Deacon is a gifted musician capable of so much more, and that makes Bromst feel like a waste.

Hinds and Co. have dispensed with the neanderthal growls and screams of past records, which might have robbed Crack the Skye of its surprising grace and pushed it closer to the nu-metal end of the spectrum.

The album is also horribly sequenced, pushing its best tracks down after a morass of prettier, more insipid melodies had fluffed you.

An album full of cover versions is not really essential listening, although there are a few songs here reminiscent of the better covers from past Yo La Tengo albums.

Album closer 'Warlock Psychologist' is a glorious mess of distorted keyboard and poetic non sequiturs that less dedicated bands would probably have left off the record. But not Swan Lake, whose perverse commitment to farty art-rock is to be respected, perhaps even embraced.

More bands should, logically, sound like this. It’s a wonder that no one wrote the song 'Pine On' before now, as incredibly basic and memorable as it is. That said, Obits fall short of Froberg’s Hot Snakes.

DOOM’s sounds as bold and battered as ever. You can almost hear the accumulation of Dutch Masters on his larynx.

This is, undoubtedly, one of the most beautiful records of this year, and its very indistinctness forces you to go back to it over and over.

It’s the sound of epic detail in exquisite registration, and Albini perfectly vivifies Mono’s Technicolor wall of sound.

Ultimately Beware’s designation as a "big" record feels arbitrary--it is polished and competent, but at the same time disappointingly bland.

Though a solid and promising outing, Wavves isn’t a revelatory record. It fits nicely into the "scene," however vague that semblance is these days.

Scratched up, indifferently tuned, coming in ghostly and pale like AM radio, Strange Boys’ first full-length has the banked fire of a slow burner.

Speck Mountain might have a great album in them; this one isn’t bad. But I hope that some day they get over themselves and really get down.

The album’s elements--large scale pop and tightly controlled electro--don’t always work together, but they come together on the very last track, 'Radio Kaliningrad.'

Throughout, Mirah picks her soft, knowing way through songs that soothe even as they challenge. Her melodies curl gently up into question marks, as she asks you to make sense of life and love and loss.

In the newfound center on Thank You Very Quickly, Eagleson and company have stealthly transitioned from indie ethno-experimental vanguards to genuine Afro-Rock champions, erasing 7,000 miles of distance and so many years of history.

An Imaginary Country is a solid record, but in the context of Hecker’s discography, it can also be underwhelming at times.

It has a denser, more cohesive sound, more defined rhythms and richer arrangements--and yet lacks some of the subterranean pull of its predecessor.

This collection of songs straddles the line between cloying twee, exuberantly noisy indie-pop, and a K Records/Plan-It-X childish naïveté that has been all but absent from most of Doiron’s solo work.

What ties all the disparate elements together is a taut thread of hip hop breaks, clattering electronic beats and wobbly dubstep bass.

The songs here have engaging, melodic hooks to spare.

It’s worth making it through these bare patches for the two gorgeous glimmers of light at the end of the album.

But from the stridently Floydian gravitas of its cover to the ponderous, tolling piano notes that close the album, Take My Breath Away finds Boratto straining uncomfortably to make some kind of serious statement.

This disc has all the ingredients that made Faust the force it once was, plowing headlong through rock establishment and leaving us to reassess the wrecked landscape.

Little Hells, for all its melancholy, gives Nadler’s fans another reason to celebrate; any continuation of the momentum birthed with Songs III is a happy thing, indeed.

While most of Here We Go Magic works well as a unit, the more noise-based, non-vocal tracks detract from momentum; they’re the least interesting things on the album.

No matter what tweak to the overall aesthetic Nelson may make, Pan-American’s music is as interesting as ever, precisely because there is no end in sight.

Dissolver sounds like an album made by folks who are mostly sick of challenging convention and just want to swim in something that reminds them of why they love rock music.