Yeah, it’s a mite catchier than Heron King Blues, but Roots & Crows ain’t much of a stylistic shift from Rutili and pals’ earlier material.

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.

An album like Alien in a Garbage Dump is interesting for its first spin, when the listener has the resources to make something of it. Past that, you’ll need to make an almost ritual commitment to teasing out the clashes that push the music forward.

As the album thumps on, though, listeners who prefer dynamics over beat matching will lose patience.

At 69 minutes, I Was Real is a lot to take in. Newcomers are advised to start with W/M/P/P/R/R, the concise, big band counterpart to I Was Real’s occasionally meandering chamber music. Still, I Was Real is sure to puzzle and please whether your devotion to rock and roll and its antecedents is intellectual or physical.

Bottom line: if you like diva pop with a little edge, have at it. But if you got into Billy Nomates because she reminded you of the Sleaford Mods, maybe sit CACTI out.

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

Universe Room may not be the best of recent recordings by the band, but it is certainly a wide reaching addition to their catalog.

While Sky Burial is a bit overlong, and meanders a bit in some of its textural climes, it’s a fascinating statement from a young band to watch.

“Fences” is a fine arrangement, with layered backing vocals and keyboards. While Houck often hews close to indie-rock, one of the best songs on Revelator is “All the Same,” a traditional sounding country ballad with pedal steel and a beery vocal. “Impossible House” also channels country of a more recent sort, and Houck’s often understated singing takes on a sense of urgency.

The result is not a great leap forward but a stationary jump--with one foot forward, another backward, and a hard landing on both feet.

Impossible Truth is a dense and compelling album, but also one that shows room for him to develop into an even more impressive musician.

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.

Mug Museum gives off a solid first impression, but gets sturdier the more time you spend with it.

While I liked it immediately, it took a long time to settle on favorite tracks; there are no obvious bangers. Still settle in, and it’s like having coffee with an old friend, familiar but occasionally surprising, kind but full of raucous humor and very, very real.

The Stimulus Package finds him working the angles as sharply as ever. On this album, he swings like a trapeze artist between the extremes of solemn commentary and hardboiled boasting.

Here the whole sum is less than its individual parts: individual tracks display real quality, but the album fails to cohere.

Roberts sounds alienated, but not arrogant, like some of his labelmates often can. His vocal melodies lack warmth and pain, but I find No Earthly Man's blank stare profoundly appropriate.

Caught in the Trees is neither as ranging or as raw as what Jurado’s capable of. While that still slots it comfortably above most records of its ilk, in the context of this catalog, it’s essentially caught in the middle.

The Triad has no standouts and doesn’t even stand out in the Pantha du Prince catalog. What it does do well is provide a consistent listening experience, blending all of Hendrik Weber’s strongest proclivities into a 10-song, 63-minute album best thought of as a mix.

Sound Kapital never quite settles into a comfortable pattern of pop.

There's a wider range of styles and sounds here, from dramatic shoegazer epics to the closest they've ever gotten to straight-ahead rock. Not everything gels solidly, and there are some awkward moments, but no real stumbles.

There's a distance between the trauma in the lyrics and the overall mood of the song, which only reinforces his albums' theme of optimism in the face of the worst circumstances. So, how does it stand up? Pretty well.

Mr. Impossible feels both inquisitive and hermetic, half closed off to the outside world, half chasing noise and patterns to their logical conclusion.

This is an album in a platonic sense, crafted around a clutch of real hits that were made for group enjoyment on the radio, not just for headphones in coffeehouses. And, like every Comet Gain album that's come before, it succeeds.

These are gnarly, inward-focused songs, but if you listen carefully, you can hear how a different sort of delivery—big voice, big drums, slashing guitars—could turn them into a female-centric version of emo-rock. Even if you appreciate the way the music works here, you might still wonder what that larger scale version would sound like.

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.

Weekend has crafted an aesthetically sound model of how a rock 'n roll band should work. It looks good, it knows how to talk to women, and some guys you know even think it's pretty cool.