Nothing on Thursday sounds like filler.

Tigers cannot compete with an actual Case show, of course, and after Blacklisted we don't really need to be reminded of her talent, but, hell, why not?

Kill for Love may not be nearly as focused and razor-sharp as Night Drive, but it's twice as much fun and just as confidently personalized--just as purely Chromatics.

Though not perfect, it's unlikely 2005 will see many records eclipsing The Sunlandic Twins.

Hey Hey is sharper than "D-Don’t," filled out and throbbing like soul should be, not burdened with the entropy of a smattered ramshackle collection all heart and no brains.

The Last Romance, for all its disgusted veneer and inner conflict, both reads like a cogent statement and plays like a finely tuned instrument.

Superwolf is Bonnie-era Oldham trying to channel Palace-era Oldham.

There are a couple of Young's obligatory, wandering acoustic ditties to water down the already short track list, and Lanois' soft touch seems to render antiseptic even those few moments of feedback and reverb.

While Tones is tighter, smaller, and more to-the-point than its predecessor, I’m not fully convinced that it’s as good as Field Music.

Lucky Shiner is a good argument for the album as a conceptual whole, and for a musical environment a bit slower than the singles-based landscape that birthed Gold Panda as an entity to be reckoned with.

Although there are a few individual moments where those qualities round-off and transcend any qualms anybody might have about Lekman's style, that style on its own, minus a map or even the faint corners of a box, can only elicit the slow smile of admiration, not genuine, passionate interest.

It is Noir’s skills for arrangement and sequencing that allow the narrative to successfully play out.

It’s just the fucking jam, like some pulsing late-night bliss-out in front of a detuned television set whereupon everyone just sits on the couch exhausted but loving it.

While Skitter on Take-Off is a great album, At the Cut is a brilliant one.

Milk's musical vision is the binding force behind Random Axe and it's something that Price and Simpson clearly believe in; thus, all their bragging about how essential their complete gullyness is to the rap game. Because, despite lines crossed and opportunities missed, it sort of is. Nothing so far in 2011 has a total aesthetic and attitude that goes as hard as this.

These guys have the tools, and God knows they have the chops, but Thundercat has yet to develop a compelling sound of his own, and no amount of production wizardry can ultimately disguise that.

This is one of the best albums of the year, from a verifiable talent and one of the scene’s most exciting young songwriters.

If Pink’s more evolution than revolution, it still stomps all over most of its close genre surroundings, leaving maybe Tiger Bear Wolf and The Woods as far as 2005 goes.

She may remain an intimate, closely held artist for a certain sect of listeners, but by any standards hers is some powerful, accomplished songwriting-and in many ways Marissa Nadler epitomizes this ever-maturing skill more lucidly than any of her prior work.

What we have here is a great album, un- or under-appreciated....What Transference does is it opens a space for this band to experiment within again.

My Maudlin Career is just such a uniformly endearing record. It’s sentimental, yes, but pleasantly so, charming in its own little way.

I can’t help but feel that this album wants to have it several ways, but the net result of following all those paths means it plays out only one way.

Nothing on her self-titled debut full-length is "genius" or "brilliant," but the material is consistently well written and occasionally very good.

The coherence of Wolf’s ethic assures the consistency and believability of his cryptic, erotic, and eerie world.

Goodbye Bread specializes in this kind of twisted subtlety; no longer content letting loose and letting the detritus fall where it may, Segall has crafted a record both familiar and surprising, both sunny and spooky.

If reduced to a single disc, Street's Disciple could well be one of the more exciting albums of the year. As is it's a solid, if not brilliant album from an artist we've come to not expect too much from.

The band have always been the holding of hands between kinda-Kyuss stoner rock and spazzy synth pop, but The Wedding is unique in that it is something conclusively Oneida but also conclusively marked of indie’s recent resurgence on the mainstream pop-cultural landscape.