Birchard's music is euphoric and in your face--if only he could combine his staggering technique with some true grit.

This album, like others that nudge closer to perfection without technically breaking new ground--I'm thinking of the Cass McCombs and Tape albums, to name ones I've written about this year--could be a springboard for thinking about why musicians who seem capable of almost anything stay in their comfort zones for albums at a time.

Through the Green is one of the finest dance LPs of the year for sure, but it's not something I could listen to every day.

Baker pretty much only has one idea, and although it's solid, he could benefit from a shift in approach.

As it stands, I enjoy it for what it is.

This is where the irony comes in--he sacrifices most of his originality to referential tropes. Through successfully emulating noteworthy keyboardists of the past, he nearly obliterates his own identity as a practitioner. It's not that he isn't good, either. He's too good.

It seems often as if the songs come to life more through sonic detail and aural shape (a variety of distortion tones, drum sounds, reverb ranges, and the like) than in compositional changes of direction, harmonic depth, or hooks. This doesn't, however, make the music dull. Instead, there's something compelling about the way Young Widows use these details--a shimmer, a hum, a scrape--for drama rather than relying on the often cheap dramatics heard in "heavy" music.

At times, there can be an over-reliance on an organic-sounding push-pull rhythm here; on the surface, a few of Riposte's songs do have a tendency to blur together after a few listens. But when everything comes together--as on the aforementioned "Outt!," which builds and builds, effectively ending the album on an exhausted, triumphant note--it's a mesmerizing project.

As I said, there is nothing really to fault, at least superficially, with Night Gallery, but it just never builds on the decent ingredients at play. It's simply far too easy to forget once you've heard it.

Approaches to guitar rock that are generally better segregated sound great together here, as they jump from '90s indie to shotgun at yr face drunkfuzz. I've got no idea where they can go with this. For now, they've made a record that leaves me spinning after every spin.

Bermuda Drain bears the influence of Fernow's recent work with gloom-pop monger Wesley Eisold of Cold Cave. Synths dominate: crystalline, graceful and clean.

It's a great, moving set of songs from one of the few modern songwriters to actively challenge his own preconceptions of his art.

There's nothing new here, but much to love, and if "Tally" makes you think 10 songs by 10 other bands, that's only because it succeeds where they fell short.

This second full-length is like looking at fog through a clean window. There's nothing there, and boy can you ever hear that nothing clearly.

There are the four originals here on Horses and High Heels. And for my dope money at least, they count among the highest songs she's had since getting off the stuff some 20 years ago.

It's a record with 20-20 hindsight vision. It perfects the past's mistakes, but misses the fun in making them.

Zomby's achievement with Dedication is in plausibly connecting these austere sounds to underground bass music. The best DJs can do this, but few producers even try.

It's like Fiery Furnaces with more heart and less irony...and that's not a bad thing at all.

It's All True is exactly what mature dance pop should sound like in 2011.

When obtuse means nonsensical and there's no one consistently there to tie the free associations together, it becomes less a case of judging Vast on his own street odyssey and more a case, ironically, of falling back to where we started in the least desirable way: It's good, yeah, but it's no "Iron Galaxy."

They pull off a wide sound for a duo, sometimes creating too much space. There's some room in the back seat for more low end. Then they'd really boogie.

Ascension reaches for the infinite, but achieve it only intermittently. Mostly you're left with songs that don't stop time, only slow it down.

The tunes still aren't anything too memorable (though in fairness that's never been Boris's particular forte), and the frippertronics and sonic detail on songs like "Galaxians" makes things less ordinary than they might otherwise be, ranging between fairly standard chugging and brief breakdowns intended to sound heavily narcotic.

Unlike previous output, the ten tracks on Attention Please are slick, synthesized, almost club-ready vamps (or at least that seems to be their aspiration). The affect may be intentional but for the most part I found them to be drowsy, forgettable, head-nodding throwaways with at least a passable amount of textural variety but very little in the way of memorable song-writing.

PH's previous efforts (the live shows, in particular) have been experiments in what an average listener can take, punctuated with bursts of pleasant catchiness. On Laced, Whitehurst has inverted the ratio, which works, which means the more grating leftovers can be appreciated for the oddities they are.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra is the most basic, easily digestible, pre-chewed pop archetype. With zero nutritional value.

While Diaper Island doesn't represent a significant break from VanGaalen's existing body of work, it ultimately haunts and endures in just the right amount--making this one of the strongest entries in an already consistent discography.

It's just a bit too nice.