Despite the occasional flaws, the album shows that Vernon (along with the guys in Collections of Colonies of Bees) has not only the desire to branch out but also the necessary skills.

It is quietly passionate, graceful, elegant, utterly moving, and unequivocally beautiful in its honesty and sophistication. He's realized an ambition here that is artful and singular.

Showing more than a trace of the bombast of Arm's Way, a couple of songs like 'Drums' and 'Shining' collapse under their own weight and are the only things that keep Vapours from being Islands' best work. Still, this is a welcome return to form for the band.

The songs on Us are long--most track in past four minutes--and the album can start to drag during some of the later verses, but as a statement on the health of hip-hop, it's an assured yes that all is well.

Millan's "plain jane" delivery may be occasionally sleep inducing, but it's comfort, not boredom that delivers the serotonin.

Rain Machine gives Malone an appealingly mellow yet resolutely independent identity for his solo music; even if it may not be for fans of his other projects' more accessible material, it's nice to hear a full album of what he can do on his own.

A Brief History of Love is a strong, sometimes really, really good debut, and a nice addition to the shoegaze canon.

For now there is enough energy and excitement in the sound and presentation to make Born Again Revisited sound just as fresh and invigorating as "Rip It Off."

At the Cut isn't as great a surprise as "North Star Deserter," but if you thought the brilliance of that album was a happy accident, this confirms these musicians complement each other very well and hopefully will continue to do so for a long time to come.

The delicacy and epic sweep of the Twilight Sad's first album is missed occasionally on Forget the Night Ahead, but the progress they've made is fascinating--and rewarding--to hear.

Family shows that Le Loup have really come into their own since the release of their 2007 debut.

kee is simply a fantastic listen that showcases Wainwright as both a showman and a deeply creative songwriter with a superb knack for live performance.

Somedays the Song Writes You is another choice album from one of the greatest songwriters to ever come out of the state of Texas.

This EP marks a vital point in POBPAH's artistic development, a chance to see that they aren't willing to just sit back and repeat themselves. It's a pretty good listen, too.

The resulting tunes are lush, but few are truly dense, and White Water's biggest asset is its ability to wield such a large sound without replacing the woodsy, cozy feel of Church's solo performances.

It's less of an issue to find an epochal band among them and more of one to find a band that is consistently a pleasure to listen to in its own right. Well into a decade's worth of performances and recording, Early Day Miners manage that feat again on their sixth album, The Treatment.

Prior to Backspacer, Pearl Jam wouldn't or couldn't have made music this unfettered, unapologetically assured, casual, and, yes, fun.

Journal for Plague Lovers winds up being The Holy Bible in reverse: every moment of despair is a reason to keep on living instead of an excuse to pack it all in.

His limited dynamic range creates an intense, almost suffocating feeling of intimacy, and is, therefore, in its way, dramatic.

The fact that the end results sound similar to Go's machine-made rivals proves to be a double-edged sword, however, both attracting fans for its genuine approach and repelling others for its similarity to manufactured pop.

James Shaw and James Ford are still enforcing limitations on their sound, and while they may be smoothing out a few of the rough patches that would make a more interesting record, their sophomore follow-up is a worthy heir to the original.

Time to Die is far from a bad album, but unpredictability still suits the Dodos better than trying to fit into a more recognizable indie rock mold.

Yorn and Johannson cut their album long before She & Him, but surfacing in its wake, they can't help but seem a bit like the polished, polite answer to the twee, precious charms of Zooey & M. Ward. Break Up does trump Vol. 1 conceptually, chronicling the dissolution of a romance as a series of duets, and Scarlett is a more-than-worthy foil to Yorn.

"Black Holes and Revelations" may be a more commercial record, but The Resistance is Muse's most realized effort to date.

This first official release is a soul searcher and may require more patience than your everyday debut. Still, the chilly, complicated Man on the Moon perfects the futuristic bleak-beat hip-hop Kanye purposed a year earlier, and rewards the listener with every tripped-out return.

It says quite a bit about Nelly Furtado's ambitions and skill when her Spanish detour winds up being arguably her strongest album yet.

[They were a creature of the studio and it] resulted in alternate mixes and instrumental scraps, the stuff that enthralls fetishists, sometimes justifiably so. Those are the listeners who will find Keep an Eye on the Sky most rewarding, but anybody who has loved the band will find something to cherish here.

While the pieces that put the orchestra at the fore are the most dazzling, Central Market is a tour de force that only grows more fascinating with repeated listens.