Take off your thinking cap, and Replica reveals mostly pleasant, mellow ambient jams.

Ultimately, The Iron Soul of Nothing feels considerably more like a NWW album than a Sunn 0))) album. But somehow that doesn't come at the expense of the source authors. Rather, it's a satisfying document of Stapleton's ongoing creativity as well as confirmation of the potential always nascent in the doom duo's earliest work.

It's many different things at once, but all of them are confident and powerful.

Watson captures (or enhances) sounds in three dimensions, and the way he arranges them invites both immersion and reflection.

It is a very direct, very intimate half-hour of songs.

We have a groundbreaking album re-released, with some strong live material

Far from being liabilities, such disparate moments help define If… for the better: as a work that frolics in different directions without losing control or coherence.

But largely, Jacaszek's wedding of disparate styles pays off in Glimmer's evocation of certain moods and expert shifts from mode to mode.

This EP still feels like a small plate of leftovers from a meal that promised more than it delivered, as though Wolfgang Puck was on the can, not in the kitchen.

With so much in the blender, it's a testament to BSS's production skills that tracks like this don't fly apart. But they do get muddled.

Sure the whole Southern Rock Opera concept is a bit over-the-top, and a two-disc set will always contain its fair share of duds, but the Drive-By Truckers have succeeded in making an album that is as good a historical reference as it is for air-guitar.

New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges is an album of somber beauty, its flashes of color existing amidst a broad spectrum of grays.

Ultimately, it's hard to embrace Sepalcure. The record has received some critical acclaim, and as far as stateside bass music goes, Sepalcure deserve the attention. But something is missing...risk.

The most cohesive LP in at least five years and its darkest, most urgent, most intense work to date.

Biasonic Hotsauce is broken up by some campy skits that buffer the genre hops, and after a few of them, the record turns toward electro.

It's hard to imagine 200 Years standing out, even considering its low-key spirit.

Let the Poison Out only ups the ante. Distortion is easy and lo-fi bands are a dime a dozen, but hardly any of them clean up this well.

Just as Dedication surprised many listeners by aptly navigating theme, mood and flow, Nothing demonstrates Zomby knows his foundational sounds, the everything upon which he builds, better than anyone.

Even when you don't understand fully what's going on (is this song about L.A. or Baghdad?), the songs are catchy enough that you don't mind.

There's a just-right roughness to the recording that has worked for bands as diverse as The Commandos and The Trashmen.

Interestingly, the presence of the source music doesn't detract from the spooky, remote quality that characterizes The Caretaker.

It's just a smart encapsulation of underground dance music's better qualities, but not so showoffy that it can't work as an hourlong immersion tank.

The music has a bare-trees feel that dovetails with the wintry theme. There's plenty of orchestration, but it's all framing and backdrop for Bush's piano and voice.

Cave never quite summons the lyrical beauty that Neu! was capable of, nor do they rock with the blithering, obliterating tension that Oneida brings to its hardest bangers, but once or twice during Neverendless, they do turn locomotive precision into something transformative.

Spills Out isn't the best record of its ilk to come out this year, but it's not the worst, either.

The reissue shows how prickly and difficult Social Climber's aesthetic could be, its arrangements as sparse as Young Marble Giants, though less even less concerned with hook and melody.

Suffice to say Impossible Spaces itself is a journey, and one of the more all-encompassing ones I've had the pleasure of taking this year.

Bright and Vivid gives little of itself immediately, but unfolds to a much larger extent over time.