It's Bowles's reflections on the silence of the desert, the way its stillness rearranges your molecular structure, that resonates with Travels In The Dustland.

It's some of his best work, but it's done with the gimmick of relying solely on the ARP 2600 analog synthesizer.

At its best, then, Vanity is Forever seems to be an album where the nostalgic references are intentional: New Wave as touchstone rather than simply gazing backward fondly.

Their charisma lets them make a few risky moves (such as the African percussion on the extended closer "Church") and yield massive returns.

Its appropriation of G-funk hooks and production is really off-putting, and makes me wonder exactly who this record is for.

Even with bursts of ill-tuned twang, Prinz and Horn's harshness is centered and tame.

Imperial Teen crafts a super-clean, super-sharp, inordinately complex collection of songs that, nonetheless, go down like cherry cola.

It is a difficult piece to listen to on many levels.

Though I Love You can at times appeal on an intellectual level more than an aesthetic one, it still has a host of admirable (and listenable) qualities.

It all just flows, never exploding but never falling into a stupor, either.

Take off your thinking cap, and Replica reveals mostly pleasant, mellow ambient jams.

Ultimately, The Iron Soul of Nothing feels considerably more like a NWW album than a Sunn 0))) album. But somehow that doesn't come at the expense of the source authors. Rather, it's a satisfying document of Stapleton's ongoing creativity as well as confirmation of the potential always nascent in the doom duo's earliest work.

It's many different things at once, but all of them are confident and powerful.

Watson captures (or enhances) sounds in three dimensions, and the way he arranges them invites both immersion and reflection.

It is a very direct, very intimate half-hour of songs.

We have a groundbreaking album re-released, with some strong live material

Far from being liabilities, such disparate moments help define If… for the better: as a work that frolics in different directions without losing control or coherence.

But largely, Jacaszek's wedding of disparate styles pays off in Glimmer's evocation of certain moods and expert shifts from mode to mode.

This EP still feels like a small plate of leftovers from a meal that promised more than it delivered, as though Wolfgang Puck was on the can, not in the kitchen.

With so much in the blender, it's a testament to BSS's production skills that tracks like this don't fly apart. But they do get muddled.

Sure the whole Southern Rock Opera concept is a bit over-the-top, and a two-disc set will always contain its fair share of duds, but the Drive-By Truckers have succeeded in making an album that is as good a historical reference as it is for air-guitar.

New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges is an album of somber beauty, its flashes of color existing amidst a broad spectrum of grays.

Ultimately, it's hard to embrace Sepalcure. The record has received some critical acclaim, and as far as stateside bass music goes, Sepalcure deserve the attention. But something is missing...risk.

The most cohesive LP in at least five years and its darkest, most urgent, most intense work to date.

Biasonic Hotsauce is broken up by some campy skits that buffer the genre hops, and after a few of them, the record turns toward electro.

It's hard to imagine 200 Years standing out, even considering its low-key spirit.

Let the Poison Out only ups the ante. Distortion is easy and lo-fi bands are a dime a dozen, but hardly any of them clean up this well.

Just as Dedication surprised many listeners by aptly navigating theme, mood and flow, Nothing demonstrates Zomby knows his foundational sounds, the everything upon which he builds, better than anyone.

Even when you don't understand fully what's going on (is this song about L.A. or Baghdad?), the songs are catchy enough that you don't mind.

There's a just-right roughness to the recording that has worked for bands as diverse as The Commandos and The Trashmen.

Interestingly, the presence of the source music doesn't detract from the spooky, remote quality that characterizes The Caretaker.

It's just a smart encapsulation of underground dance music's better qualities, but not so showoffy that it can't work as an hourlong immersion tank.

The music has a bare-trees feel that dovetails with the wintry theme. There's plenty of orchestration, but it's all framing and backdrop for Bush's piano and voice.

Cave never quite summons the lyrical beauty that Neu! was capable of, nor do they rock with the blithering, obliterating tension that Oneida brings to its hardest bangers, but once or twice during Neverendless, they do turn locomotive precision into something transformative.

Spills Out isn't the best record of its ilk to come out this year, but it's not the worst, either.

The reissue shows how prickly and difficult Social Climber's aesthetic could be, its arrangements as sparse as Young Marble Giants, though less even less concerned with hook and melody.

Suffice to say Impossible Spaces itself is a journey, and one of the more all-encompassing ones I've had the pleasure of taking this year.

Bright and Vivid gives little of itself immediately, but unfolds to a much larger extent over time.

It's a slight little album about fascinations, and a product of them, too, which, whether you share those fascinations or find them boring, is perfectly fine.

While McCombs may not transcend his influences, his sense of...well, humor on Humor Risk does set him apart from the current crop of guitar-based musicians that wallow in the dour and faux-clever.

That such disparate musicians with such massive amounts of tape from the field could put something together this tastefully gives hope that whatever and wherever Albarn decides to operate next, he conducts proceedings in the same considered fashion as he has here.

For all the ups and downs, this collection fulfills Martin's goal of continuing the conversation.

It's a conservative, often misguided assault on mainstream dance music.

It was obviously made with care, and, as an result, is pretty easy on the ears. Much of it is also over-saturated, poured on too thick, and it can be cloying in its polite pleasantness.

The immediate embrace of anything analogue-warped by certain corners of the Internet shouldn't detract from Forever, as it's quite an engaging listen when the right (nocturnal) mood strikes.

Veronica Falls are enjoyable to listen to, but they don't seem to offer more than that fleeting smile.

You need to listen and absorb. It won't always work. But when it does, you'll find the door open and a fascinating terrain inside.

Ultimately, this album manages to sound like all and none of these, making Barn Owl a band that's becoming harder to pin down and easier to appreciate.

He doesn't quite sell the thesis that that's the point.

I can't say I'll be giving Inside the Ships more spins this year, but it's offbeat charm never felt like a waste of my time when I did, and that's more than I can say for most albums this year.

Breaks in the Armor may, with a few slight tweaks, find Bachmann doing more or less the same thing as he's done on his past few albums, but when he does it this well, there's little reason to object.

Emika's made a very personal album here that succeeds by its own exacting standards.

While the key tracks here could all hold up as singles, they're joined with interludes that make Ghost People an uninterrupted flow.

It's great that Natalizia and Willis are playing with the boundaries of genre, but the experiments feel overly cautious, leaving the album full of pleasantries and devoid of punch.

There is literally nothing on Gauntlet Hair that hasn't been done better by more respectable second-order bands like Tonstartssbandht or Ganglians.

This album is loud, obnoxious, personal, and a hell of a lot of fun.

III is something to be appreciated and savored, but not necessarily obsessed over.

Packaging quibbles aside, this is a great set.

The end result lumps the worst banalities of "indie" music into electronic sounds that, if properly fleshed out, might have been interesting.

None of these remixes fall flat. For Radiohead fans, TKOL RMX 1234567 is an opportunity to see their favorite fivesome in a new light by some of the world's most clever electronic musicians.

The songs themselves, even when they are not traditional folk songs, share some of the time-worn general-ness of the folk genre. You do not, very often, feel that you are glimpsing directly into Gubler's psyche.

If there's a flaw on Original Colors, it's that these 10 songs are so closely related--in tempo, vocals and instrumentation--that they're enjoyable enough on their own but become an undifferentiated blob when played back-to-front.

It is unremarkable to the point of being enraging.

On All Things Will Unwind, though, the bursts of inspiration in each corner and crevice remain too stiff to merge into anything more than the sum of their parts.

Looping State of Mind is a bold attempt at fusing The Field's emotive tendencies with something more aggressive, and for the most part, Willner strikes the perfect balance.

Creatures of an Hour is never less than pretty, and often a good deal more.

It's a rarity, though, when kids successfully switch from absorbing listlessness totransmitting it themselves. That's the case for Mikal Cronin, who takes these circumstances and makes something of it that is big and varied and hyperactive.

Breakers is a gorgeous oddity, one of the year's most arresting albums of any kind, and "252" hints at the potential for even better material ahead.

El Khatib's voice is good and scrawny, and yelps out Tennessee hiccups just right. But he works too hard at selling the whole show.

They simply begin, evolve, repeat, and end, very much as though they were designed to play out while we directed our attention elsewhere.

Life Sux, however, shows that laziness is still very much the enemy here. And it comes in many flavors, but none more egregious than the penchant for gimmicks.

While I'm not convinced Biophilia overcomes the slump as an album, every song has something going for it.

Future Islands clearly wanted to tug some heartstrings this time around, and in the respect, On the Water is an unqualified success.

Bold and exciting, the project demonstrates the infinite possibilities available to modern producers, if only they look in the unlikeliest of places.

The Mancy of Sound and its predecessor are straight-up essential listening, and gloriously exciting music. The pulse quickens each time I put this one on.

The result makes for a listening experience that's intense and potentially awkward, but one that also somehow rings true.

Tripper is the cleanest, leanest--and, arguably, most accessible--record Hella have made as a duo, showing off some fantastically tight playing and even a few hints of what their music desperately needs: clarity.

Violent Hearts occasionally plods, as on "No One," "Other Girls," and the opener "Believe," (at least before its delightfully messy climax). But more often it quietly impresses, revealing new melodic and harmonic strands with each subsequent listen.

Sometimes he continues with the same train of thought; sometimes he changes direction completely. This isn't technique on display. It's more like improvised self-analysis in musical form.

Modeselektor's willingness to collaborate and explore sounds while still sticking to their identifiable, fat, bass-heavy crunk techno style is worth applauding, and there's no reason to think that they won't continue to remain relevant.

In the end, Hall Music is an enjoyable but paradoxical album, both an expansion and contraction of Svanängen's palette.

In the end, Wiltzie and O'Halloran's collaboration stands as an impressive album on its own merits and one of the strongest efforts in the world of Stars of the Lid offshoots.

If anything, the album isn't obnoxious or overproduced, and those who are more forgiving of beauty-mongering landscape pop likely have a year-end list candidate. Those who are into Apparat's more adventurous work and collaborations, though, should pass.

Danilova takes the peaks higher than ever and manages to avoid both the pitfalls of monotony and excessive experimentation.

Organ Music may not quite be what Krug hoped for--and it's by no means perfect--but it is intriguing and occasionally illuminating.

As a mood piece, there are poignant moments, but nothing resembling a clear emotional statement.

Mountaintops certainly isn't radically different from Mates of States' other albums, but when the band has this kind of rapport, there's no need to deviate.

In Heaven is a significant advance for Twin Sister, both in the way that it smoothes over and clarifies its original aesthetic and in the way it explores a handful of new avenues.

Ancient & Modern's one sticking point is that, like 2007's predecessor Natural, it's a slow grower.

Perhaps whatever he's wishing for or doesn't have is something too personal or boring to tell.

By keeping everything in proportion, she's made the most easily approached record of her career.

Throughout Megafaun, the balance between expectation and surprise is maintained neatly.

While Lortz's body of work as a songwriter has grown larger, The World is Just a Shape to Fill the Night may occupy a spot similar to the one Get Lonely owns in The Mountain Goats' more varied discography.

There are messages in Wild Flag's music, but there are also challenges to the listener, and to the rest of rock music in general: This band built its own sound out of stock rock 'n' roll parts to make one of the best albums of this year.

What was once an exciting examination of a seldom-explored corner of rock and roll has become a listless, mechanical affair.

The more Clark edits, the more she refines, the stronger St. Vincent becomes. At this point, it's just a matter of consistency.

Barely out of her teen years herself, Marling explores a whole spectrum of female experience with empathy and intelligence.

While there are some real successes here, Father, Son, Holy Ghost is extremely inconsistent.