When you give it [a] chance, this album blooms into something different, deeper and more resonant that, along with its musicality, should be appreciated for its originality and growth.

A middle ground is still to be reached, but at the least, Plague Vendor is proof that even in these times of combos called Dancing, Girls, and the Teen Age, one can come up with an intriguing band name, matched to music that also begs for further investigation.

Dark Arc’s unique sound is a team effort of acoustic instruments, raw talent and the life that comes from breathing the fresh, crisp, if sometimes foggy mountain air.

Their tactics may be minimalist, and their sound may at first feel archaic, but sometimes pure ingenuity is all musicians really need to be noticed.

This is a fun, ambitious collection of songs that offers just as many snazzy aesthetic pleasures as it does dorm-room philosophy sessions.

This sixth, self-titled album shows a noticeable maturation.

The album's tight production will draw you in and leave you dancing damp from sweat until the early hours of the morning.

Other Worlds doesn't get overtly weird, but it's surely expansive-sounding.

The album seems like it had the fat trimmed off in the studio and leaves the listener with a leaner-than-usual, but still enjoyable production. You’ll leave feeling full, but not stuffed.

Everyday Robots, unfolds as a sleepy, melancholy culmination of all Albarn’s work so far. And if sweat still isn’t showing, a little distress is.

Haze proves that she can write, rap and sing really well.

James Blake transcends dubstep, and perhaps artificiality as a whole.

If the Big Sleep intended a record of 10 tracks designed explicitly to get listeners pumped, then the band can call these experiments a roaring success.

An unequivocally excellent record that never bores. If you've yet to explore this strangely intoxicating genre of music, I would suggest Sidi Toure's latest album as a perfect starting point: accessible enough for immediate appreciation, yet complex enough for repeat listens.

Major Arcana sounds like a girl’s (or dude’s) animated beer-soaked bar vent and its crafty delivery makes it entertaining, therapeutic, and universal.

Overall, it's a solid, well-crafted effort from a well-loved indie-folk band.

Chillwave touchstones are alive and well on the record; tender, nostalgic vibes still emanate from each throwback synth pad and ethereal two-part harmony, and there's still plenty of reverb to go around.

The production sounds more expensive, but all the passion and intimacy of their previous work remains.

Rise Against have slowed their music, and in the process, have created a hell of a rock album.

While less in your face than his work with the Fresh And Onlys, the album stands its ground and ends on a powerful note.

It's definitely not pop-more like battery acid-but in such talented hands, chaos becomes catchy.

Rossen's sprawling pop coupled with his subtly personal lyrics gives the album a bittersweet flavor that makes for some very impressive moments.

While each song on the album seems to tell a different story, together they tell one: Some things may have changed in that six-year interim, but those changes have only worked in Lewis’s favor.

Kweli blends a gritty outlook with a genuine interest in social issues to create an album that sounds refreshingly idealistic in a world still reeling from Kanye West's bombastic record.

OFF! is like a perfectly executed kickflip: over before you know it, but immensely satisfying.

There’s no twist ending here--just another excellent Boards Of Canada album.

The ease with which you can get lost inside Range Of Light is no dismissable feat.

Wagner has poured her soul into recordings that may seem too mature for the 23-year-old but highlight the talent that Wagner has at communicating difficult subjects with ease and forming truly compelling songs.

Black Metal is Blunt’s most realized work yet, but it’s still shrouded in mystery. There’s no reason for that to change, and there’s not even a hint here that Blunt is anywhere near ready to fold.

Sunshine shows a strong working dynamic between the two members of Talk Normal that can only continue to strengthen.

As Phosphorescent continues to evolve as a project, widening its range and sharpening its lyrical acumen, that commitment has become more apparent, culminating in his best album yet.

Floating Coffin sees Dwyer and company pulling off another successful paradigm shift, a step toward the sinister but with ample amounts of the flower-power charm that made them such favorites among psych snobs in the first place.

Tremors makes it clear that he has plenty of his own material to work on. His reliable vocals lead us through the enjoyable confusion that the album establishes, ever cool and whole-hearted, with a genuine sense of emotional investment.

The end result is an infectious pop album every bit as bright and dreamy as Manners yet far more straight-up, dark, honest and vulnerable.

Other Voices EP is a concentrated dose of American teen fun.

The result is a terrific, fun and most of all, genuine follow-up from one of the best surf pop bands of recent memory.

Ultimately, under the unifying sound of Casiokids' youthful pop, African, Asian and Norweigan influences combine in blissful harmony to create the ultimate musical expedition.

Half Of Where You Live sidesteps the dreaded sophomore slump by staying true to the impulse that guided Gold Panda’s initial recordings: honesty.

Rosebuds have a smooth, beyond approachable, ear-massaging loveliness, this time honed with a production clarity of near Steely Dan-like proportions, if on an indie level. Instrumentation remains fairly minimal, delicately played and mixed to perfection.

This album’s most striking moments often come when Mascis commits unreservedly to the ballads.

They were scratching at the surface of their emotional capabilities on their debut. With Hummingbird, Local Natives show that they can dig deeper.

Dry Land Is Not A Myth blows by in what feels like an instant, but it is so easily engrained into your memory, you'll find yourself humming it all day.

Within what the Black Lips claim is the their most rootsy release are sly, glam-tastic details dished out with a sometimes laggard energy. It makes for an album that digs in deeper with each listen, like cool new boots trudging through mud.

This is the aching beauty of Obsidian: its ability to be so matter-of-fact and reposition the taciturn as commonplace.

There doesn’t appear to be much room for hope, but they execute their sadness so beautifully that it’s easy to accept their blue moods.

Blake’s best moments on Overgrown occur when he finds that balance between the upbeat hip-hop rhythms and the down-tempo acoustics that so brilliantly parallel his voice.

Though Hemsworth’s style tends to favor chirping cheeriness, Alone For The First Time is solidly a winter album, and it’s just what we needed right now.

In the end, Oh No brings life back to Moore and his Dolemite legacy.

It is an unapologetically gorgeous piece of work and one that is better appreciated without considering the confines of its genre or how the chillwave brand has become passé in most circles.

Freeclouds seems to be a culmination of many different ideas and styles all brought together in one album, and this diversity of sound is exactly what makes the album work so well.

Altogether, it’s some irresistible glitter-on-the dancefloor delirium.

Despite the length of the album, it’s gratifying to cup your hands over your eyes and squint into Vile’s self-effacing and self-reflexive world. There’s something invigorating about hearing a mind loop back on itself in constant pursuit of a question it never even knew it asked.

Despite the lack of direct emotional content in the shrouded lyrics, the music has an ache to it, a yearning that suggests a desire to connect but an inability to make a connection.

His song progression is static, manic and as mutely thrilling as ever.

There’s a sense of maturity and control present, without losing their trademark edge.

No Kings provides a kind of artistic oasis, a glimpse into how great hip-hop can be when placed in talented hands.

Much like the disordered thought patterns that come before sleep, dream-like backing vocals and twangy instrumentals transport us into another reality.

Some might listen to Fear Fun and hear a man feeling sorry for himself, but with melodies so sweet and sentiments so comically self-loathing, this album won't suffocate you with sadness.

The Golden Age Of Apocalypse is all warm vibes and morning sex instead of Cosmogramma's seriously zonked and far-out space grooves-light and airy melodies carried out on bass with the tinkle of synth and keyboard, clear uptempo drumlines and a high soul-influenced singing voice doused in reverb.

With seven tracks, it's more assertive than an EP but without the fully developed personality of an album. It's just enough that we know where Knowles stands: on her own.

Ontario Gothic is an amazingly precise, contextually aware work that’s very easy to listen to as just beautiful music, but it’s also an album that asks the listener to try for more.

The bass churns, chimes tinkle, and tribal drums patter rhythmically, drawing listeners into wide-eyed sonic journeys only Prince Rama could cook up.

Though easy to peg a purely pop album, with only one track that dares to venture beyond the 3:30 mark, Evening Tapestry's controlled psychedelic overtones help the songs go beyond run-of-the-mill pop tunes.

On its fourth LP, Arctic Monkeys combines its clever, tongue-in-cheek wordplay with a wider variety of sounds than it ever used on its other releases.

Full of memories and unanswered questions, Wyoming asserts a sense of limitless depth, as the duo’s members seem to have developed a greater understanding of one another than on their debut.

After The End is a damn good pop album, and it’s not concerned with where it fits in the world.

It's no-bull, gritty hip-hop for hip-hop's sake, forgoing radio-friendly hooks or overly flashy production in favor of inspired storytelling and colorful slang.

["Be Above It"] sets the tone for an album that follows closely in the sonic footsteps of its predecessor while occupying a more streamlined headspace.

The instrumental packaging (which sounds even more lux and sophisticated than ever) shifts constantly, but there's always a catchy melody to carry Nocturne through.

Simply put, their sound has organically reached a more developed state. Each song brings something new to the table with few tunes just bleeding together.

On her fifth album, she discovers a new direction--and sounds all the better for it.

Bonobo has given us a great collection of interlacing melodic songs that have real depth and distinction.

Although some of the sounds used are radically new to the Miracle Fortress repertoire, Was I The Wave? demonstrates the perfect amount of experimentation and development of the band's sound while remaining true to the music of its past.

[A] sprite, beguiling collection of songs.

An album that uses so much in so little time, Old Friends has everything to offer.

Bradley’s sophomore album, Victim Of Love, burns hard and slow.

Carrion Crawler/The Dream could very well be born from a desire to please crowds as easily as it could be Dwyer wanting to craft jams as musical meditation.

With one album completed under the new lineup, Harris and Seim show that they'll continue guiding Menomena in interesting, unpredictable directions.

You aren't likely to find a single track that you'd want to put on repeat for the drive home from work, but the experience of listening from track to track, beginning to end, is a moving experience worth lending your ears.

The most resonant part of Doi Todd's music is the quiet darkness that she twists into an undercurrent of tenderness. Cosmic Ocean Ship is more openly joyous than other songs on previous albums, like 2008's Gea, and perhaps not as "mysterious" or grabbing.

For all of their individual, conflicting quirks, Miller et al. operate like some strange musical beast, spitting out hooks and devouring them with brute force.

Listening to Quadruple Single is not a passive experience in the least.

Cut 4 Me ends leaving the listener with a dizzying feeling and a cooly slowed pulse. Now we have expectations.

Mathambo is both voracious and omnivorous. This leads to a diverse and exciting listen.

Like a tour guide who occasionally gets lost in his own museum, Haldar's unbridled excitement about his subject matter can be both exhausting and infectious.

The vision of Southern California terrain Barfod molds in Salton Sea seems strangely undead and haunting even at its most jubilant moments, creating a chilling sense of something epic and part-human.

This urgent need to resist easy classifications can make the album difficult and obtuse at times, but the rewards are plentiful.

Nowhere is safe--still beautiful and executed to perfection, but safe.

Wicked Will offers a sprint through Ettes' tumultuous world, and in the end, the whole ride lasts for little more than half an hour. Oddly, the one emotion that the band avoids-joy-is the one that it leaves you with in its wake.

Powers is going all in on this one, inviting you into his Wondrous Bughouse and daring to pour light into an often dark place.

Most tracks on Larceny aren't exactly catchy, but the band's incessant enthusiasm and punchy delivery show that there's more to good music than earworms.

Both Campbell and Millan shine on their own, but the album's stronger tracks happen when these two team up together.

The emphasis on reacting to criticism and persona-maintenance occasionally overshadows the significant developments and leaps Tyler has made as a producer and musician on this record.

Surrender To The Fantasy is a reminder that Magik Markers is sort of an absurdist band at heart, willing to moon their audience and then have an intellectual conversation about it.

The story [House of Baasa] is a mix of glee and despair, and it fits with this album, a venture into the bliss and torment of matters of the head and the heart.

This type of zip-filed nostalgia is not particularly rare or new, but what makes this meeting of the minds work better than other collaborative vanity projects is the way these two artists' sensibilities flow seamlessly into one another, erasing any sense of the cut-and-pasting that brought the album to life.

CSP original tracks like "Mean Visa Kmean Bai (Have Visa, No Have Rice)" are a testament to the groovy (and peaceful) "golden age" of Khmer pop.

Spectrals' debut is mellow and accessible without being boring even though it has less fuzz than fans might be used to.