As it stands, it's a really good, seriously flawed album, with some great songs and some big misses, a sort of living, breathing justification for your CD player's skip button.

Krell seems like a victim of his own good intentions. There's a kernel of an idea here.

While this workmanship-like familiarity leaves little room for surprises, it also makes the hit-to-misstep ratio almost negligible. With this kind of success rate, we can only hope Cartwright has another 20 years of near-obscurity in him.

Goodnight Oslo is more like the seemingly “normal” yet slightly “off” one-night-stand, the one you don’t think about much the next week but wonder about 10 years later. Don’t expect it to enthrall on contact, but it might settle gently into the subconscious.

Fullbrook is quite a good singer, a subtle lyricist and a skillful crafter of melodies, but in Olympic Girls, she pulls all three aptitudes together in an organic way that is more than the sum of its parts.

The album as a whole is more often prone to meander, as if the band gets a little lost in their new terrain, unable, at times, to bring their thought full circle.

The best of the songs heard on LP3 are those where the more traditional rock elements compliment Restorations’ more relentless tendencies.

Farrar, with his ever-changing band, has been doing this decades, but it seems like by looking back further, he’s found a way to energize himself going forward.

In A Dream ain’t no slouch, but is better piece-by-piece than a continuous flow.

If Dents and Shells stands apart from Buckner's oeuvre in any way, it's in the prominence and evenhandedness of its instrumental arrangements.

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

I liked it better when Olden Yolk songs glowed with auras around their edges, when they surrounded themselves with a special kind of air that reverberated with songs in the process of becoming.

Yet for all its surface appeal, the record has a curiously soulless quality, a lack of vulnerability and humanity that undercuts most of its songs.

The ensemble crew can't maintain the promising start. Aside from a few lyrical bullets, 'Paisley Darts' doesn't quite live up to the potential of its title.

Various people have tried to explain to me why I find Object 47 so frustrating.... My inclination is to forget all that and just play the last four tracks over and over.

Pain isn’t a record you need to dwell on in order to understand.

What is peculiar about Undercard is the frequency with which Bruno flops back and forth between these two roles. The result is an inconsistent album that is sophomoric at turns and sublime at others.

What's emerged here is more unpredictable, a transitional record that still feels complete.

Motion uses some new approaches, but ultimately it fits in just fine as another solid entry in a rich and rewarding body of work.

There is definitely a hint of entropy, an intimation that even the most intricately constructed scenarios can and will fall apart under pressure, that wasn’t there before. And that, paradoxically, makes these tracks all the more beautiful. The noise and clicks and hum impend, but haven’t yet overwhelmed; there is order and serenity here for now.

For a songwriter who packs so much into his creations, it’s no surprise that Mercer makes it hard to get a full measure of 5 Dreams’ narrative gist, even after multiple listens. Approach these songs however you choose, and they’re sure to shift evasively, compelling you to follow.

It is fractious and difficult and thorny, as always, the rhythms knocked sideways, the parts jutting out at each other in angular, assertive ways. But the singing soothes the rough edges and complicates the punk narrative, weaving a buzzing radiance over minimalist grooves.

It’s another album from Tropical Fu*k Storm, a good one edging into great.

Even though two thirds of the songs here land somewhere between the 7th and 8th minute in length, they practically feel like pop songs in comparison. By the time the gently shimmering “Afterlight” winds down Saariselka’s first record it’s clear that even in relatively accessible form this is lovely, head-spinning stuff, perfect for contemplating the night stars.

It's the unexpected emotions that Canta Lechuza can unearth that stand as its greatest achievement. Lange's most complex compositions here make fascinating art from contrasting moods, and it's that complexity that, ultimately, make this album worthy of return.

Despite the occasional filler and silliness, Guns Don’t Kill People...Lazers Do! takes dancehall, club music and a genre that can probably best be described as “Diplo” to new and very interesting places.

Jurado may not be as concrete or direct as he has been in the past, but his ability to conjure emotion is still very, very strong.

This fourth Purling Hiss album takes a lot of what was exhilarating about the self-titled and Hissteria and adds some structure and melody.