Rabbit Fur Coat is an album of easy strumming and likeable melodies, a PG distillation of vintage country influences and the Watson Twin’s spot-on gospel harmonies.

One Life Stand hasn’t brought Hot Chip completely out of the deep hole they dug for themselves one album earlier, and it’s still not as consistent as the inimitable, career-defining The Warning, but it’s unquestionably more “Boy From School” than the histrionics of “Shake a Fist,” and that’s a good enough reason to stay with this band not just for the kids.

Total Dust is a very nice record with a good melancholic mood.

Striking stylistic tics like this pop up all over Clues, and the contextualizing effect is undeniable: for good or ill, it’s nigh impossible to hear this album anew, free from preconceptions.

Heim is very nice and also very spare. Less ebulliently cheating with surprise and indulgence is Hvarf, worth the band’s typical awe just for the official addition of live staple 'Hafsól' to the band’s buyable repertoire.

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

The Cookbook leaves the exact same impression on its listener as every Missy album since Supa Dupa Fly. She may have changed the recipe, but the dish tastes the same.

It's a solid, un-embarrassing, simple-minded record that will do nothing to My Morning Jacket's reputation as one of the greatest American rock bands every American can, and will, get behind. Here's to riskier futures.

Bachelorette is not as immediate or inviting as My Electric Family, but I'm hesitant to condemn it for this. It's simply a different listening experience, one which creates a different mood.

Pulling every sound to its limit, Adem’s debut is glorious in its scope, maintaining a contemplative stride through bare instrumentation.

Dave Sitek’s production is the magnetic north of this musical universe, and with it the band is never lost. They would be well to sound more so; to get lost, rather than cluck with pleasure at how well they know themselves.

MPLSound appeals to nostalgia both implicitly (a reminder of the reasons for our adoration) and explicitly (the album sounds good because it sounds like Sign O’ The Times).

Shonen Knife can do a lot of things, but country music apparently isn't one of them. Where some may revel in how they don't fuck with the formula that's persisted over their extensive career, others will reach for fan favorite Let's Knife (1992) or save their money; that economic crisis Yamano maybe sings about is still happening, you know.

The kid is hugely talented-his flow is tight and, in a pleasant change from the Dizzee model, about 90% intelligible-but in trying so many different things he never quite succeeds at any of them, and so he comes off as a bit hollow.

The album's best moments are when Drew's fundamental pop becomes unhinged and thrashes passionately about its aesthetic playground, planetoids seeming at odds in their mad swing through space but connected by some invisible force.

The Shining is not a masterpiece, obviously, and nobody ought claim it as such, but it does show the producer striking out in a moderately novel direction and finding consistently satisfying results.

ADULT. are an awesome band that have yet to make an awesome album. This one, however, is still pretty damn good.

There’s plenty of virtually virtuoso moments to make it worthwhile, and Doom just isn’t one to suck no matter how prolific he gets, but this sequel can’t help but disappoint after Vaudeville Villain.

This is serious sound art, and it evokes a now near-mythical pre-Recession time when experimental artists didn't feel the need to obliquely reference the outside world.

At the very least, II manages consistency where so many collaborations sound like two minds in separate corners.

Sweet Jesus, these guys sound like Syd Barrett.

There’s a lot of filler here, even for Ryan.

Though it's their first time out, Weekend has created a record that bellows out of speakers, that bites and sometimes doesn't play fair. Though uneven in areas, Sports packs a sucker punch. Best sit still and brace yourself.

Banks is often all the more mesmerizing when she leaves the beef on the back-burner and takes stock of her influences.

Game Theory’s highs never quite reach those of Do You Want More?!!!??! or Illadeph Halflife (1996), and those albums, even with those highs, are still inconsistent affairs. Which means that the Roots are back on track, but the track itself was never something we praised wholeheartedly in the first place.

Siouxsie has always seemed fearless and unstoppable; while this is refreshing, it is unnerving to see her shatter the persona she has so slavishly created for herself.

Cohen manages to find the happy (and probably most obvious) middle ground between his spare origins and the sheen of his later work with light, jazzy instrumentation, with the songs stretched out to allow for several solos and interludes.

Sure, the record isn't very functional outside of its given context, but if you've tuned into this program before then it'll be nice to know that one of the most congenial of indie pop acts can still deliver on their good name and to their respective audience in equal measure.