in music.

Bracken makes thoughtful, reflective music, like Brian Eno, or even fellow anticon labelmates Alias or cLOUDDEAD.

Overstuffed remix collections like this are hit and miss by nature, but Bigger. Messier. acknowledges this with its very title, and its impressive cast takes the original songs in some fascinating directions, making the whole thing worthwhile for fans of any of the artists involved.

Horace Andy and Hope Sandoval front some impressive productions, and Damon Albarn's "Saturday Come Slow" is one of his best post-Blur features (including Gorillaz), but overall Heligoland lacks the majesty and might of classic Massive Attack.

The Avett Brothers aren't rewriting the book, they're just translating it for a new generation.

The 13-track set adds some relatively subtle flourishes of electronics to the mix while dialing back a little on Sean Mackin's signature violin playing, but fans looking to conjure up some nostalgia for the band's Ocean Avenue heyday will find what they're looking for.

Half the fun of the album is listening to the oddball ways he twists words and sounds into his own slack language. The other half is taking up oddly cozy residence in BRONCHO's unique world of underwater doo wop, naptime pop, and energetic inertia.

Its sturdy set should also prove a worthwhile find for those interested in offshoots of math rock, or a kind of controlled virtuosity suited for rainy-day instrument workouts.

Mid-album "Silence," a Homeric ballad in which Smith soars through the cosmos on a delicate rainbow of synth and chimes before crashing to the earth in a meteor shower of over-driven electric guitar squelch and digital distortion. It's a bold, deeply emotive moment, evoking the heartfelt style of Peter Gabriel. That these tracks, as with all of EBM, feel both familiar and unexpectedly fresh speaks to the alchemical spark between Editors and Power.

Stories Don't End barely registers upon the first spin (it's easy pop for the millennial generation), but if given the time to percolate, it produces a damn fine cup of coffee.

It's almost impossible to dislike Swimming's pastel beauty, but it's nearly as difficult to work up much enthusiasm about it.

A confounding, often thrilling album of pieced-together samples and shorted-out electronics that nevertheless has a primitive groove coursing through its veins.

While the Libertines still haven't fully seized the opportunity to define what they could be as veterans instead of upstarts, All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade still sounds more like the product of a working band than Anthems for Doomed Youth did, and offers enough good and great moments to keep fans believing.

Burn the Maps is an elemental journey that tugs at the heart and sticks around in the mind.