This is an album about getting shitfaced.

There are hardly any virtues to this record at all.

Belle & Sebastian are in transition, as they were in the early 2000s, and I can only hope that we don't have to wait another four years for the likely superior follow-up.

These seven songs (eight if you count the intro) sound great in the car, are loaded with Hammond organ and Fender Rhodes, and Miller’s throaty bellows are higher in the mix than on the first Howlin’ Rain album

Blues Funeral generally succeeds because Lanegan knows exactly what his audience wants and is willing to play to his strengths.

Callahan's made plenty of fine albums-some of which boast higher highs than this one-but Apocalypse is such a satisfying and downright elegant listen because of its commitment to a narrative arc; as soon as it ends and you step back, the album takes the shape of a remarkably complete thought.

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.

Simple as that: this, their sophomore release and first for Sub Pop, is shamelessly gorgeous, totally in control of every threatening exigency and bombastic color.

This record, though, feels complacent, like he’s a bit stuck and is trying to find a way forward.

Micachu’s album has all the markers of quirky chic--an unusual voice, a fairly well-known producer, and a distinctive approach centered around pastiche.

The lyrics are less interesting, the songs are uneven, and while ultimately Expo 86 sounds like Wolf Parade-and sounds good, even-it doesn't feel like Wolf Parade, if that makes sense.

Frankie's doesn't bear the weight of an obviously solo effort and at once succeeds in creating music that rivals any full-band effort from any of her peers.

Too good to be merely forgettable or a waste of a decade's worth of building and planning, but too uniform and flawed to stand out as a major achievement or even one of the year's best.

The terrible truth of this album hangs stupidly overhead--that it’s a yawner.

White Wilderness gives Vanderslice's listener something to fixate on other than his often-good lyrics. As a consequence, despite its predictably moderate tempos and unchanging volume, it's a sign of progress, of potentially great things to come, and Vanderslice's most immediately welcoming record in half a decade.

There is a vital something absent; reassuringly, though, the greatness that eludes awE naturalE doesn't feel like something THEESatisfaction will never "morph" into.

It's not so much disorienting as it is illuminating to revisit ØØ Void, Sunn O)))'s second release from 2000, recently reissued by Southern Lord. After all, it sounds exactly as you remember-or exactly as you'd imagine-which is to say: glacial-slow riffs, suffocating drones, mind-numbing minimalism.

It’s a sad, wonderful tone he creates, but one too shy or just too gracious to stand up for itself.

Circles (2003) was heartier fare, just as starry-eyed and unabashedly romantic but more focused and elegant. It’s a better record, to be sure, but that doesn’t make The Autumn Defense a bad one.

Engaging yet generally dull.

This is a record of a plump stomach, a belch, a bit of acid reflux; the by-product of Kanye’s indulgences? More heartburn than heartbreak.

My point is that topping already listless, dreamy tunes with even more listless production can make it difficult to perceive any dynamics across the whole album. Odawas do make inroads towards changing it up, but it’s hard to hear anything but the relentlessly slow pace and saccharine production.

It’s like listening to a strong feeling that yearns to be vented, but instead is left inside its confining limits, echoing on itself.

Flockaveli is delivery-driven, then, in the best possible sense: it is a chorus of proficient, varied flows, avoiding the pitfalls of impotent swag music and pugnacious garishness.

While originality may not be high up on Blank Realm’s list of virtues, there’s something engaging about a record this wonderfully crafted and this genuine in its own personal zeitgeist.

It’s an exhilarating listen, even if all of this dread seems to be in the name of dread only.

Despite its flaws, Connector stands as one of their best.

There is little else more gratifying in being a fan of music than watching a musician, with every successive album, build upon his or her potential in such an exquisite, dedicated way that everything about their music is now a magnificent improvement over what came before. Roommate's third album is all that.