While it's a little uneven, Dance Mother is often fascinating, and a big step forward for Telepathe without losing what made them distinctive in the first place.

A little less studio craft would have improved The Law of the Playground quite measurably and possibly put it on the same level as Best Party, since the songcraft and performances are nearly equal.

It is perhaps a seminal new chapter in Callahan's oeuvre of higher yet lo-fi outsider music.

There's nothing small or careful about Fantasies--it's a full-on bid for pop glory and it's a smashing success.

It's pleasant enough, particularly when the breathy vocals fade away to leave behind cascades of guitars, but even at its best, it's nothing more than an approximation of Smashing Pumpkins at their peak, with all the interesting parts stripped away.

Grand Duchy have enough fun on the album that more often than not, it's contagious.

You Can Have What You Want falls a little short of the last record, Can't Go Back, just because it isn't as jaunty or light-hearted, but it is still an impressive work that should go a ways in providing some proof that the band has more depth and power than one might have thought if they just stuck to the surface

On first listen, anyone familiar with the Handsome Family will keep waiting for someone to die or go insane as if wondering when the shoe will drop, but ultimately Honey Moon proves they can ease into more optimistic surroundings and not lose touch with the strange and ethereal qualities that have made them worthwhile.

Spinning through 29 tracks in just under 50 minutes, Scott Herren's sixth proper LP as Prefuse 73 offers more of the same musical madness for fans of his no-attention-span cut-ups--and that's a good thing.

Such tunes may not have suited the bittersweet beauty of Stairs, but they're quite good in their own right, making The Open Door EP something more than a fans-only release.

Plenty of rock singers have tried to honor the sound and traditions of period honky tonk music over the years, but you'd be hard-pressed to find one who sounds as ineffably right singing this stuff as John Doe, and Country Club is a casual, no-frills masterpiece.

Pomegranates may need some more time to ripen fully, but Everybody, Come Outside! will still be a treat to some palettes.

Beauty rarely hides where you expect it. Take, for instance, the debut release by the U.K.'s Trembling Bells.

Jeniferever shows some serious potential on this album, but much of it remains to be realized.

Two Suns is nearly as graceful and poetic as Bat for Lashes' best work; it's just that the album's massive concepts and sounds require a little more time and patience to unravel to get to the songs' hearts.

A wild funhouse of an album, Jewelleryis more challenging and idea packed (not to mention more fun) than a lot of self-proclaimed experimental music.

This is still a bright record, however, one that finds catharsis in the gloomier songs and strength in the tracks that resemble Lost Souls' measured anthems.

Without the instantly gripping singles, Jigsaw is as scattered as its title implies.

Fork in the Road is charmingly clunky, a side effect of its quick creation and Young's hard-headedness. Neil might be writing records as quickly as a blogger these days but musically he's stuck in the past, never letting go of his chunky Les Paul and candied folk harmonies.

As immediate as Life and Times isn't nearly as diamond-hard as "Copper Blue," which is a great part of its appeal: it flows naturally, the music never pushes, it settles, comfortable in its own skin.

Yonder Is the Clock is the band's most nuanced effort to date, an effortless piece of Catskills folk and narrative know-how that shows just how far a band can grow in one year's time.

This problematic arrival shows too in the final product, but the problem may not be the much maligned rapper's ability or inspiration but the constant mishandling of his material. So many prime street cuts have been given away to comps, mixtapes, and soundtracks in the five years since Kiss of Death was released that only the slick, polished numbers remain.

Other than the hypnotic 'Work' and the playfully geeky 'Hazel,' the set is punchless, more a pleasant mood album fit for casual background listening, lacking the unnerved tension that runs through the majority of "Last Exit" and "So This Is Goodbye."

The album isn't a total disaster, though, there are a few songs that manage to overcome the record's flaws and deliver some excitement.

A debut that largely lives up to all the surrounding hype championing the group as one of the hottest new indie up-and-comers.

His singing is of a piece with the music, at once clearer and more conventional than ever before and still touched with the reflective spoken-to-oneself melancholy that defines his work.

It doesn't help that almost nothing about Unstoppable is modest, not the sounds, not the sentiments--only the songs, which can't withstand these muscle-bound arrangements.

Forays into medieval trip-hop ("The Last Laugh") and reggae-influenced indie pop ("Jelly Bean") stretch the boundaries of the album's bedrock, but it's fun to see folk music take such unexpected turns, especially when the destination sounds this enchanting.