Tiny Cities differs very little from how we might expect it to sound.

Given that it’s a collection of EPs and singles, These Were the Earlies is predictably all over the map, a problem exacerbated by the Earlies’ wide-ranging stylistic ambitions and long-distance collaborative methods.

Most of Tom Vek’s influences are at least fifteen years old and easily triangulated. But he’s unencumbered by nostalgia. We Have Sound is so difficult to isolate from Vek’s ass-backwards charisma, I wonder if the man might be a visionary.

That Vashti Bunyan had the courage to step out of seclusion and follow up her classic debut is admirable. That she was able to do so with an excellent batch of songs is a joy to behold, pure and simple.

So refined at times it borders on the insipid.

“Dayvan Cowboy” is almost worth the price of admission, but it makes the remainder of the album seem derivatively “New Age.”

Essentially, the Brians don't really need to innovate that much anymore and instead are just fine-tuning their craft in glorious ways.

If another band were to serve up the fiddling strings and lollygagging vocal harmonies of “Animal Shapes,” the wanky guitar breakdowns of “The Poor, The Fair, and the Good,” perhaps Tanglewood Numbers wouldn’t feel like such a disappointment. But Berman’s a brilliant lyricist with 30 or 40 minutes to spare every couple of years, and his voice seems oddly absent from this record.

Nine bracing blasts of terse, catchy noise-pop.

Here’s a band so fond of their particular brand of mid-tempo dream pop that they do not feel compelled to try anything else. At least they take the time to be particularly observant as they comb their territory.

What makes the Constantines appealing, then, is not that they do something totally new but rather that they do something familiar very well.

Like Paul's Boutique, The Mouse and the Mask is at times frustrating in its top-heaviness. Thank god it's got Doom.

The Runners Four manages to capture the unbridled intensity and utter joy these four carry across in a live setting.

With a solid emotional through-line and a few sonic surprises, Cinder is a musical novella, whose narrative compels you to its last luxurious line.

So yes, they've still got it. But that still begs the question; do you need re-recordings of tunes that changed the face of rock music? Not as badly as you need the originals, that's for sure.

They cram in so many styles it could easily come across too clever, like a band that claims to be equally inspired by Wu Tang, Cheap Trick and Cher. It doesn't happen. The tracks have a life apart from the name-that-tune layering that drives their sound.

Elephant Eyelash is fantastic, an indie rock record that nicely balances absurdity and directness, pop hooks with stoned weirdness.

It's not as good as Ugly, but it's not as bad as Travels, and it's a welcome step in the right direction.

These Audion recordings thrive on nervous energy, sounding like the twitchy mumblings of a speed freak at their most hyperactive.

Jackson’s debut album is not always a success, as Smash’s panoptic detail eventually turns homogeneous.

There's nothing of substance lacking in the least compelling moments of Queen Mary, and the mix of rousing wildness and reckless wisdom in its brightest points is at once inspiring, promising, and terrifically entertaining.

Almost classically psychedelic at times, with the overdriven saturation of too much light, motion and volume applied to every aspect of the music, this ensemble... represents the best of gritty, pre-funk groove music, Day-Glo popcorn cooking in gasoline, rattling like a machine gun.

While it sounded on 2003’s Promise of Love that the American Analog Set were turning themselves into a shoegaze-revival band, Set Free sounds more in line with the gentle atmospheric rock on their finest album, 1999’s The Golden Band.

It's so satisfying when a band is able to subtly re-invent its sound, as Keenan and Cargill have done here so well.

Less folky and more eclectic than his past work, Crow offers ample evidence of growth in Banhart’s range as both a performer and a songwriter.

If you took away the melodica, the masks and the mystery of a band like Clinic, you’d be left with a Brakes; competent, middle-of-the-road, going nowhere fast.

Noah's Ark is not an end-to-end stunner. But there are bright spots throughout, and the sisters display a consistent penchant for deviating from standard folk and twee pop lyrical imagery.

If it was a foregone conclusion that the long-awaited Iron & Wine/Calexico team-up wouldn't result in anything revelatory (or incendiary, as it were), it was almost as inevitable that it would be rewarding all the same; safe, not sorry, sad and elegant as ever.