The album's moments of schticky nonsense ('How Do You Tell A Child Someone Has Died,' 'Transcendental Light') are tiresome, but they’re surrounded by such good rock songs that they wind up being equally rewarding.

They have built up a group of songs so restless and unsatisfying that a group of teenagers with the proper training could have made them, or likely something better.

When None Shall Pass drags late in the first act, it's largely due to tracks that seem intended to reprise the contemplative vibe of the Float era. A few Jukie guest spots, brazen as the production, round out the way the album works best.

We are Him is more varied in texture, more resolute in execution and, to the probable amusement of Gira’s long-term coterie, an altogether darker disc.

Inconclusive. Kala plays as mixed media pastiche, a barely restrained amalgam of ideas that are hardly exhausted by beats or flow and double and triple as political references.

It is perfectly pleasant, mildly intelligent pop, perhaps a cut above the vast majority of songs with "la la la" choruses. Yet it has none of the elegant non sequitur of Bejar's best work, nor the barbed hookiness of Newman's, nor even the sheer musical sensuality of Case on her own

Despite its music-geek-pleasing period references and psychedelic density, this is ultimately a frothy pop record full of hopeful love songs.

Ear Drum is his sprawling, messy 2007 manifesto, loaded with rhymes that take weeks to unpack, to say nothing of the bizarre diversity of producers and guests.

The main album is sharp and vitriolic and honest, with hardly a place to take a breath.

Lonely harmonicas, keening fiddles, plinking kalimbas, and vaguely dubby drums twist in and out of the interwoven vocals, their melodies like ivy vines climbing a fence; the lyrics grow on you just as slowly, requiring several close listens before they start giving up their secrets.

The Stage Names is raucous, rambunctious and occasionally quite funny.

The whole midsection of the album is giddily enjoyable.

The Broken String, fails to arouse--the sound is homey, the playing facile and the lyrics keen but not overly precious.

The quality of the album isn't the issue, it's the qualities, the contradictions, the duplicity: it's what makes it as durable a listen as ever, but oddly empty when it comes to empathy.

The good news is that Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is Spoon's best record in a while - if you liked "Gimme Fiction," you'll probably like this too.

In the studio, it’s a totally different beast--a little soggy with orchestral coloring and the 24-track fuckery often seems rote. Taking St. Vincent at face value, Marry Me can be an enervating listen because Clark is playing against her strengths.

Desire, is a mess: intriguing, puzzling, intriguing and ultimately frustrating as all hell.

They've put out six strong albums, consecutively. And without a pause, they've expanded their range without loosing sight of their limits.

There’s little to grasp onto with The Sun, as the record more often than not locks into a cautious mode of jamming on simple figures with little idea as to where to actually take them.

It’s successful on pretty much every count for two main reasons: 1. It’s well-written and blearily produced; and 2. It's self-aware and not neurotic.

Frantic guitars, hooks that replay in your head, skeptical lust - they're all here.

Tromatic Reflexxions is a great record for all of the reasons you might suspect – unless you don’t like MoM, or MES, or either.

Olson’s songs are as strong as ever.

It's a given that Excellent Italian Greyhound is a masterful offering of jagged minimalist rock from a seasoned and almost ridiculously venerable band, but its mastery is expressed in exclusively expected ways.

Their exploration of the genre's boundaries is so lithe and confident, and their studied aloofness here so convincing, that the familiarity comes across as authenticity and the restless impulse for expansion feels, at times, transcendent.

There’s nothing here that’ll shock experimental music acolytes, but it might be a bit much for those expecting only brawny post-rock. Like Goldilocks, I find it just right.

Voxtrot hew to the genre standards to consistently pleasing, if never thrilling, effect.

Plague Park’s nine tracks seem to be over before they reach their potential. The record gets better as it progresses, and successive listens reveal more interesting facets to the songwriting.