On the surface, Tight Knit may sound like more of the same for Vetiver, and thankfully so. While the band reaches a bit further than previously, they are careful not to stretch too far, focusing instead on the continued refinement of their position as rock’s youngest elder statesmen.

All of the transitions are perfectly timed, and the whole is a narrative through which minute but thrilling discoveries become regular events as each listen exposes them. This may not be the game changing statement The Ship was almost two years ago, but it demonstrates a fruitful inter-generational relationship in the making.

The best and most consistent Pink Mountaintops album to date, Get Back mines a deep vein of nostalgia via song references, memory-scape imagery, and musical touchstones in kraut rock, post-punk and new wave.

There’s something off in the way that the euphoria attaches to the chillier depths of his songs. It’s unsettling enough to suggest that it maybe could be interesting if it worked, but it doesn’t quite.

Together, they drag luminous shards of melody out of a boiling murk of possibility, then let it slip back down into chaotic potential. It’s an uneasy, fascinating mix of energies, sometimes beautiful but never entirely at rest.

It's all so tightly buttoned down that the first listen evokes a certain déjà vu; You haven't heard it before, and yet you know what's going to happen anyway.

With Held in Splendor, this group discovers their influences, then surrounds and deconstructs them. At its best, the album achieves bliss and demands attention.

It all reminds you of how great a band Sonic Youth was, even at play, even at home trying out tunings and motifs, tossing one idea out into the amplifiers and hearing it echoed, altered, elaborated by tuned-in others.

It’s the steady pacing of Trouble, the band’s commitment to the thoughtful lyrics and the permission given to influences and early passions that guide Hospitality towards a sound that is recognizable, only richer, deeper and closer what they were aiming for all along.

Kids Aflame is the good stuff, as loosely played as it is meticulously plotted.

While the album stands well on its own, Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors provided an essential scaffolding.

Even now, with this seventh album, the old thumping insouciance remains, while the subject matter becomes increasingly morose. These are the kind of songs that could easily, in the live setting, lead to sweaty euphoria; you realize almost as an afterthought that they are all about death.

The music is vastly entertaining, devilish, solder trickles of white-hot intensity running through cracks in its nailed-down facade.

Even the soccer dads and middle-management types might find themselves nodding along to lyrics like, “It’s losers all the way down, stay undefeated.” That’s from the album’s flat-out banger, “Wage Wars, Get Rich, Die Handsome,” a sing-along celebration of nihilism that pounds and punches and exults in itself.

Far is a bright and gratifying listen; one that doesn’t aim at ideas above its station or flounder in search of unity.

More so than any record I can recall, Metal Dance cuts the widest possible swath through the zeitgeist that was British post-punk. Antichrist, meet then your children's archivist.

This is the very best kind of post-reunion album, the one that allows you to rediscover things you'd forgotten about a band you always loved.

It isn't the transcendental work of which they're capable, but nonetheless taps into a thriving, sometimes exhilarating strain of striated rock music.

While it’s unmistakably a Mascis solo album, What Do We Do Now just stands apart from anything he’s done to date.

If you’re a fan of the Whigs, Do to the Beast will push all the right buttons and even add a few new ones for you to think about.

Whether Ferraro’s singing is purposefully amateurish or not, it puts the album in a particular light, one in which NYC, Hell 3:00 AM is either an awkward misstep or a tongue-in-cheek spoof. Actually, it probably falls somewhere between the two, but either way, this isn’t James Ferraro playing to his strengths.

Their efforts at stretching boundaries falter because they have inscribed themselves within such narrow aesthetic parameters, hitting a fourth chord feels like a massive achievement.

The Eagulls’ album does a fantastic job of funneling the band’s energy. That’s the good part. But as for the subtleties--the way that players interact, the fit between chug and melody, the depth that emerges with occasional negative space--you won’t find any of that here.

Tapestry of Webs is a different creature. Jordan Billie’s vocals can still process a scream as well as anyone, but there’s a newfound fondness for melody audible in these songs. When melodies do crop up, however, it’s less likely to inspire bliss than to accentuate the ominous mood sustained over these dozen songs. There’s a post-punk minimalism and a no-wave crash-and-burn spirit on display here.

Nothing on In Evening Air quite achieves the slow-burning power of the title track to their In the Fall EP. But as a distillation of Future Islands' textured, unpredictable approach to pop, it's a fine starting point.

This third Zomes album is far more static, yet the statis itself is arresting.

While some may regret Barnes's toning-done of quirkiness or ambition, False Priest plays to his best qualities while minimizing his weaker ones.

Home Acres, on the other hand, is immediately likeable, suitably complex, and not really very adventurous at all. Instead of reinvention, it commits to recombining old elements in a thoughtful, thematically precise way.