This record is the “hardest” thing the Twilight Singers have released, but is situated squarely within the realm of anthemic arena rock, not the more straightforward stuff of Whigs nostalgics. Most of the time this works beautifully.

Despite the 26 minutes wasted by these final tracks, as damning as that sounds, this is still a very good Yo La Tengo record.

He’s on his way to building a grand monument to the craft he and so many before him have lovingly treated; he just needs to make sure each marble block is absolutely pristine before putting it down.

Fernow's more melodic output on Bermuda Drain is somehow even more punishing, a new development in the ongoing creation of what he calls "negative energy."

What makes the record work is his acknowledgment that he's just one more voice in that cavalcade, one that neither tries to hide or overemphasize the influence of the other shouts that came before its own.

With the handicap of not having entered a studio until his forties, White still creates work that maintains a deft wisdom even in its worst choices.

This is easily the most stripped-down album of their catalogue since their first one, and, not coincidentally, the best.

If Mogwai are looking for new routes to explore then Hardcore is a strong first venture.

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

Leslie Feist has managed to produce an even more intriguing character, one with depth and doubt and apprehension and dread and all the other things that make up the other, harder, larger half of the human experience.

Vaguely melodious, embedded with overtones, sometimes placid and sometimes stormy, Black Sea is like a wave in that its diverse parts meld together to form a powerful, all-encompassing entity.

In the end, Hot Chip leave us frustrated, which makes sense since this is an album about frustration.

They’ve yet to lose it: Farm comes in a bit longer and countrified than its predecessor, but it’s also a more muscular and emotional album.

La Sera aren't quite up for that challenge, but their debut finds them rising above the careful posturing of their peers and creating something inarguably lovely, which, for now, will do.

Whatever your feelings on the swing in direction, As the Crow Flies is without doubt Jon Brooks' strongest set yet, likely to win the label more attention than its celebrity fans have already (even the famous felt uncomfortable in chemistry).

Volume II: High and Inside picks up exactly where its revelatory predecessor left off, but this time welcoming a few more indie-world guest stars, having a few more stories to tell, and reveling in slightly more robust production.

They ["The Stage Names" and The Stand Ins]were released as distinct (though interrelated) albums, and this one is better.

The guitars are louder, the songs are a little more complex, and so the band walks a tightrope between power-pop and rawk.

The band has a noticeably meaner, more muscular sound than on previous records.

Grass Widow have channeled a number of distinct influences, tones, and anxieties into an eccentric and strangely cohesive album. Past Time solidifies that there's nobody else out there right now who sound quite like them.

They’re all about mucking around with monstrously catchy, juvenile surf riffs and then suffocating those infant laughs with a tight plastic bag of reverb; warm, gleeful guitar tones are stripped to their menacing essentials and left to bake in rancid West Coast heat.

Down to the near-microscopic details, down to the faintest rough edge on his smoothest vocal landscapes, down to the last moments on the final track: it's a self-sustaining, well-rounded album that stands well without Bon Iver-especially without a drum solo.

If the forced lyrical growth is a little stunted, it’s more than made up for by the band’s newfound sonic ambitions.

These songs are all coherently-arranged, positive, played in major keys, very easy to listen to and enjoyable on their surface.

A sure-footed assertion of the artist's individual talents and landing it a spot among the best folk records of 2007 has to offer.

It’s still style over substance in a lot of cases, but it manages to be so exciting while being so listenable that I think it demands repeated listens -- even if those are at cocktail parties.

This attention to economy marks these records [I Don't Rock At All and Man With Potential] as two of Swanson's most digestible and re-playable releases to date.