Waves is an album filled with nice touches and sincere sentiment, not much more.

While it is undeniably a good record, reaching into the stratosphere of excellence at points, Ejstes' overall modus operandi seems more akin to outright homage at times than any sort of exploration of the means and methods of vintage '70s rock and its application in a modern context.

Positively stomps and bristles, with Smith and his band summoning up the type of chutzpah not normally found in middle age.

Sonic Nurse is the happy medium they've been craving. The songs, despite being mostly over five minutes long, are all to the point without feeling meandering.... The balance between noise and melody is right, with each emerging and vanishing at just the right point.

Riches' voice can still sound a bit flat on some tracks, but his vocal and lyrical abilities have grown by leaps and bounds.

It’s an impressive display of the sort of catchy and fun (natch) music that Newman can make, even without the substantial talents of his usual collaborators.

God Bless Your Black Heart is one of the best noise rock records in recent memory – and not in the sense that it’s bafflingly original, but in that the Paper Chase are amazingly good at what they do.

The only real downside to Louden Up Now is the surprising amount of filler surrounding the meaner cuts.

A pleasantly lush album that may be his finest work yet.

While some may scoff at the gentler side of the Animal Collective (especially when contrasted with the fully electric assault of last year's studio release), Sung Tongs easily stands alone as a crowning achievement in their eclectic discography, one that finds the group fully in control of their musical prowess and all the better for it.

To Rococo Rot's Hotel Morgen is seductive and suggestively sculpted; romance music for people with unforced, natural, and charmingly contrary style.

The End is Near employs much of fans found so pleasant about Bedhead, particularly the impressive build-up of two and three bar melodies.

With experimentation comes occasional failure, however, and at times Since Last We Spoke can feel a bit forced.

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

In gaining power and speed, Secret Machines seem to have lost a sense of pace. Now Here is Nowhere rocks hard, but compared to the EP it contains half the ideas in twice the running time.

Despite the record’s minimal evolution, it’s still a joy to hear, an extension of the promise displayed on More Parts Per Million.

In brevity it betters the 1999 boxed set, in songwriting it plateaus.

As a live recording, it’s severely impressive, and sounds far more like an obsessively premeditated studio creation than anything on Kinski’s last official album.

Her most self-assured release yet, instantly inviting and comfortable, brimming with a confidence that breeds fast familiarity.

Molina succeeds in creating a sound refreshingly unfamiliar and exotic.

Granted, there will be some that cling to the lo-fi eccentricities of that debut, but while Oh Me Oh My... may have won him heaps of critical praise, Rejoicing in the Hands is the album that backs it all up.

What’s surprising about ONoffON is how different it sounds from those previous two records, and yet how well it follows their lead.

While Múm's music has always posed a mysterious, melodic invitation to the listener, their latest offering feels flat at times, with very few signposts marking the way and even fewer landmarks inviting one back again.

The end result is a sugar-high of electronic keyboard and guitars reaching glam-rock heights and booty shaking lows, all based around very simple, classical ideas of song-structure.

Inches functions in the best way a retrospective of its kind can: the more primitive songs don't seem like missteps so much as enlightening diagrams of how the band arrived at such convincing current ones.

In forgoing the lifeblood of dynamic and passion, the creative minds behind the project fall to maximize its potential, however agreeable their compositions may be.

Despite their courage for bending genres to the breaking point, this self-titled debut of live hip hop could use a little more reigning in and little less rocking out.

Walking With the Beggar Boys has so few bells and whistles that it might not make it through your earwax on the first listen, but these songs are the most rewarding the band has created.