Its sly, delicately textured rewards are ones to appreciate and ponder, not to cherish.

While it doesn't quite live up to their early hype, it's still an encouraging first offering, suggesting that they might do with album number two.

They remain faithful to the New Orleans musical ideal in the sense that they turn everything they play into celebratory party music.

City Awakenings feels like it belongs to the short-lived era when Travis were the biggest band in Britain, but it's still a charming return from one of Scottish pop's unsung heroes.

[The last] three songs better illustrate what Kwes. is capable of as a producer and musician, falling somewhere between Thundercat and James Blake, in a cool blend of downtempo, dubstep, and R&B.

If you think that the "rock" part of "indie rock" has been dying a slow death, look to Screaming Females as your lighthouse during these dark, guitar-less times and rejoice as you air shred along with all that Ugly has to offer.

Without jettisoning the basic stylistic minimalism and scarcity of artistic means which makes footwork such a thrillingly raw, blunt, and immediate form, Traxman manages to subtly expand and redefine the possibilities of the genre.

An EP might have worked, but apparently Grinderman had to milk it for all it was worth.

Hair represents the best possible outcome of the collaborative record.

Suckers have turned in a respectable album of big sounds and strong melodies.

The majority of the album places Actress closer to the superbly creative, evocative, and mind-altering terrain inhabited by Oneohtrix Point Never, with detectable traces of early-'80s Roedelius and Moebius, as well as Autechre.

Aufheben's shining moments are the most daring ones, and are also surprisingly sweet.

By employing hard-rocking, sometimes spacey psychedelia (gloriously) to express the anger he feels as he watches the hard-won gains of history being damaged and destroyed in unsavory ways, Hawley creates an essential listen.

Neck of the Woods is an even more infectious and nuanced affair.

Definitely an album that's worth listening to on repeat, not only out of necessity, but because it's a refreshingly simple, straightforward album in an increasingly processed and affected era.

Thanks to Zdar's sure-handed co-production, Bainbridge's skills at synthesizing the past and present, and a batch of songs that really stick to you after a couple listens, World, You Need a Change of Mind ends up being a very pleasing, very interesting record.

Lazer Sword are in full command on Memory, an album that finds them coming into their own as well as exploring new territory.

Strangeland never really lives up to its mysterious title, as there's nothing on it that doesn't feel willfully nostalgic, but like any good plate of comfort food it satisfies in a way that more adventurous meals never truly can.

Perhaps it is a bit stuffy and hidebound for art rock, but taken as a theatrical production, it's adventurously cerebral, an album to ponder if not quite embrace.

It is his most ambitious and focused work, and combines not only instruments and musical traditions, but cultural sonances and histories as well.

Like a lot of career overviews, this is somewhere between an introduction and a collector's item, but it initially retailed for the price of a single disc and holds an edge over the marginally less expensive A Collection.

Even if A Collection is by the numbers, they are great numbers and rounded out by some intriguing collaborations (with Brian Eno, High Contrast, and such) along with powerful live cuts.

A compelling and rich move toward adulthood from one of the underground's most prolonged and complicated adolescents.

California death-grinders Cattle Decapitation will never be accused of subtlety, but there are moments on the typically grotesque Monolith of Inhumanity, their seventh long-player, that are unabashedly melodic.

Weather Systems stands with Anathema's finest work.

Think "winning formula" instead of "formulaic" and you're close to the value of Evolution, which along with Ferry Corsten's equally great WKND makes "trance ain't dead" the unofficial motto of 2012.

Here We Go Magic move between more full-on hyperactivity in that vein from songs like "Make Up Your Mind" and "I Believe in Action" to the easier-going grooves of "Alone But Moving," but too often they don't do much with that.

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, which is the great trick behind this persuasive album, offering a serious argument with plenty of hot buttered soul.