The attraction that already existed between Xasthur’s music and Mount Eerie’s exerted a strong enough force on Elverum that it became incorporated into him.

It is something of a missing link, and therefore a reminder of the often uncomfortably close proximity, between indie baroque’s earnestness and the pyrotechnic baroque of a lead singer who keeps a “passion coach” in his entourage.

An album like Alien in a Garbage Dump is interesting for its first spin, when the listener has the resources to make something of it. Past that, you’ll need to make an almost ritual commitment to teasing out the clashes that push the music forward.

I ultimately found Solo Electric Bass 1 as dull as it must have been difficult to play.

The thing is, this isn’t a bad album. But it is so full of mediocre songs--as are most of the albums since the end of GBV--that one has to ask why he just didn’t save up all the great ones and make one really excellent album.

The combination of bile and hook, of wiry, mistrustful intelligence meshed in danceable synth pop works throughout the album, the contradictions bristling without overwhelming the tunes.

At just four songs, each hovering around the 10-minute mark, Destination Tokyo feels more like a peek than a coming-out party.

Love and Curses is a rock ‘n’ roll record with neither pretense nor manicure, a clean glimpse into rock’s exposed essence.

Nothing is entirely serious. It’s all in fun--and it is fun, fortunately.

Lights certainly has its charms--cribbed Afropop, bits like A Rainbow in Curved Air, and a general poppy through-line--but those charms wear thin when placed up against an entire album’s worth of monotonous, mobius strip dance beats.

You could miss whole philosophies by following the guitar line too closely…and forgo featherbeds of tuneful pleasures by worrying too much about the words. And yet, ride the line just right, and meaning floods translucently simple songs, lighting them up from inside and transforming them.

This time, she and Wells seems intent on demonstrating that members of even the shaggiest rock outfits have a pop side, too. If you’ve been waiting to see someone try to splice together Carol King and Karen Dalton--and more or less pull it off--this is your record.

The record finds the band operating in a similar space as the War on Drugs or Real Estate: a fuller sound with a little more polish that still feels homegrown. But in this case, the layers of production do more to maintain a distance than swallow you whole.

They’ve clearly been listening, and taking notes. But between the blatantly derivative style of basically every song and the inherently specious nature of their source material, it’s hard to really take anything they’re saying or playing seriously.

I’m Going Away is striking for its group sound; the Furnaces play with more air around them, more flexibility and interaction.

Riceboy Sleeps is more like a film, shot exquisitely in various breathtaking spaces, where the plot never moves forward because nothing ever goes wrong.

The Knot turns the cliche about sophomore slumps on its head by being much stronger than If Children.

Lights’ debut was a strange, beautiful thing, and one of my favorite debuts of last year. Rites is bigger, sharper and in all ways better. Lights just got a good deal brighter.

Repetitive, psyche-battering noise obscures things--most of the songs sound like there was a jackhammer nearby during recording--yet, after a couple of times through, it’s easy enough to discern pop hooks.

All of the songs here are strong enough to be bolstered (rather than swamped) by their rococo touches and period piece flourishes.

Mostly because the stakes are so high, By the Throat, the would-be comeback from prodigal Minneapolis duo Eyedea & Abilities, has to rate as a disappointment, despite interesting intentions and a few sublime moments.

The technical virtuosity on display on Embrace is something to appreciate, but the delicate balance between their austere and manic moments, the way they bridge hazy folk and psych so frequently, needs a little more refinement.

A stronger verse/chorus foundation might make the songs more instantly accessible and easier to remember. But by making it easier to access, Bowerbirds might well be depriving listeners of the chance to make their own way, to wander in the desert a little even.

Catacombs isn’t an exception to or refinement of what McCombs has done previously, just a soft demurral of the singer-songwriter career arc.

Wilco is a Great Band, if you like stuff that’s boring. And a lot of people seemingly do.

The results are quietly remarkable.

Far is a bright and gratifying listen; one that doesn’t aim at ideas above its station or flounder in search of unity.

On Dragonslayer, perhaps more so than any of their previous albums, Sunset Rubdown is able to create memorable, multi-part songs that stay engaging throughout and that don’t meander aimlessly.