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.

While Marissa Nadler is more musically complex than earlier records, she maintains her overall aesthetic, both bucolic and tragic.

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.

It's a seriously cute band that writes seriously catchy love songs that you will probably seriously enjoy--if you're all right with that ebullience thing.

Sucre Du Sauvage portrays the contrast between the two sides of Quintron's musical identity but ultimately unites joyful songwriting with his darker mad scientist persona.

Deeply rewarding and slyly addictive, Channel Pressure is an uncommon gem, a difficult record that really isn't difficult at all.

To hear the band members tell it, David Comes To Life is the record they've been working up to for the past 10 years, a grandiose statement that closes off the first chapter of Fucked Up's history. It's anybody's guess as to how they'll follow something like this, but we're already excited for chapter two.

The Postelles is remarkably polished and consistent for a debut. If you're looking for something fresh, you'd do well to look elsewhere.

On It's A Corporate World, the band's debut LP, Zott and Epstein are ready to let you step a little further into their joyous sonic world.

Black Lips puts on a hell of a show on Arabia Mountain, and it doesn't even need riots and stage diving to keep you interested.

While D is undoubtedly a grower, it's unfortunate that White Denim's experimental tendencies don't always lend themselves equally well to good songs.

Boris channels the heart of heavy metal music with a massive sound and unparalleled aggressiveness.

Attention Please could not be further away from Heavy Rocks. The album is characterized by elegant violin, delicate vocals and dreamy guitar distortion.

That's the type of music that the band knocks out of the park: music for lovers to do romantic things to. On Codes And Keys, those lovers are encouraged to be happy-an emotion that sometimes has evaded Death Cab.

The lyrics are undoubtedly tragic, but they are what give Brilliant! Tragic! its brilliance.

Smith is a ham, to be sure, but listen past the surface and you'll hear him grappling with themes of isolation, frustration and heartbreak.

Shit, Laced is not. The debut album is a testament to Psychedelic Horseshit's incredible versatility.

As a debut and a fleshing out of Stelmanis' previous eponymous work, Feel It Break is a solid place to build from and a reason to expect good things from Austra in the future.

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.

The album lags a bit on a few songs where it sounds like one half of the group had the majority of the say during the writing process. These instances are few and far between though, leaving the rest of the album as an intriguing concoction of two bands coming from polar opposite sides of the musical spectrum and meeting in the middle to make something new.

Aesthethica is jugular-grabbing black metal-startling, complex... and also quite long.

That all changes with Nursing Home, as production legend Steve Albini sharpens the group's teeth into the fangs Let's Wrestle was always meant to bare.

For the eccentric young artist, James Pants once again makes the statement that Pants' music has made many times before-he creates to celebrate his bizarre style, carefree of the expectations of mainstream audiences and trends.

In all, this is a muscular yet not flashy outing from Gang Gang Dance, and its smooth confidence is a welcome respite from its self-indulgent neighbors.

This album isn't going to isolate fans of Okkervil's older material, but it is going to require an acceptance that change has arrived.

Man Man has an image to uphold, and it does that while refining its focus. The group has moved forward conceptually but at times still sounds like the trained animals and clowns from the circus that ambushed the orchestral pit, and that's just fine.

Burst Apart is smart and calculated without feeling as though you're being duped by artificial feelings.

In between the soul-searching, Fleet Foxes cranks out some pretty great singalong songs. And that's what it's all about, isn't it?

Derivative without bringing anything new, Not Nothing is lo-fi at a mediocre level.

This changing of the tide between electric and acoustic makes the album flow. What's evident on Thao And Mirah is the musicality of the duo and the friendship at hand.

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.

After a year-long medical hiatus, the band returns with Outside, an album that shows the group putting much more effort into melody and song construction but holding onto the same energy and dark mood as before.

As Hauschka takes his orchestral style into this new musical sphere, his music demonstrates the constant evolution ignited by combinations of diverse musical influence.

On Low's ninth full-length album, the slowcore trio from Duluth creates its most inviting work to date.

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.

The result is a beautifully poignant and cinematic album, a post-hardcore masterpiece.

This is very much her record-it's a fractured gorgeousness, with Garbus embracing her oddness in a gesture of self-love that results in an alarming, startling, fun and playful record.

It's hard to tell if the seemingly random, incoherent screeching and shouting from Siegel is meant to be a gimmick, a cop out or a totally genuine mode of expression. Whatever it may be, it's working.

TV On The Radio has become less animalistic, less apocalyptic, less conflicted -- and more loving, more comfortable, more soulful.

The girls have made strides in bookending the album with tracks that are longer than six minutes-quite different from its usual two to three minutes-but the next step is to use the extended time to explore what else they could do with it.

The Family Sign finds Atmosphere back on his old level of sharp self-criticism, but the album is also a step forward for the whole group.

Sure, Lennox makes a lot of pretty noise on this album, but sometimes you just want to pluck him from his own sound waves and have him try to navigate them from the inside of a more firmly constructed ship.

Crystal Stilts hasn't broken from what made it good in the first place -- but In Love With Oblivion proves that the group is coming into its own.

The music achieves a throbbing equilibrium halfway through each track, which makes it easy to zone out. So maybe this is just great zone-out music.

Blake and Childs have no need to prove why they're considered some of the U.K.'s best songwriters and musicians, but Jonny does just that.

Her cold-blooded style meshes well with Hince's clanging guitars and the sleek world they have created inside of Blood Pressures.

The music is still driven by the same conceptual forces, instrumentation and voodoo tradition that Orchestre Poly-Rythmo has always been known for. Contonou Club is not only a symbol of the group's reunion; it marks the continuation and growth of a West African musical revolution.

This isn't happy-go-lucky music; these are sounds reserved for darkly tainted dance floors, where smiles aren't a part of the dress code.

This record isn't as energetic and peppy as previous efforts, but don't confuse moodiness with lifelessness.

Heidecker And Wood's music may not be meant for Tim And Eric, but it's certain that any fan of the show's comedy would enjoy chuckling to the sweet sensual sounds of Starting From Nowhere.

The album is deceptively simple, but underneath the easy-listening vibe lies a fascinating medley of genres and musical references.

Mind Bokeh signifies a union between sonic exploration-typically condemned to musical isolation by being defined as experimental -- and the consonances of modern pop music that are readily accepted by mass listeners.

It's the motion of the album that compels you through it, leaving you with a need for some resolution in what the next track will bring.

Despite the heartbreak overtones, Belong is not a depressing or down-tempo album. It remains upbeat and concludes in a manner that ties up the loose ends of the story, all while raiding your new-wave album collection for inspiration.

The group's stab at human emotion is a smashing success because it's coming from a real place: the death of former band member Beau Velasco.

Telling The Truth is an hour of purely enjoyable songs that could have been, and are luckily not, lost gems.

Under Streetlight Glow is a collection of intimate songs written by Spencer during film school when she aspired to place her music in her film projects.

Tear The Fences Down is open and inviting, and it's hard not to be pulled in by its verve and genuine sincerity.

Not necessarily a great narrative rapper, Monch's lyrical strength lies in his ability to flip phrases maniacally and tease out tangential theoretical connections through his staggered, pile-up rhyme schemes.

Despite a new sense of freedom, Ebert carefully crafts the album to keep a good balance between a full sound layered with an array of instruments and vocals to simpler textures that showcase just one element of the music.

This album is clearly not one you would want to put on in the background of your next party. In every aspect (its forms, melodies, instrumentation, etc.) it is a challenging and engaging hour of music.

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

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

Despite its homage to its predecessors, the album holds its own and shows signs of Ringo Deathstarr developing its own signature sound.

Sadly, Dan Bejar tuned down the distinctive cross-hatch in his vocals that has made skin crawl with delight, but, as has remained unchanged for over a decade, his continental blues are heard in his quick-witted lyrics; the lovely laments of Kaputt are full of tongue-in-cheek nuances.

Both aspects of the album exemplify great music played by great musicians and should be anything but a disappointment.

Though her lyrics are incoherent, Barwick tells a story on this album that is up for interpretation depending on the listener as if Barwick created the music just for her.

Though King Of Limbs may be the band's simplest and most inaccessible album to date, the tone and mood created by the chaotic start and smooth finish makes it an exciting work.

The rest of the album holds up to the single's brilliance, as Bundick traverses quite a few genres-from his trademark chillwave, to acoustic dream-pop ("Before I'm Done") and severe piano-led ballads ("Good Hold").

The duo is quite adept at keeping the dopey momentum going, but without a respite or a break in the haze, Return To The Ugly Side is often impenetrable. But that's kind of cool--a half-hour album that stretches out (or drags on) to feel like far longer.

Arbouretum brings back that good old fashioned psychedelia to rock music with its fourth album The Gathering.

While artists such as Dam-Funk, Onra and Krystal Klear resurrect this sound some 20 odd years later, Back To Reality establishes that Tony Cook was, and still is, the real thing.

The songs on Music Is Not For Everyone dance the incredibly thin line where they sound completely believable while the sarcasm still leaks through as subtly as a teenager's cologne.

The album can simply be described as a great band supporting quality lyrics, served up as organically as possible.

Upon first listen, it sounds like all of the rest-cutesy vocals, romantic lyrics, peppy poppy guitars. But on Departing, the guitars are massive, the lyrics are gorgeous and the vocals are astonishingly expressive.

Whether sweet, creepy, epic or hilarious, all 13 tracks on the album represent Faust's ability to dismantle the structures inherently embedded in our musical expectations and free us into a world of unique and thoughtful organized layers of sound.

It has continued in the same direction and spirit in Songs From A Zulu Farm, reinvigorating the soul of its isicathamiya (a sort of Zulu a cappella) harmonies and style, while also reviving the songs that leader Joseph Shabalala grew up singing.

Space Is Only Noise is a paradox. It's a dance album that can't be danced to, a lounge album that you actually want to listen to, but most importantly, it's an electronic album with emotion.

This is a solid half-hour of garage-y indie rock that is usually catchy, occasionally great, and pretty much always competent.

Rounding out Bradley's raw emotion is his bombastic backing band: Daptone's funky Menahan Street Band. But however many names are dropped, Bradley's innate showmanship and voice--a mournful alto bellow--are all his own.

There is something refreshing about an artist that tries to create well written and well produced songs instead of ones that smack you in the face with the frying pan made of catchy hooks, beats and shout-along choruses.

All three members take to the LP's nine tracks with post-punk minimalism and as tracks draw on and the elements begin to take on a cohesive shape, it appears that by attacking with less, Little Joy inevitably comes together as more.

The best thing to do on The People's Key isn't to connect with Oberst's lyrics. It's to connect with how connected Oberst is with what he's singing.

In fact, a lot of the album may be confused for being from another time period. But nostalgia works in the band's favor on this first release--even though it wears its influences right on its sleeve.

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

Sahel Folk is a steadily moving work of clean sound not typically found in live works.

Wondervisions, its lyric-less debut full length, does not fall short on its abilities to stir emotion.

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

For Mogwai, it works; the sound's grandiloquent and goddamnit, loud.

Having developed feelers on both ends, the partnership's combined strengths via production chops and band practice really lend to the record's debut maturity.

With few exceptions, these are a solid collection of dance-rock songs and rock-dance tracks-Zonoscope represents the evolution of a band that knows what it's doing.

Thank You has made an intentionally heavy album that provokes calls for more than a passive ear looking to fill silence. Listeners should expect to involve themselves in music in order to truly find what lies beneath the fuzz and distortion.

A passive 12 song set that toes the line between nostalgic sadness and bright optimism with remarkable ease.

Deerhoof Vs. Evil is a stylishly composed work done from four gifted musicians who are more than happy to be sarcastically snarling at you the whole time.

Montonix's latest installment is just as spirited as its live shows, but doesn't include all the sweat and fear of burning to death.

Spiritual-Mental-Physical is occasionally slight, and there are fewer developed ideas than a real album release; for every punk etching on the wall, there is an aimless jam that was undoubtedly more fun to play than listen to.

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.

This is part of Arcade Dynamics' charm: The release is pop-friendly with few tracks making the three-minute mark, until the fuzz of ambient outro "Porch Projector" kicks in.