There’s a wealth of great material buried within The Avalanche, if you don’t mind digging.

It bears all the signs of an artistic statement, stretching for meaning even as it reconstitutes and tears at the corners of its component definitions. It is both complete and incomplete; logical and wayward; good and, yeah, bad.

In many ways, Kensington Heights is what maturity sounds like, done right: too young to relinquish their punk energy and too experienced to let it limit their songwriting, the band has combined their twin urges into a single path.

Suffice it to say, Milky Ways covers more territory than a dance album of its ilk rightfully should, though it never really clings to that designation in the first place and struggles to fit into any sensible line of kin.

The Jicks do an incredible job of coming into their own as a band, channeling Malkmus’s sarcasm and foolery in a less controlled setting brilliantly; they just can’t, because of the immediacy of the album, tease out the full quirkyness.

So the record fails as a self-sufficient statement, but after eight years of existence Enon has at long last become an entity capable of releasing a great album rather than just a collection of great songs that have little to do with each other.

The Back Room is an agreeable, sturdy, and surprisingly re-playable debut, one which should probably keep any brooding college kid who’s worn out his copy of Antics happy for the coming autumn.

Freedom Tower is a Blues Explosion record, no doubt, and in that sense it’s not for everyone.

Down There, David Portner aka Tare's debut solo joint, is a further dot on the still-empty dotted line of Animal Collective's career, built on a span of eight or so albums through which these guys have willfully, lovingly defied expectations and definitions and even maybe their own individual talents.

Ultimately, Arthur & Yu’s singing (the moniker adopted from cutesy childhood nicknames) becomes the simple reason to bend over, submit, and love the album, even when whimsy threatens an otherwise wry batch of dirty lyrics.

It's a safe album, almost exactly what you'd expect from Chao. The artist continues to be the best (perhaps only) provider out there of Clash-inspired polylingual punk rock, but for a musician who built his solo reputation on quirkiness and innovation, the disc feels a bit flat.

It's okay to mourn Apparat's past and question his trajectory. Just don't ignore what rests at the center: a record that, if nothing more, soaks in the present moment.

Year Zero massively benefits from lowered expectations. Reznor channels his anger, focuses it and takes a much-needed breather from his tried-and-true formula of nihilism and the question of self-destruction, but at its core the album has very little to teach us or anything original to say.

Feed The Animals isn’t much of anything at all. It’s just another clip show of all your favorite records.

A strong album with some growing pains.

The album manages to achieve that perfect pop effect: the ability to deal with enormously sad and personal subjects within the medium of happy, upbeat music.

Beyond simply being a fantastic musician, he’s a master of imaginative storytelling, and manages to perfectly capture the feeling of such a cruel yet contemplative season.

If He Dies is not only the best iteration of Moumneh’s sound to date, it’s also the clearest showing of his motivations.

Arrow, the band's fourth album, doesn't differ significantly from their prior efforts, though the fiddle and pedal steel flourishes of 2009's rootsy The Mountain have been largely excised in favor of more hot shit guitar soloing care of new recruit Mark Nathan.

It's an album both in tune lyrically and out of time stylistically, and that's what has All Things Will Unwind approaching relevance.

His flow is, as always, commanding, effortless, and unrelenting, making it hard to grab individual lines when each is intricately related to the next.

The Hawk is Howling is an immensely satisfying, patient, and expertly crafted album that ranks among their best.

It’s sad when a band runs out of ideas.

M83’s latest, given careful attention, is a rather impressive and blissful experience.

A disappointingly safe album of reasonably enjoyable pop songs by interesting musicians masquerading as average ones.