It’s its own thing, and a pretty good one.

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

What ties all the disparate elements together is a taut thread of hip hop breaks, clattering electronic beats and wobbly dubstep bass.

Like the new Spider Bags, the fun seems to be slowly bleeding away. Not that it makes them any less catchy.

Nothing Hurts goes in the ear loud and fast. And out the other ear just as quickly.

It is a very accurate document of Wire's 2011 live set; its strengths and weak spots correspond exactly to the ones of the concert they played in Chicago the same year.

The momentum picks up a notch on “Whitewaterside,” in which O’Connell recounts standing in cold water, watching the ripples and admiring the quiet stillness of night. The stage is immediately set for a stark, reflective listening experience, with nature as a focus, rendered with zen-like clarity.

If there's a flaw on Original Colors, it's that these 10 songs are so closely related--in tempo, vocals and instrumentation--that they're enjoyable enough on their own but become an undifferentiated blob when played back-to-front.

If you like Woods you’ll enjoy this record. If you’re team Skygreen Leopards, however, you might want to wait for that Red Pink and Purples record, which is very good and all Donaldson.

Everything in Between is as fine a monument to imperfection as they've built so far.

The music is what stands out. Vile has no problem bringing any of his talents across--steady-handed, Appalachian-inflected psychfolk reels, doe-eyed wisecracker vocalese.

Goreas’s more prominent vocal role provides a payoff that helps to balance the moments on this album where the group’s musical ideas aren’t quite as seamless as on its predecessor.

Much of Real Gone has been stripped so bare instrumentally that its heavy accumulation of rhythmic noise -- manipulated groans and grunts (“Metropolitan Glide”) what sounds like a cracking horsewhip (“Don’t Go Into The Barn”) -- establishes a sustained, bristling mood that electrifies particular songs but bogs down the album as a whole.

At some point, you may, in fact, find yourself hankering for unaccompanied Mods, and to that end, let me direct you to “Megaton” with its loopy, pinging beat, its hammering bass pulse, its artful disdain.

Unlike the dark, industrialized beats currently populating many dance music playlists, Woo is light on its feet--more the soundtrack to an evening of beachside serenity than a 5 a.m. scream from some Mancunian warehouse.

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.

While Work doesn't feel emotionally engaging or really deviate from an amiable pace, it's still engaging enough to hold one's attention for most of the 41 minutes.

Her narrative sees all, experiences all, but keeps a remove in the dry, mechanical beats, the tamped down drama of synthetic accompaniment, the vocal lines that only once and a while slip past a murmur into wilder swoops and yelps. This is a cerebral, abstracted album about the physical, one that deals in potentialities and implied trajectories, rather than the immediacy of pulse and sweat and organ functions.

That’s not to say that development is necessary, but I still found myself wishing for more of a sense of progress. While sometimes it is about the journey, not the destination, two hours of journey is still better off with some pit stops along the way.

All of the tunes are pretty but none of them knock it out of the park.

It’s still a trip, just a marginally more vivid one, and that’s a good thing.

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

While Puny will likely draw few new fans into Neville's unique sound world, those who have long fallen under the spell of his corroded Kiwi fuckery will be rapt yet again.

If an album could have hormone surges and acne, if it could sit home on prom night listening to Joy Division and smoking pot, if it could be as fully convinced of its inner worthlessness as of its ultimate triumph...in short if an album could be fourteen, this would be the one.

R.I.P is Actress continually shifting and exploring, growing and rippling, being himself in the only Statement-less way he knows how. Its 15 songs aren't for everyone and with few overt melodies, it's definitely not for everyone.

Halo's voice, pronounced in the mix, artfully mangled, purposely unperfect, reaching at unreachable notes, and occasionally beautiful, is far from a relief. Whether this is riveting or off-putting is for each listener to decide.

Now Only is a messy record, brimming with musical ideas that often drop out before resolving, and with lyrics so factual as to sometimes verge on dull. But in the name of progress, this messiness feels hard-won. You can learn from death, and Elverum proves again that you can make art from it.

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.