Naive and wide-eyed, Wander / Wonder tries so damned hard to feel real, to make big dreams and grandiose plans feel distantly (but not quite) attainable.

The main problem is that the songs are so quietly pretty that they slip by without friction, so that you're halfway through the album before you've registered a shift in mood or tempo.

Bruner has some pretty sweet, vibey chops that he deploys sporadically here. If cultivated, he could deliver that skewed-fusion, weed hazed love letter he's attempted here. In the meantime, best to let him noodle it out on his own.

Make no mistake, Glazin' is a simple pop-rock record. It's fuzzy, and it has a nice swirling psych touch, but it also displays a relaxed, confident craftsmanship - a touch of reverb here, a Martin Hannett nod there (check out the snare on "Crush") - that elevates it just so, pulling it out of the garage gutter and into the warmth of the sun. Or the Jacuzzi, as it were.

So, enjoy it if you will, and forget it if you like.

Perhaps most impressive is that in what is arguably the band's most traditional record to date, Tinariwen manages to loop in highly recognizable people and sounds without any effort.

Sound Kapital never quite settles into a comfortable pattern of pop.

Mirror Traffic arrests those indulgences and presents Pavement fans the best opportunity yet to stop worrying and love The Jicks.

The sound necessarily lacks the precision and propulsion of, say, house or grime instrumentals, and since nothing forces the listener to pay attention or move, Down 2 Earth disappears as it reveals itself.

Drums Between the Bells at its simplest is often Drums Between the Bells at its best.

Kleyn sounds just fine accompanying herself with adept piano and efflorescent harp flourishes, her music FX-free except for a little echo, and I can imagine a less skyclad presentation simply gumming things up with New Age goo.

The problem is the lack of hooks, atmospherics and soul.

While it wouldn't be fair to hold Obscurities up to Merritt's 1990s albums with The Magnetic Fields and others, the material here certainly makes a strong claim for achieving next-best-thing status, providing a welcome nostalgic reminder of the many pleasures offered by what has already more or less become a nostalgia act.

Whether a frolic or a detour, the latest stop on Hynes's winding musical road is worth a listen. But take his own early words as this listener does: out of context, as an invocation of caveat emptor.

Maybe Butler was aiming higher than simply "dance music." A laudable ambition, but one that sadly isn't matched by the content of Blue Songs.

More often than not, Slave Ambient offers a sound that's equally familiar and new, simultaneously meeting expectations and evading them. It's an album whose immediate accessibility cloaks a deeper, subtler series of rewards.

Anyone seeking the nightmarish flipside of a Herzog soundtrack will find H-p1 a rewarding listen.

It's the same songwriter we've seen in snapshots from various foreign lands, this time in front of buildings that may as well be down the road: same Seine-side accordion we heard on The Flying Club Cup, same mournfully stately horns he picked up in the Balkans for Gulag Orkestar.

The Coathangers are clearly a band in transition, and it's very possible that this album's disjointed nature is a result of the band throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks.

Holing up by himself, worrying about money, obsessing with death and letting the walls close in is probably not good for Dwyer as a human being, but it's certainly good for Castlemania.

Haley tows the line between soundtrack and banger throughout, exposing the similarities between the two but also the pitfalls that come with catering to a particular demographic.

There are perhaps ways to defy expectations and still capture that truth about oneself, though that's not present in Two Matchsticks. Holding that against The Wooden Birds is certainly unfair in many ways, but still must be accounted for.

From listening to both of the intended follow-ups to his first album, though, you wouldn't know any better, as both records capitalize on the musical maturity of Harlan County in different but equally satisfying directions.

Ultimately, Williams never made a record as intense and as beautiful as Our Blood.

In the end, Giving is a more than satisfying swan song for this lineup.

Personally, the album works for me because it's kind of a gloss on intersecting listening practices that also has a distinct identity; the concentration of techno, the emotional lift of pop, the cratering impact of dubstep, and CHLLNGR himself are all there. It follows that the highs are toned down a bit for all those to fit comfortably. But then, the album feels so complete in itself, you don't really notice.

The early material is interesting, if only to hear how "Web in Front" and "Wrong" were fleshed out on Icky Mettle. But it's the album, and The Greatest of All Time, that are the real draw here.

Owl Splinters is a testament to what practiced musicianship, studio know-how and an ear for textured complexity can accomplish.