Sometimes being bad can be more fun than being good, and on Phosphene Dream The Black Angels hit that sweet spot more often than not.

BM have upped their ante with Wilderness Heart by concentrating more on excellent songwriting and close-cornered arranging than sprawling heavy rock bacchanalia.

Sex with an X is proof that Kelly and McKee were right to get back together, and while they don't pick up exactly where they left off, it's close enough to make their fans, both old and new, ecstatic.

You Are Not Alone is a solid outing that somehow amazingly manages to be both secular and sacred at once, and there is a stripped-down timelessness to it.

With the wall of static dialed back a notch, the songs breathe more, allowing for Welchez and Rowell to construct some of their most immediate material.

They get a little too close to trip-hop for their own good on a few songs, and their widescreen drama is missed occasionally, but Penny Sparkle is still another beautiful reinvention for Blonde Redhead.

They may not be the hippest band around in 2010 but they sound as fresh and important as they did in 1990, 1995, or 2001, and Majesty Shredding is the kind of album that'll make you glad to be a fan of indie rock.

Given its wonderfully crafted and performed material and stellar production, it is the country album of 2010.

Fields is intriguing in a low-key way that grows with repeated listening and will make Gonzalez fans into Junip fans.

It's recognizably the Charlatans--it's hard to disguise Tim Burgess's laconic drawl or the light psychedelic pull of his melodies--but they're unexpectedly abandoning their dad-rock handbook and taking risks, winding with their freshest, best album since they traded the Happy Mondays for the Rolling Stones.

Although this is hardly Underworld at their finest, the duo's songwriting fits the mainstream productions and results in a solid dance album for the 2010s--music for aging-raver activities like driving cars, pushing swings, or jogging on treadmills.

Harlem River Blues is utterly balanced, skillfully crafted, and exquisitely written and produced. Earle proves that he is a force to be reckoned with; in these grooves he embodies the history, mystery, and promise of American roots music.

The six-song Heretofore breaks down fairly neatly into a clutch of songs where the more unsettled side of the band's work exists as shading to fairly formal compositions and one big song where that overtly exploratory side is front and center.

This a major step forward and for the adventurous hip-hop fan, it could very well be appropriately titled.

Gonzales isn't an innovative dance producer, and there's not much pop music in play here either, making Ivory Tower a rather run-of-the-mill soundtrack--one of the many that can't be separated from their films.

Each EP has a handful of standout songs--the melodic thrust of "Make for This City" on Morning, the escalating drama of "Porcupine" on Night--but what lingers is James' controlled mastery of mood, how the band never pushes too hard yet never settles over the course of this quietly satisfying set.

Bachmann's contributions play a back-seat role to those by Taylor and Fink, who sound as convincing after a seven-year break as they did during Azure Ray's heyday.

Pop Negro is just as impressive as the debut was. It's just that the indie landscape has shifted so much over that time span that someone blending all sorts of African, Latin, dance, and pop elements and influences into a whirling, glittery disco ball of sound isn't exactly enough to stop the presses.

The result is part retro, part avant-garde, and part polyrhythmic elevator music, which is to say it sounds wholly Dungen.

The 16 songs sequentially chronicle an astronaut's journey from liftoff to landing, and Minowa seems as on top of his game as ever as he deals out uplifting lines like "All our anxieties are in a box I mailed to Pluto" over imaginative soundscapes.

Anyone who bought the limited edition of MM..Food? has the video proof, as much of this album is an audio rip of that package's bonus DVD. Redundancy aside, this is a fantastic show fans won't mind revisiting.

This is one heavy, messy, dynamite album--one that could take a decade to be fully processed.

The album's back half doesn't boast an outlandish moment like "I Invented Sex," either, but it is the strongest, most varied side of a Trey Songz album, just about flawless. It smoothly shifts through several moods.

Ultimately, Mirror is another Lloyd triumph. It may not shake the rafters with its kinetics, but it does dazzle with the utterly symbiotic interplay between leader and sidemen.

The coolest thing about this mess of orgiastic sound is that it's totally possible to envision it being played live; it feels present, inside your skin, under your muscles, and inside your veins. Shadow Temple is physical music that evokes the spirit world; it rocks, but it soars too; creating a soundtrack for some kind of apocalypse.

Two thirds of the way through the Body Talk project, it's clear that this experiment is reaping rich rewards for Robyn and her listeners.

Ultimately, Interpol isn't a statement of purpose as much as it is the end of an era for the band: With Dengler gone and back on their original label, they have the ability, and perhaps necessity, to go in any direction they choose.

Though they should've rocked out a couple times for some variation, Personal Life is a good example of a band growing up without growing old.