Mary Star of the Sea doesn't come close to SP's best work, but it absolutely obliterates everything Corgan has done since Mellon Collie.

The Raven is downright awful, perhaps Reed’s worst album since Metal Machine Music.

This is big rock, powerful, aggressive, and impeccably played and produced.

Red Devil Dawn is by far the most consistent Crooked Fingers album, and in many respects, probably the best in general.

For a debut album, this is extremely strong.

In effect, the group have carbon-copied the sound of The Great Eastern but neglected to paste-in an equal number of tunes.

Weaving together themes like mortality, the universality of mankind, and the cyclical eternality of life and not having it all come out as a pretentious mess of self-important prognosticating and vaguely simplistic truisms places Elvrum in the rarified air that few outside of Brian Wilson have ever attempted to reach.

An extremely beautiful and captivating slice of electro-pop.

Simply put, you need to own this record.

A New Day at Midnight is not White Ladder part 2, but it does bear certain similarities, namely emotional, beautiful music matched with equally beautiful lyrics, and, of course David Gray's unmistakable voice.

Lift Your Skinny Fists… told a story, included more extremes in volume and emotion, and added vocal samples. Yanqui, thus, is more subtle, more restrained. Yet it's also more moody, more cerebral, more intense.

While individual songs work on their own, the album seldom succeeds as a whole.

Takes us on a tour of how things got started and where they could be going.

While Amore del Tropico blazes some new paths for Black Heart Procession, it also hits all the right notes from the group's past.

Music that's at once beautiful, joyful, and pure aural pleasure.

Nothing about the five originals and two covers here makes them come across like B-sides or throwaways.

Even without a surplus of terrific songs to launch the affair into orbit, the band still knows perfectly well how to lock into each other and stay that way.

One of his finest efforts to date.

Though it is not overtly innovative in its instrumentation or approach, The Creek Drank the Cradle is composed and performed with such an inclusive, intimate voice that the album is extremely accessible, even personal.

You still get the beautiful vocal combination of Sparhawk and Parker and the traditional less-is-more approach Low perfected several albums ago. Yet now you get a band that doesn't want to get stuck in the realm of slow-core, trying new things, redefining themselves. And it works beautifully on what is, undoubtedly, a triumph of an album.

For everyone who thought the conceptual excesses of the previous releases went a bit too far or simply didn’t have the patience to tie together all the musical loose ends, this may be the Of Montreal album they’ve been waiting for.

The sad truth is that few of the songs top their studio counterparts.

The problem is the songs. Oh, the songs - they're pretty, all right, but there's no substance.

Adamson is certainly adept at replicating the sights and sounds of the Bond and Blaxploitation films that inspired him in his youth. But is he celebrating his passion or merely mocking it in a hamfisted fashion? Sadly if feels like too much of the latter, even if it is by accident.

All in all, this album has everything any hard rock fan would enjoy.

A consistently heady and visceral shot of classic Mudhoney: angry, fuzzy guitars, propulsive rhythms, and sarcastically-jaded lyrics.

Will be among many year-end best-of lists, and deservingly so.

It sounds like the Ramones covering OK Computer. It's also one of the best debuts of the year.