Mostly, it reminds you of what you liked about both Comets and Six Organs, and takes that good stuff a few steps further.

The results are pretty weird. Which is a good thing.

One of Jamal's best in recent years.

Just as Yeasayer appears to have planted its two feet firmly on the dance floor, it seems to have lost much of its capacity for eccentric pop magic.

Thomas has a near prodigy-like ability to generate indelible hooks that pull from a relatively deep well of inspiration.

While the individual songs here impress, Holograms feels more like a collection of singles than a cohesive work.

Other than some inoffensive feignings at trying something new, there's not too much else to be heard.

Researching the Blues may be one of the most pleasant surprises of 2012.

Shrines lacks any friction; Purity Ring has created a very viable sound that doesn't offend or stick.

Trapist isn't experimenting anymore; the trio is using the tools they know best to subvert nostalgia and keep you ill at ease.

It feels like we are in the privileged position of witnessing a great guitarist running ideas out of his head and onto his fretboard.

In recognizing this missing piece [violinist Noel Sayre] straight on, Occasion for Song may finally have found a way forward.

Oh Holy Molar is a subtle album, but its impact is hard to shake.

Country Funk frontloads these generic examples, and leaves the rest of the compilation up to artists who managed to eke meaning out of the stylistic changes.

The songs punch and swerve and sway like organic beings, structured in a way that amplifies rather than hems in emotional resonance.

Occupied With the Unspoken can be challenging and obtuse. It can also unrepentently beautiful. And, at its best, it's both.

It seems like a humble accomplishment, but it is richly rewarding.

It succeeds, unequivocally, as usual.

Limbo could have passed as a follow-up to this year's excellent Mr. Impossible, and likely would have met with the same acclaim.

A Bomb in Gilead, assisted by several garage vets (Tim Kerr, Lynn Bridges, Jim Diamond), captures that live sound and goes it one better, uncovering unexpected depth, soul and intelligence in a set of boot-stomping songs.

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.

Their debut conveys a unique sensibility that's endearing without being cloying or calculated.

It's as though she's taken the lesson of The Trip--that you can get over the most extreme pain--and used it to come back to her musical home.

There is an introspective quality to Personal Space.

With piano, female vocals, strings and extra percussion, this is the fullest, most expansive Om album to date.

Whilst this is a lovely, well-made album, nothing separates it from countless other acoustic folk recordings.

While pleasant enough on a superficial level, the band's third full-length, Traps, falls short of the kind of coherent, compelling vision that would lift them up from intermittently-engaging mediocrity.

It's not Segall's best, but Slaughterhouse sits near the top of the heap of loud, ignorant party garage.