The latest, the crustily erotic Distortion, is nearly its ["69 Love Songs"] equal. But way shorter.

Taken as a whole, Brothers and Sisters is a remarkable piece of work. It easily outclasses the two previous Jurado/Swift collaborations, and makes a strong opening bid for one of 2014’s best albums.

Torche’s strongest effort since 2008’s breakthrough Meanderthal.

While Diaper Island doesn't represent a significant break from VanGaalen's existing body of work, it ultimately haunts and endures in just the right amount--making this one of the strongest entries in an already consistent discography.

More important than the album’s conceit and whatever toehold it might offer, though, is that it sports less flab than their critical breakthrough.

Car Seat Headrest feels, at this point, like it’s about half under control, with Toledo at the wheel, yanking desperately to keep it on the road, and yet it’s sort of magnificent.

Shame’s standout songs combine the band’s ugly intensities with inspired bursts of melodic riffing.

“Dayvan Cowboy” is almost worth the price of admission, but it makes the remainder of the album seem derivatively “New Age.”

The music on the album is rarely as urgent as the image that adorns it, and never as explosive as the heavy artillery that is found on its back, but the disc has a more subtle appeal than both.

The songs/pieces/tracks are too long. They take too long getting where they’re going. Everyone loses. But it’s a good record. Hang onto it.

What A Place to Bury Strangers creates is satisfying, nothing more.

Most of White Bread Black Beer is almost unbearably lovely.

Akron/Family II really captures a feeling of happiness and at the same time melancholy, and that's what makes it beautiful: those two feelings at the same time.

Songs to Play is a quiet success, maybe not as quiet as it seems at first, but operating with a definite modesty and restraint. It’s a record that takes some playing before its warbly charms come clear, but it’s worth the time.

Emanon moves through dimensions and times with a surprising fluidity. That the album includes three discs and a graphic novel gives it unusual heft, but Shorter’s construction of the segments provides insight into his recent era, particularly stemming from 2013’s Without a Net.

Love and Curses is a rock ‘n’ roll record with neither pretense nor manicure, a clean glimpse into rock’s exposed essence.

The songs here have engaging, melodic hooks to spare.

Remarkably, the substitution of instruments seems not to have affected Segall’s overall aesthetic much. If you didn’t know, you might not recognize exactly what’s different about First Taste, except that it feels a bit more overstuffed and baroque. Yet whether it’s due to the change in instrumentation or not, there are some diversions from the usual.

It retains Mountain's dense production, but swaps out its calculated affectations for raw sexual urgency, deep-black humor and desperate foreboding.

Where Horn of Plenty still had spare singer-songwriter arrangements, Yellow House sounds far more elaborate.

Ultimately, the album is explicitly notable for its musicality, rather than its content.

Psychedelic Pill is earnest and perverse, simplistic and complicated, epic and underachieving--guess the old cuss still has it in him after all.

The overarching narrative structure and sequencing make this album a well-conceived exercise in storytelling.

Five years is a long time to make fans wait, but the quality of the material and willingness to tinker with their fairly rigid pop formula has resulted in another memorable, extremely listenable collection of songs.

Little Hells, for all its melancholy, gives Nadler’s fans another reason to celebrate; any continuation of the momentum birthed with Songs III is a happy thing, indeed.

There is nothing uncertain about You Stand Uncertain--this is one of the most assured albums of the year in any genre.

Horizontal Structures proves that this music has legs. You don't really need to know who is in this band, or what else they've done, to appreciate what they do. You just have to like your hefty sounds to come wrapped in plush space.

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.