Whatever thematic consistency existed on Yoshimi or Soft Bulletin is completely absent here. Or just so vague and bloated that the sentiment’s useless.

Morrissey has managed to assemble a record that feels like a genuine Morrissey record while not being insufferably self-important and brooding.

If Soul Position intended to craft a wholly direct, musically and lyrically and conceptually simplistic piece of positive rap, like a modern day Arrested Development album, then I think they did that well enough, and I guess I don’t fully appreciate because I’m too caught up in my own gangly mental schematic of what it is that makes good hip-hop good.

South have an ear for melody, uniformly excellent production values, and a good sense of dynamics; all of which manifests itself in some very satisfying melodic Brit-pop.

Those who felt like maybe they were starting to get Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? only to be left out by Unicorns’ sudden dissolution should be reassured that Return to the Sea is a more rooted and confident effort.

As bland and timid a record as likely to come out in the strikingly boring year of 2006.

The Loon is nothing short of an incredibly focused song suite, minus all the extraneous frivolities that you’ve gotten too used to hearing from an "incredibly focused song suite."

With Show Your Bones, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have proven themselves worthy of the hype, and, more importantly, the excitement caused by an undeniably fantastic record.

It isn’t the street rap of Ironman, it isn’t an exercise in abstract lyricism akin to Supreme Clientele, or the partially-focused and repeatedly disappointing Bulletproof Wallets. Regardless of that, the album captures exactly that Ghostface Killah is and has been over his past four records.

When T.I. is on, he’s really, really on, and, at several points, King lives up to its own hyperbole. It’s just that those points correspond precisely to the places where T.I. is actually talking about how great he is.

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.

Perhaps it took a grueling creative journey and a battle with self-doubt to get there, but the end result is a band that has retained its brash experimental flare while discovering its heart.

Weighty and authoritative, the gospel backings help convert Gelb’s often world-weary musings into straight-talking wisdom, the kind of stuff you want to listen to on a bad day.

The album is imminently listenable, providing a brisk background as easily as it rewards a close listen.

The disc tends to coast now and then, though it’s hard to say if that’s due to chinks in the songwriting armor or the band’s straightforwardness. Still, rock for rock’s sake is not without meaning.

Rather than the simple three-part-appeal that marked earlier albums (vocals, drums, and keys), the production here makes them sound like they are fronting a bona fide rock and roll band. This is a bad thing: this new complexity undermines their giddy, naïve appeal, and it drowns the vocals.

Instead of wrenching free of every single confinement that’s ever been placed around his tiny waist, like he’s pretty much always done, Prince is settling into 3121, accepting the decades of his career as what he should be content in emulating.

A damned great indie rock record.

When they’re trying, as they do especially on the first half of the album, Cannibal Sea can be quite enjoyable.

Acher’s still a brilliant musician, and Bohm has the capacity to wreak some vicious vocal havoc. But now, fitting into a niche that they once helped epitomize, their record sounds stale.

The problem seems to be a not yet fully developed understanding of how to make their pop moments gel with the layered atmosphere they seem committed to.

The problem isn’t the music, which is lively and varied, but the disconnect between the artistic intent and the artistic output.

The result is that we have a transitory album, but also a typically beautiful and subtle one.

Neko Case has made tremendous progress here as a lyricist.

This is an album about getting shitfaced.

All in all, Push The Heart is an admirable, sometimes striking record from a band with a few of those now in their catalog.

If Ashworth’s lyrical razorblade was blunted by the quaintness of Casiotone consistency before, his new compositional confidence allows its sharpness to shine and cut as deep as you could handle without running a bath.

Forget the hype now; when they made this last summer, without hype, without de-habilitating expectation, they may just have created the finest indie-rock album of the year.