Though a newcomer to The Clientele should not start here, it's strong throughout, with the exception of the aberrant (if mild) guitar freakout in "Jerry" and a creepy piano solo, "No. 33," which, if unobjectionable, seems unnecessary.

Porcelain Raft's airy concoctions work best when you're not thinking about them.

Every song comes from the same mold that they've been working with from the beginning. And as the critical mass of messy hits continues to pile up, there are new revelations that rise to the surface, as well.

Other Animals was a masterpiece, Nightlife is merely pretty good.

The album has a gleeful, headlong, nearly slapstick propulsion. .... There are some tranquil, romantic interludes, like the Julee Cruise-ish “Plastered” and the dream-pop, 4AD drift of “The Lady Vanishes,” and that’s all fine, but what this band does best is unpredictability, where you never know who will take the mic next, or where a song will take its latest sharp turn. This time, Bar Italia goes into some satisfyingly dark and noisy places, and cheers to that.

Darkness at Noon thrives on pushing and pulling the listener from emotional peak to valley.

The tracks that are built on longer samples and vocals are more involving.

Here in the Deep, like the last few Arbouretum albums, is good but not mind-blowing.

The truth of W doesn't look as good on paper, but give it time. It's more convincing than it has any right to be.

Despite its scant 35-minute duration, Meek Warrior distills the entire history of experimental pop. Just as impressively, it finally bottles the frantic eclecticism and The Gods Must Be Crazy absurdity of the Family’s live show.

It's a nice album. One of the things that's really interesting about it, though, is its relationship with nostalgia.

The band strikes a balance between symmetry and expansiveness, which gets at the core of why the krautrockers have endured—disciplined beats allow the free-form wanderings to reach places that more shaggy jamming misses.

The 11 songs here are not only 90-percent hit single material; they work together in concert as an album (as well as in pairs and trios).

On the mic end, MC Naledge has a comfortable flow reminiscent of a more polished Kanye, but his lyrics on The In Crowd are less than remarkable.

A magical collection of songs where the lyrics, instruments and voice somehow blend perfectly, matching each other moment to moment to tell the same story, set the same mood.

For what it is, it hits the mark impeccably--time after time after time.

Admittedly, this is a record with a specific style and set of concerns: if you don’t like your post-punk hyper-focused and with Van Morrison-levels of nods to mysticism, you may lose patience with it quickly. For those who appreciate the iconoclasm involved, however, there’s plenty to savor here.

The combination of synth, loop techniques and no-joke instrumentalists playing wild and unconventional rhythms is totally over-the-top, but that’s exactly what makes this album so dazzling.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra is the most basic, easily digestible, pre-chewed pop archetype. With zero nutritional value.

Despite the album’s disparate material, it has a lulling cohesiveness. All the songs, wherever they come from, feel like they have been reimagined at the same volume and tempo and in the same wistful ambience.

Pearls and Brass have your ultimate Friday afternoon "just got paid today" soundtrack right here. Turn it up loud and enjoy.

The album's moments of schticky nonsense ('How Do You Tell A Child Someone Has Died,' 'Transcendental Light') are tiresome, but they’re surrounded by such good rock songs that they wind up being equally rewarding.

While not really better or worse than their previous albums, Summer in Abaddon is at least pretty good -- more of exactly what fans wanted.

Innocence finds Pontiak as hefty as ever. Its opening salvo finds the band in particularly fine form, carving out melodic passages from a tempest of fuzz and feedback.

That’s Realistic IX in a nutshell: it brings both the burn and the balm.

When “Upper Ferntree Gully” takes off, it’s to the sort of easy midtempo riffs that once made Billy Corgan listenable, with a soupçon of Mascis noise thrown in for good measure as Smit builds an intergenerational metaphor from a kangaroo pouch. It sets the scene for an album of sharp twists that owes its success to the personality and wit of Smit’s omnivore genre jigsawing.

Cut Off Your Hands' anthemic-ness--its lack of austerity and rigor--will put some people off. Yet there's something rather good in the way these songs bring together luxury and despair.

What's new? High pitch frequencies; cell phone samples; the vocoded & pitched-down techno-poetry; a clean aesthetic from DE9 era running roughshod over a dark palette; and the fact that it sounds utterly different to his previous material, despite the references.

Has all the hallmarks of classic Kraftwerk.

The songs on WOT are about as accessible as any Donovan has ever written, with bright clear melodies, relatively tight structures and minimal instrumental embellishment, but they still resist easy analysis.

The usual and worn out horrorcore lyrics resemble now parts in “found poetry,” left to their own devices. They are no longer pastiches made by humans but cosmic shards of meaning. The tracks recorded with Benny the Butcher and Elcamino (“La Mala Ordina”) and with La Chat (“Run For Your Life”) are hints at what’s possible when our-worldly lyrics paired down with otherworldy music.

It's a project with too many authors and not enough personality, too many ideas and not enough meaning.

Original Detroit, Northwestern, and New York garage bands figure equally in the blueprint, resulting in a robust hook-fest that plays like a mixtape of the greatest rock 'n roll songs '65-'78.

This is, undoubtedly, one of the most beautiful records of this year, and its very indistinctness forces you to go back to it over and over.

I’ve not listened to any other album from 2009 quite so much, or quite so closely, a reflection not only of the exacting single-mindedness of O’Rourke’s vision, but also of The Visitor‘s loveliness.

Look, this isn't a Clinic record that's gonna convert anyone not already checked-in, but it is another encouraging move, proving that the band is not content to stagnate in the confines of its sound.

If Fisher and co feel wrung out at times it’s not through lack of commitment or creativity. No one said fighting the good fight would be easy and There Is No Year lands enough punches to win at least a TKO decision.

Any way you look at it, though, it commands and keeps your attention, and that’s something to appreciate in any age.

Get Guilty isn’t an easy album at all. It just sounds like one.

This kind of detail-heavy album can make you feel like you're missing something if you're not paying attention. Each listen can run the risk of feeling incomplete. But by that same token, it also means it can feel new each time.

The Feelies really are here again, operating in a fashion as insular and purposeful as they did in days of old without denying who they are now. It's good to have them around.

The Bears for Lunch is a far more solid affair than Let's Go Eat the Factory, balancing Pollard's Who-like aggression and Kinks-like whimsy in punchy, melodically memorable songs.

Their sound is as big and manic as it’s always been, and the melodies as infectious, but the content slinks away from even the prickly personal politics that populated their first singles.

What is interesting about the Pipettes is that they're creating incredibly catchy, well-made pop music.... But their music could be something more.

John McCauley's transformation from singer of a rock band to something a good bit deeper, is on display within the running order of The Black Dirt Sessions, the band's third and finest album to date.

Riceboy Sleeps is more like a film, shot exquisitely in various breathtaking spaces, where the plot never moves forward because nothing ever goes wrong.

There's something really interesting about the way these two conflicting styles fit together here, a groove for headbangers with flowers in their hair.

“13.6” is where the album takes a noticeable turn and Supersilent finally finds its way.

Knuckleball Express is the best Howling Hex album since Nightclub Version of the Eternal.

This is a powerful piece of work, as serious about the trippy silliness as about the pitch and heave of amp overload. Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom, like its title, is several things at once. It rocks like a hurricane, dreams like a lotus eater.

Far from being an emperor’s new clothes situation, it simply feels like the band is settling into a sound built for endurance rather than excitement.

This is Cornershop doing Cornershop very well.

Unlike your average grime productions, these tracks are rarely propulsive or tailored for the dancefloor, but rather shift and shake convulsively under the weight of stark, metronomic beats, swathes of sub-bass and icy synth swirls. Listen carefully, and there is a certain melodicism nestled in the heart of this album, but its tone is despairing and subdued, glimmers of light in a dark and uncaring world.

One of its strongest allures was its comfort and maturity.

Some of beats are a little perfunctory, but the interplay between the grieved and the griever, the subtlety of the writing and beauty of the arrangements on Fall To Pieces haunt long after the needle lifts.

The problem is that it all sounds so familiar, and they just seem far too comfortable perpetuating stoner rock cliches.

And this is pop music, right? Why is it all so damned unmemorable?

Listening to the work heard here, it may be a bit premature to file Carey's work beside some of the musical touchstones suggested by his record label's press corps (Bill Evans, Talk Talk), but it does suggest a good start and a solid grasp of the spaces that can be created by music.

With Harmonizer, Segall moves further out into his own personal weirdness, without compromising the red meat appeal of his rock aesthetic. It’s a neat trick, using different tools to make different sounds that, nonetheless, fit very squarely into his catalogue so far.

If it weren't all so much fun, CSS would be really objectionable. But if it wasn't so objectionable, it certainly wouldn't be this much fun.

Sartain has always sounded wild and dangerous, but Century Plaza is, if anything, more hair-raising than usual.

A bit of guitar jangle pushes up under her voice, a subliminal rumble of bass, but mostly, notes are allowed to ripen, carry and decay slowly, on their own terms. On a record that runs a flag of hedonism over brainy complications, here is the real thing, swooning, wordless and headily scented.

Car Alarm feels different, though. What’s difficult to figure out, however, is whether that’s merely a feeling or whether there’s something actually, appreciably novel about the album.

Despite its lackluster production and a dearth of strong songs, Clutching Stems isn't quite a bust. Olson still turns in some strong tracks, which are not coincidentally the ones that sound like they would have been most at home on earlier albums.

While Orcas hits on a heavier emotional level than I'd initially expected, that tendency to drift does endure on repeated listens.

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.

The balance of melody to unease is rarely this well maneuvered.

While bubblegum’s reliance on the hook has afforded Collins the opportunity to write some of the catchiest songs of his career, Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-Blooey!’s strongest selling point is its extraordinary attention to detail.

There are perhaps ways to defy expectations and still capture that truth about oneself, though that's not present in Two Matchsticks. Holding that against The Wooden Birds is certainly unfair in many ways, but still must be accounted for.

One major problem is the Lone Pigeon’s tone of voice: earnest, slightly keening, with no core or crag, no edge or clamor. Combined with melodic and lyrical art that often borders on the perfunctory, Anderson is left flailing.

This disc has all the ingredients that made Faust the force it once was, plowing headlong through rock establishment and leaving us to reassess the wrecked landscape.

In the end, it feels wrong to call this album a solo record, since it is defined and elevated by the people Goddard works with. He’s been adventurous in seeking out partners, choosing some familiar ones and some that no one would have predicted, and the risks, especially, have paid off.

Silence easily matches, and likely exceeds, Mike Ladd’s recent Negrophilia in regard to hip hop’s lack of limits.

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

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.

The sound is physically propulsive, enveloping and mildly psychoactive. The beat pounds hard on the most lizardly parts of the brain, bringing a catharsis, a sheer rush of physicality.

Ear Drum is his sprawling, messy 2007 manifesto, loaded with rhymes that take weeks to unpack, to say nothing of the bizarre diversity of producers and guests.

The ratio is fixed, and any intimations of possible ineptitude is eradicated in a batch of songs that transition from anthem to chaos with ease.

Kleyn sounds just fine accompanying herself with adept piano and efflorescent harp flourishes, her music FX-free except for a little echo, and I can imagine a less skyclad presentation simply gumming things up with New Age goo.

For a man who long ago turned the fear of change into his best friend, it's disappointing how uneven his explorations are in Nookie Wood.

For the most part, it sounds like giddy, faux-innocent psychedelia filtered through a kaleidoscope, moody but never mopey.

There is certainly not much to coax the ladies onto the dance floor here. Still visions are visions, and whether you find them through hedonism or self-denial, worth having. In some cases, it is hard to tell the difference.

It's a party, not a revival meeting, This Gift, but a good one.

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

Every song in the first half of the album tries so hard to get somewhere, but just ends up breaking down when it becomes obvious there’s no end in sight.

It’s great fun, but it’s all boundless energy without centre.

The Family Sign is mature in its way, soured by age and wisdom, but it's no fun.

God Bless Your Black Heart is one of the best noise rock records in recent memory – and not in the sense that it’s bafflingly original, but in that the Paper Chase are amazingly good at what they do.

For now, the experience of listening to Magic Chairs is a frustrating one: the sound of a group with one foot remaining in art-pop territory and the other pointed toward an arena-sized sound. Efterklang might pull off either mode, but their occupation of the same space is a source of unwanted friction.

The farther it strays into new territory, the older and duller and more dubious Wilderness Heart sounds.

Two compact chunks that could have made a gooier whole, one can certainly consider the potential excellence of “Seadrum”’s sprawling galaxy-march against some “House of Sun” morphed licks.

It's more cohesive than their debut, and just as catchy.

Thoroughly boring.

It’s a lot less singular than its predecessor, but that makes it a more directly exhilarating experience.

Devotion goes down a little easier is both its strength and a feature that proves a bit disappointing in the end.

Despite the relatively heavy guitars and relatively dense production, you’ll notice a similarity to the smart, earnest, complex material Molina played as Songs: Ohia.

His voice is a delightful constant through good writing and bad. The propeller-arms guitar rock supplied by Pollard's various flesh-and-blood bandmates tend to provide just-off-enough accompaniment, but Tobias mucks it all up.

Another subtle evolution of Fec’s homogenous sound palette, Ultima II Massage is a reason to keep you coming back 11 years into his career to witness him experiment with his inimitable aesthetic.