The hooks don’t sink in quite as quickly as compared to prior Monkeys’ efforts, but there’s also a lot more going on, and the newfound emphasis on atmosphere prevents Humbug from having the Side-B blahs that were prevalent on "Favourite Worst Nightmare."

The point is that all of the Hidden Cameras is in here, but it’s not all shined to a high polish and adorned with neon lights, and that works an interesting effect.

Watch Me Fall isn’t evolution, but it is certainly maturation, the first physical testament of aging as a slog toward something better.

As a breakup narrative, it’s successful. As pop music, it’s either too insular or simply unable to turn Silberman’s own experience into something one would desire to revisit.

King of Jeans, for the most part, delivers compact, devastating blows--the tautest, in fact, that the band has ever dealt.

The distance that keeps Elvrum’s tiny voice from ever rising above a negligible squeak is applied to our relationship with this pretty, roaring Wind’s Poem. It’s a harrowing problem, like getting stuck between a stone and a hard something, for every Phil Elvrum fan imaginable. And who isn’t nowadays.

Intuit makes sense, easy enough; it elucidates Knopf’s part in his more popular band, as if that were a secret, and it tentatively allows a familiar songwriter some more control, some new ground.

I love that Bay of Pigs sounds like an extended triumphant version of most things Dan’s attempted in the past, only bigger, better, and with more of a plot.

Patrick Wolf still engenders a puzzling and sometimes fascinating discussion about romanticism and pretension and authenticity and songwriter worship, but what’s disappointing is that he seems to no longer be a part of that discussion, simply the subject of it.

Strictly speaking not much has changed since this Japanese trio’s debut EP Neji/Tori washed up on North American shores, but somehow that previous effort had so much charming belligerence and ferocity and Destination Tokyo sounds bored and meandering.

Everything is in complete control, which says a lot about their zen-like mastery of the garage rock cubbyhole, but for me half the fun was the audible battle happening right there in the mix: the sweet sound of instruments bucking around, splashing cold water into cold faces.

If for no other reason than that VanGaalen is perfectly content to be an intuitive outsider to this “outsider” genre of music that he unplies, his Black Mold tastes fresh and new and, ultimately, life-giving to the likes of us.

It’s all quite charming and lovely.

I’m convinced that Bechtolt and Evans have a ton of potential that’s simply going completely unrealized for all but about nine minutes of See Mystery Lights, which leaves it feeling like a party that never actually gets going for some inexplicable reason as everyone involved tries too hard.

Each of these eight leftovers can be divided into rote, by-the-numbers Modest Mouse rock jams and meandering pseudo-experiments that feel, uncharacteristically and disappointingly, like nothing more than filler.

For all the positive aspects of Creaturesque--most importantly, it really is a consistently interesting and fun listen, which is rare for a record like this--there is one real weakness: Reitherman’s lyrics.

Nurses are a psychedelic freak-folk trio from Portland with ridiculous facial hair. But Apple’s Acre is also very, very good.

I’m Going Away is a good record, it just doesn’t really sound like the Fiery Furnaces. Though for some, I’m sure, that’ll be very welcome news indeed.

Who knows if Josephine will ultimately have the staying power of Molina’s very best work, but he and his band are back doing what they do best--and, for all the talk of ramblers heading for the horizon, they finally sound at home.

It's true that Riceboy Sleeps is no departure from New Age, is in fact a strengthening of at least Birgisson's place at the centre of its indie iterations. But it also takes the formula of another band a lot of people like and bends it just enough to make that formula interesting again.

The Knot may not be a full-out Great Album, but it does contain a lot of moments that are dangerously close, and taken as a whole it is surprisingly well-developed for a band still getting started.

Gather, Form & Fly is a bright record full of energy and dynamism even in its most cacophonous sound collages, but what’s so frustrating--what becomes more urgent with every listen--is how great this album could have been.

We’ve been shown angry Clark, blinded by passion and vigor, and we’ve seen drowsy, reverb-soaked Clark, but never before have the two parts struggled with one another in such a fascinating, rewarding way.

On this, their debut, they’ve shown us they can pull downtrodden bents as good as anyone. But I’m being serious, serious rock band: on your next record I want to hear something more Pope-like.

The Dead Weather makes smegma rock. It’s a squirming, nauseating label no doubt, but so is Horehound, convinced that skuzzed-up guitars and swamp blues roots demand sleaze, humidity, and grime.

It’s not easy listening; it may in fact be a case in which one needs to add hundred-degree heat before there’s even a chance of excavating something.

The Rural Alberta Advantage are an excellent Toronto band that before this year nobody outside of Toronto cared much at all about; here’s hoping their follow-up manages to capitalize on what’s good here to make something really memorable.