Order Of Noise is one of the most worthwhile genre-defying oddities of the year.

It's just solid and efficient, a period piece with modern trimmings.

It's the best album of its kind to come out this year and, perhaps even more significantly, Segall's best work to date.

Short, sweet, and edgy without being rough, Strange Grey Days is the perfect soundtrack to an afternoon daydream, be it sunny or shadowed, for its lullaby quality if not its stark originality.

It's all very well-done, but it's not something that you'll feel much incentive to revisit over and over; an experience worth taking, but not necessarily one worth repeating.

Mumps takes a little while to sink in in a different way to previous albums.

The album is all about big and big is what you get.

With Transcendental Youth, the Mountain Goats have proven that they're more than capable of engaging us with even without the unimpeachable witticisms of their frontman.

While at this stage of his career a new Dylan release may only be heard by longtime listeners, it must be judged against all music. Even by such lofty standards, Tempest succeeds enormously, placing it not only in the upper half of Dylan's catalog, but also with the better submissions of 2012.

Breathy vocals, immensely hooky songwriting and a brilliantly defined technicolor aesthetic established from the very beginning. Such description could have been thrown at Stereolab in the early '90s and at Broadcast in the early 2000s.

Cruel Summer might be the worst thing in Kanye West's discography thus far, but it's a success as mainstream rap cabal compilation albums go.

No one's asking bigger questions of himself or more from himself in music than Flying Lotus is. These records are the only appropriate answers and Until The Quiet Comes is his most accomplished yet.

You'll find records this year of greater agency, but you'd be hard-pressed to find one that renders pleasure with such poignant lightness, control, and willful attention to difference.

Both in its challenging nature and its status as an emblem of everything that the Motion Sickness of Time Travel project has dealt in to date, it functions, without a doubt, as Evans most accomplished release of her career and one of the more accomplished ambient albums in recent memory.

The Soft Pack's knack for a no-tassels hook is what ends up making Strapped worthwhile, and it works best when they tighten the screws and keep it concise.

It's a refinement of what he accomplished with Sugar, and is arguably the most consistently engaging album he's made since Copper Blue.

The results are fun as hell, yet it's hard not to feel like LV have accomplished something with some legs on it.

Even if the highs aren't as high, like the rest of the reunited lineup's work, there really aren't any noticeable lows.

It's an album that ceaselessly overflows with love and a desire to reach out and relate, and it's this that makes such a heavy album so accessible and so resoundingly good.

TEEN is another in a long line of mildly interesting but ponderous offshoots from already established bands.

Her ethereal, purposefully-sloppily-overdubbed vocals haven't changed, but now they have a much stronger rhythmic backing.

It can be taken as a given that any longstanding fans will immediately enjoy Algiers, but for newcomers, this is also a perfect access point to what is one of the most consistent bands of the 2000s.

Putrifiers II stands as the moment in the bands discography where they break free of any and all restrictions and leave the door wide open for any subsequent releases.

Shields is both well-mannered and demanding, subdued but always bubbling under the surface.

Keys to the Kuffs is nothing groundbreaking, but it certainly warrants a few thorough listens.

The end result is a quieted, more suppressed record that steps delicately from one note to the next and shines even more of a spotlight on the twin vocal sentiments of longing and crumbled romance.

The end result is a quieted, more suppressed record that steps delicately from one note to the next and shines even more of a spotlight on the twin vocal sentiments of longing and crumbled romance.

Though it may take some time to grow accustomed to, this is a record you'll want to wrap yourself up in.

It may have taken him a few tries but through Mary's Voice, Koster has finally found his own.

Clark and Byrne are never fully on the same page. Instead they ricochet of each other, flying off on miniaturized tangents that never stray far from home.

I Know What Love Isn't is more than a great pop album – it's the most singularly rewarding statement from one of the more uniquely gifted songwriting voices of the past decade.

This kind of high-emotion, omni-genre electronic music is becoming the measure of artists working without geographical or scene ties and Held is one of the best examples

While this record may not quite reach the highs of Set Yourself On Fire or even Heart for that matter, it's still a hell of an album that clearly and succinctly makes the case for the band's continued relevancy in an over-stuffed pop marketplace.

Centipede Hz is dense and unforgivingly full-throttle--you'll find no "Loch Raven" or even "Chores" here – and home to some of the band's best and most involved lyrics to date.

It's not that Beams is a lighter listen than Black City, but it's certainly more honest.

This record definitely ranks up there with Offend Maggie and The Runners Four in regards to its emotional immediacy.

This record does indeed feel like a natural continuation of Sadier's previous body of work.

Coming up with interesting sounds isn't an issue for these guys, it's putting them together that is.

He [Chasney] may have made a misstep by not allowing the album to have that singularly defining moment but after his last few records, Ascent is a step up in terms of direction and execution.

Just be thankful that the new Swans are as clever, as terrifying, and as proficient in their craft as presented on The Seer.

Four sounds like an album created by a talented band that finally got back in a room together after a long time apart, and just seemed to put together all the various ideas they've all had without stopping to think too much about them.

Rather than a cohesive structured debut effort that was the product of a cooperative band, you have a Frankenstein-ian melding of cast off parts.

It's the producer's most immediate album and tightest display to date.

America is an album in two halves, once again separate but together, a side of individual tracks and a four-song suite that inform each other even as they generate tension by nature of their disparity.

Descriptors are hardly necessary for any of these songs because they're all a stone's toss from one another in pretty much every respect.

Researching The Blues isn't the album to convert non-fans of Redd Kross, but it does manage to tie in with the rest of Redd Kross' discography without sounding dated or out of touch.

The thematic and musical revamping is impressive, even for a band that seems to enjoy turning itself inside out on a regular basis, but it isn't quite matched by the execution.

Ram's 2012 reincarnation sounds impeccable. Though the bonus tracks don't pack much punch, the LP's dozen original cuts, crowned by the breakthrough sensation "Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey," arguably make this LP McCartney's seminal solo effort.

While nearly everything else is still top tier pop music, but the Englishwoman leaves herself some room to grow. For now, Devotion is one the year's most promising debuts.

This is smart, smooth, high thread count dance-punk.

Overall, their 2010 self-titled CD remains the best starting point for new listeners, but Occupied With The Unspoken nonetheless makes for a fine addition to the Thrill Jockey catalog.

It's exceedingly confident with what it does and it spins a very individual and emotional tale that's more than worth investing in.

The Plot finds the group building on their palate, zeroing in on the details more than ever before, meaning the straight up fidgety punk ("Sheena Is A T-Shirt Salesman"), keyboard-led silliness ("A Guide To Men") and the obligatory epic closer ("Notes On Achieving Orbit") are all better realised than their cousins on previous albums.

TNGHT may clock in at under 16 minutes, but it's the most satisfying quarter-hour blast you'll hear this year.

Early Birds paints a picture of how the band were operating before they got around to releasing their debut, showing that they were just as interested in being silly and experimental as they are today.

Once again Dunn creates slow, careful, and judicious pieces that mirror the sound between the memories in your head, often lulling the listener into an introspective calm.

Worship [is] an occasionally solid, but ultimately forgettable affair.

God Forgives is consistently, pleasantly underwhelming: the plodding R&B-rooted efforts aside, there's nothing much to complain about.

While Major has a good solid handful of inspired moments, none of this material comes close to approaching the plane as that Fang Island were operating on before.

Talent, when taken as a whole unit, functions exceedingly well as an album to scratch your daily dream pop itch, but when you try to take it as anything more than that it suffers.

Each of these tunes, including the classical inflected "Fish With Broken Dreams" (the earliest track, ostensibly recorded when Maus was 19), hold up to the standard of his previous studio efforts, perhaps even surpassing some of the filler from his two earliest LPs.

The album dissolves as it progresses, transitioning from upbeat fare to a visceral dream sequence of disoriented meditation set atop a versatile soundtrack.

There's no deeper level to be revealed in Oberhofer's brief pop-rock tracks and for that reason Time Capsules II remains a consistently easy and pleasant listen.

Life is Good the most exciting Nas album to come around since It Was Written.

They're not quite catchy, not quite infectious, but they're hooky enough to get your head nodding.

Shrines functions just fine as a collection of Purity Ring's work thus far, but it also functions as a singular, cohesive artistic statement, a capital-a Album, and that's much more rewarding.

Sometimes you can't ask for groundbreaking. Holograms is far more than good enough without such a label.

It has clearly come from a very damaged part of Angelakos' psyche, but Gossamer is a step up in sophistication and songcraft, and one of the year's stronger pop albums.

It may not be enough to convert those already opposed to Ashworth's minimalist sound, but for the uninitiated, A Shut-In's Prayer should provide a suitable introduction to one of the more interesting songwriters of our time.

The album as a whole isn't flawless, yet by sounding utterly enchanting during its climax it leaves a listener feeling genuinely touched. From a such legendary band, you could ask for nothing more.

He may not have superstar charisma on the mic, but his ability to create an enveloping, dungeon-like sphere of sound practically guarantees you'll be seeing his name pop up on plenty of great releases for years to come.

In addition to being one of the year's most soberingly bleak R&B releases, Channel Orange is also one of the prettiest.

Like Earth as a whole, "The Children" doesn't make for the most pleasant of listening experiences, but it does represent another evolution in Richter's artistic progression.

In Our Heads is, at the end of the day, a signal that Hot Chip's masterpiece is still forthcoming.

There is so much to both genuinely appreciate and enjoy on Swing Lo Magellan that it makes you wonder why these have to sometimes be exclusive ways to experience an album.

Oh Holy Molar isn't quite poetry in motion, but not all poetry needs to be in such a state to be enjoyed.

Even if Confess is a decidedly less personal affair than its predecessor, it's no less enjoyable. Twin Shadow has released another album of unpretentious, catchy synthpop, this time around with a bit of a hard rock edge thrown into the mix.

While Peaking Lights came into this album lurking largely in the hazy fringes of the consciousness of music fans, with Lucifer they've made an album that more clearly demands the active attention of those who might happen upon it.

With Valtari, the band has returned in some ways to the sounds it made its name with.

Totem is a challenging listen, but it's one of the most creative and exciting debuts I've heard all year.

This is a high point in his already illustrious career; a labyrinthine and ultramodern take on hip-hop that will likely age like a Cabernet.

Oceania isn't a great record, but it's a strong enough one, filled with songs that sound like the Smashing Pumpkins you remember.

The National Health is not a poor effort, it's just woefully undistinguished.

Slaughterhouse is one of the most vital and animal rock records in a recent memory.

Handsome almost in spite of itself, The Idler Wheel is poignant, nuanced and quietly unforgettable.

With some rather boring compositions and hokey songwriting, this record doesn't have a lot going for it.

Oshin is undeniably a record tailored for driving around with some friends in the dead heat of summer, but the music also packs a range of raw emotions.

It's modern sounding, and everything seems to fall into place; the lyrics, the concept, the music, the band chemistry, even the booklet artwork is great.

It's an album that alternates between being rewarding and punishing.

The record sounds tired, dreamy, and wasted in the daylight at five in the afternoon– it tries to be breezy, but instead still feels like 99 degrees of heat.

It's ambitious, diverse, unique, and tonally and aesthetically complex.

Imperfect it may be, but as a concise and focused return, its is an unequivocal triumph.

The surrounding material is all solid, if not to be ranked as some of her best stuff.

All Of Us, Together isn't an attempt to disown his early work and roots. Jamison just made the record he felt like making, and that's why it so easily matches his best material.

[The songs'] punchiness and repetitiveness can quickly get on one's nerves, depending on your disposition.

An Usher album that is good, but not great.

As major label rap debut albums go, Live from the Underground is a relative anomaly in that the artist seems to have escaped with most of his integrity intact.