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.

For now, this band’s M.O.--Graves’ machine gun mouth racing the bands’s nerve-strung music to the finishing line of each 113 plus/minus-second blast--is welcome in the currently, often drowsy world of indie guitar music.

Weirdon is stacked with some hefty singles guaranteed to bring this band to an even wider audience, and it succeeds because it ups the ante in terms of songcraft and production, but never at the cost of the weirdness.

Through it all, Lekman's wit remains intact.

The synths are so smooth sounding that after a few moments they begin to lull you but not into sleep. This is way too dark of a place for sleep; it seems more like hypnosis.

Every move on the album is intentional and nothing is unchartered territory for Zammuto.

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

The infectious beats and catchy hooks are still a driving force, but Lewis has abandoned the bedroom vibes to surge ahead with full-on amphetamine-induced vigor.

In addition to featuring some creative tongue-lashing, You’re Gonna Miss It All expands on the musical ideas and tendencies that made Sports such a hit.

If you were someone who felt stood-up by Yuck’s follow-up to their self-titled debut, Cheatahs will follow through on the promise that great rainy Saturday afternoon shoegaze isn’t all gazing into a rearview mirror.

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.

Every detail of Ray's second full-length alongside Her Happy Hookers is imparted with vigor--be it her razor-edged howling, or the biting lyrics that comprise them.

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

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.

While not all of the rough edges have been smoothed out, there's a sense of soaring ambition, and there's no reason why there shouldn't be.

Tropics Of Love is an experiment in inertia. When it’s good, it stays good, and when it’s not, it’ll be over by the time you swallow your pina colada.

Though taken individually some tracks may have a strikingly similar feel with a lot of big, synthy crescendos, it's the cohesion of the release that makes it work in the "epic" way that Gonzalez envisioned it.

Shriek is a refreshing dive into the ambiguous depths of the indie-pop pool, made possible by two musicians who have shown great conviction in revamping their sound without ditching the fundamentals that have made them such a powerhouse.

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

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

Neatly countering the initial pedal-to-the-metal energy of "My Girl," "Sweet Dee" is a slow-burning sunset cruise that makes Tiger Talk's destination entirely worth the somewhat familiar journey.

It doesn’t push boundaries in the same way that Feel It Break busted up notions of genres, but its smooth production stabilizes the lyrics’ emotional bombast.

It's an elegantly lush record, brimming with imagination, that was no doubt slaved over in the studio yet sounds entirely natural.

Smoothing an epochal shift with a sonic mix of new and old isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Arguably, the band did the same thing when it cast aside the spacey sounds of Leave Home for the alt-leaning Open Your Heart. But on New Moon, the transition is rocky, more of a cop-out than a compromise.

Mount Moriah remains committed to a sparse, skeletal vein of Americana that values precision over ambition. That’s not to imply the album isn’t a rich and varied listening experience, but its ambiguities and complexities are shaded in charcoal, not paint.

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.

Brittle, spare yet maximalist in sound, Content Nausea is mostly successful, with a few key missteps.

With No Mythologies To Follow, MØ has established herself within an emerging circle of powerful pop dominatrixes but with her own distinct sound full of versatility and vitality.