It’s a compliment to Stevens when one notices that listening to the music alone is rewarding and yet, the shots from the documentary are what run vivid in your head.

There is not much on The Real Feel that is daring or new in terms of musical explorations, but the emotionally energetic vocals and intestinal fortitude of the lyrics coupled with the honesty and the understated transcendence of the songs is quite alluring.

It worries me that cheesy metal riffs have made their way onto a Converge record, making it sound like it might be accepted on tour with Mastodon. It’s not a matter of breaking apart but experimentation that might not always go right.

If you acquiesce to its pacing and delivery it’s chantlike mix of chill and warmth can be a springboard to your own thoughts. If you’re not so inclined, I imagine that it would be like a Chinese water torture.

Even at just six songs, they’re each powerfully presented and Perkins is better for it, in astonishingly marvelous fashion.

Lungs showcases Florence's dramatic voice as an instrument that the other instruments follow, from the urgent, rhythmic drums on "Drumming Song" to the fluid harp runs on "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)."

The Twilight Saga: New Moon Soundtrack is an excellent album of cool songs featuring some of today’s celebrated indie artists.

While Embryonic shares with Brew many of the spontaneous bursts of chaos that made that album such a jarring listen, you can rest assured that this beautiful mess was--thanks to Coyne and his admitted control issues--a very calculated affair.

Three Fact Fader is an impressive sophomore effort. Engineers have created a winning combination of English pop/rock.

The xx have made a debut that sounds utterly flawless; it's the kind of album that bands take years to create.

The highs here, while admittedly not quite as majestic or sugary as in the past, are still pretty far up there, and better yet, there are no lows.

This album sounded exactly as I imagined it would, sounding pumped in straight from a dingy practice space from the early 80’s. It’s just that the music sounds more in service to the post-punk ideal than to the individual songs, affecting a feeling of taking a wild trip through a style instead of offering memorable individual experiences.

This isn’t the same set of music each time out, no, instead it’s a sincere evolution into something that all can behold. Many would be smart to learn from this band because they’ve obviously got “it” figured out.

All in all, for The Clientele this is another great album in what’s getting to be a long line of great albums.

The tracks with fuller arrangements are the more interesting and surprising tracks here, and they suggest Vile would do well to seek out other strong personalities to write and record with.

Ultimately, Sunset / Sunrise is a wonderful follow-up for the duo because of how well they are able to combine the best aspects from their debut with new found options.

Ultimately there’s a lot of beauty to behold on Run Rabbit Run.

It’s clairvoyantly obvious that Ghostface Killah’s ideas are abound. Forever flourishing, there is so much to love about an album as playfully awesome as this one.

Sing Along To Songs You Don’t Know is another fine example of how múm is evolving and continually expanding on their already diverse musical pallette.

While Daisy does have its share of issues, it is by no means a bad album. The fact is that it falls beneath Brand New’s lofty standards.

With only a couple of real missteps--that could have been eliminated by a less democratic division of songwriting labour to cut the tracklisting to a tighter 12 or 13 cuts--this first (and hopefully not last) Monsters Of Folk release happily proves that super-groups can be greater than the sum of individual parts, when kinship overrules narcissism.

Hawley has made an exceptionally perfect album with Truelove’s Gutter: it’s endearing, uplifting and absolutely beautiful, what else could you ask for?

The understated songs are the most memorable here (and the least Why?-like), and it sort of makes me wish the rockier material were shelved so that the whole album could be tailored to this mood of graceful resignation.

Vapours isn’t just a welcome addition to the band’s collection but it’s a welcoming album filled with tremendously rich highs, blunt and honest lyrics, melodic music and captivating hooks.

There aren’t any questions about the quality of Us, an album filled with exceptional music; it’s a downright excellent release.

There’s a certain kind of magic going on here and it needs to be accounted for.

Forget the Night Ahead is a resoundingly superb follow-up to that same 2007 album.

Family is an excellent album. Le Loup hasn’t altered their original goal and purpose, instead they’ve added new collections and they’ve even improved on some of the earlier problems from their debut.