Even if it fails to meet impossibly high expectations, The Harrow & The Harvest offers a handful of keepers while moving Welch and Rawlings (hopefully) past their writers' block.

Though the harsh synth textures and borderline-disjointed edits from the EPs remain, the record as a whole is simultaneously hazier and more distinct: more fine detail in the cavernous reverb, more impact with every tumbling, hypercompressed stack of drum samples.

If Share the Joy is the direction Vivian Girls are going in, I'm interested in seeing how it plays out.

The truth of W doesn't look as good on paper, but give it time. It's more convincing than it has any right to be.

Looks Like Rain, 'Frisco Mabel Joy and Heaven Help the Child--represent an outre high-water mark of sorts in the country singer-songwriter era.

Zayna Jumma is the first non-cassette recording of the band playing in its electric glory, and their first CD release.

Bachelorette is undoubtedly a step forward from her previous work, but until she fully throws herself into it with abandon, both sides she's working here will invariably suffer.

This is an album in a platonic sense, crafted around a clutch of real hits that were made for group enjoyment on the radio, not just for headphones in coffeehouses. And, like every Comet Gain album that's come before, it succeeds.

There can never be too much of this kind of music--so there's a built-in safety in Ways of Meaning for Dunn as an artist and for its listeners. It's automatically successful if you take it up on its own terms, but I get the feeling Dunn is inching his way toward something that elicits a more nuanced response.

Despite its lackluster production and a dearth of strong songs, Clutching Stems isn't quite a bust. Olson still turns in some strong tracks, which are not coincidentally the ones that sound like they would have been most at home on earlier albums.

It's the unexpected emotions that Canta Lechuza can unearth that stand as its greatest achievement. Lange's most complex compositions here make fascinating art from contrasting moods, and it's that complexity that, ultimately, make this album worthy of return.

This is Quintron's best summation yet of his iconoclastic melding of raw rock & roll, R&B and funk, experimental electronics and art.

The Errant Charm is by no means a bad album, but it's not great either; it's just nice in a way that is too easy to ignore for its own good.

Gloss Drop is the most self-sufficient world Battles have made yet, and a pretty good argument in favor of music that gets less and less interesting the more you know about it.

David ain't the kind of thing you want to hear every day, but it's the kind of thing someone is going to play every day for a month. Or months. Whatever it takes to come back to life.

While Teenage Hate sits squarely in the flamey-shirt scene of the '90s, even the greaser version of Jay knew how to bust up cliches.

Fever retains the cheeky humor of other dubstep artists, but its vivacity makes it his most immediate, and compelling, release yet.

ISAM's clusters aren't as advanced as Tobin might have you think, and only represent a monumental leap forward if you compare them to his trio of classic albums, all of which were recorded more than 10 years ago.

It's striking how well the gypsy sound fits with older material, but even so, the best song on Alegrias was written specifically for the album.

It's a body of work that begs deep listening, the better to divine the wild kindness at its core.

Maybe it's less dangerous, stoopid and contagious in moments. But for this newest gift, I do feel blessed nonetheless. In the end, I guess this largesse just makes me smile.

A New Way... didn't need reinforcements, and taking in all 14 tracks in succession can be tough going, but a little bit of overkill doesn't dull the bracing energy of Orcutt's kinetic, four-string idioglossia.

Stone Breaker is undeniably a Mark E product, propulsive disco-house clouded by his trademark ambient haze, with terrific builds and releases. It's easily one of the better dance music albums that will come out this year.

Original Detroit, Northwestern, and New York garage bands figure equally in the blueprint, resulting in a robust hook-fest that plays like a mixtape of the greatest rock 'n roll songs '65-'78.

It's clear that none of these songs really require amplification, that they, in fact, drive the beauty of Diamond Mine. Still, Hopkins's deft touch somehow adds to, rather than subtracts from, their elemental simplicity

They have always written insanely short, catchy pop songs in the modern idiom, and, for those looking for the one line post mortem, Innings doesn't just not disappoint, it delights.

There's no denying Lynn's skill at reconciling disparate sounds, even if the brightest moments fail to paper over all the cracks.

Jaar attempted something ambitious with this album--it stands apart, even if it never risks a whole lot. Space Is Only Noise is unique, but also a work of modesty and, for an album that samples French poetry and is rarely danceable, it's unpretentious.