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.

Can’t Love is a sonic semblance of moving from a bustling warehouse in gentrifying Brooklyn to wandering around alone on a culdesac in the rust belt and wondering what the next stage is.

While maintaining her space as neither and sexpot diva or a grossly doe-eyed ingenue, Little Boots remains unapologetically sincere in her words, and the crowd will still mainline the disco beats and, save for a few lulls, dance until we die.

Putrifiers II is not the masterpiece TOS fans may have been hoping for. But it is another piece that let's Thee Oh Sees maintain the role of reigning masters.

Polysick displays a nerdish devotion to subtleties, like creating rhythms without beats and overlaying field recordings under a mix.

Foreign Landscapes is a sonic mind-map that finds him dancing across geographical locations by way of his prepared piano (which, in layman's terms, refers to when objects are placed inside the guts of the instrument) and input from San Francisco's 12-piece string and wind Magik*Magik Orchestra.

This doesn’t feel like yet more easy-trash, pool party punk (though it is that, and good at it), but something that has a preternatural songwriting zing and energy not predicated on just the fumbling charm of a stained ’80s metal t-shirt and Ronettes knowledge, but actual, like charm.

Love Sign escapes almost all of the sophomore LP pitfalls.

Time Capsules II is that kind of album: a buffet of familiar confections designed for easy digestion, painstakingly dressed and seasoned to demand repeat consumption.

In his honest debut Id, Chris Laufman, the mind behind the joyous noise-pop project Wise Blood, nobly outlines the neurotic impulses of those of us who don’t have a seat at Miley Cyrus’s lunch table.

Satin Panthers doesn't contain the most organized or most complete 15 minutes of music in the world, but it's an EP-it's just frenzied enough to provide a taste for an album to come. It might not be vital in itself, but there are enough ideas to show that within the mind of Hudson Mohawke, there is much more where this came from.

This EP, while a little inconsistent with the “usual” sound that a club record should have, speaks volumes of the deftness that Halo possesses.

The combination is ethereal and transcendent.

A few listens into Gauntlet Hair and its charms start to coalesce.

The Big Pink has put out an electro-rock album that does not exactly redefine the future of music like the album title may suggest, but it does redefine the Big Pink.

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.

Producer Alex Newport (Death Cab For Cutie, Mars Volta) captures a more complete and complex sound with lush acoustics and electric instrumentation that moves the album along, providing a live-show atmosphere recorded and mixed straight to tape.

The band demonstrates its growth from angst-driven punks to thematic artists (although still retaining enough angst) by having developed and refined their musical style, as well as further grasped the emotions that are intertwined within the songs’ depths.

This may not be as exciting as people expected, but it’s detailed, coherent, and worth a spin.

Maybe Khan is excessive in the thought process of his message regarding the world; maybe he is in fact understating the necessity of awareness to the problems our world faces; maybe it’s somewhere in the middle. Regardless, all of us could use a little bit of the soul the King Khan And The Shrines is willing to share on the record.

While the record might have benefited from some more discrimination on the cutting room floor, it's still a focused, complete record and a pleasurable listen.

It's just a little too long and continuous to listen to in one setting.

While the lyrics have always been one of the main highlights of every AJJ album, the ridiculous level of the lyrics on this one might stretch the tolerance of even the most dedicated fans.

The MC attacks his words diligently with rabid vigor, giving Album the forceful push of someone carrying the weight of loved ones lost.

While Fade's sleepy charms can appear slight when compared to the canonical totems in the band's back catalog, it's best to remember that this is a record about serenity, endurance and mortality.

Cave's noisy, dentist-drill guitar work is still prominently featured, but occasionally it takes on pedal-warped psychedelic tones as the songs stretch out beyond the band's typical garage-rock template.

This lack of clear signposts can make navigating the nightmare-laden second half of Dream On a bit more difficult as the sound effects pile up and the tracks get denser.

Many of the songs on Aloha Moon hint at '80s soft rock, with their delicate guitar and drumming, while still providing a contemporary dream-like quality.