Vile has -- to paraphrase something that David Foster Wallace said -- his own way of fracturing reality, and it's so true that you'll feel it in your nerve endings.

From behind her kit, Adrienne Davies keeps slow-mo time as new member Karl Blau thickly kneads deep ribbons of rumbling bass that counter Dylan Carlson's stately, dark holler melodies. The new moon suits them well.

Rolling Blackouts features less of lady rapper Ninja's double-dutch rhymes and a wrecking-ball brass attack, a welcome evolution that shifts the focus towards songcraft and away from the squealing sheets of instrumentation.

Unlike Cave, who drags all those poor characters of his down into that gruesome purgatory he calls a soul, Calvi simply lays hers unabashedly bare before us. Never have the aesthetics of doom been called to the service of so much exuberance.

On Departing, there's no lack of that rawness or emotion, and the crippling nostalgia still reverberates throughout.

Despite some small stutter steps, Collapse Into Now is easily the best R.E.M. album since the trio lost its way.

As strong and alluring as she may be, however, the album is a straightforward waltz through Bon Iver territory.

Peer Amid is the ultimate soundtrack for fighting your way to enlightenment.

While the synthesized sheen of '80s pop hasn't held up for everyone, even casual listeners will discover a new appreciation for the artist underneath superficiality and infamy.

Papercuts' fourth album and Sub Pop debut, Fading Parade, is nothing like this overwrought, overwhelming assault on the senses.

The surviving Hackneys-bassist/singer Bobby and drummer Dannis-sifted through their early jams, rehearsals and demos for this ragged set of odds and ends.

Kaputt's allure fills up glasses with the finest Chablis in a Nagel print–filled room, and lets Bejar's newfound status as King of Hi-Fi unfold in all of its cryptic finery.

Cloud Nothings' self-titled debut displays Baldi's feral chops in natural light.

Tre3s feels like an expression of triumph, with a sound that seems to embody the confidence of youth not yet jaded and with nothing but potential ahead.

The brevity is a disappointment and the songs at times feel like B-sides of something more un-inked, but Radiohead are (and definitively always will be) musicians capable of emotion at the rawest base and somehow binding it to melody and lyric-forever haunting and influencing future generations too numerous to count or imagine.

Producer Daniel Smith ropes in hand-wrung guitars and padded pianos, balancing the boom of Ben's baritone against the golden peal of Vesper's alto. And while they manage to wile-out and get psychedelic, they're at their best when they're most vulnerable.

Shipping News may have taken years off, but it seems determined to make up for it in sheer, rewarding noise.

Knowledge of The Golem isn't necessary for understanding Black Francis' latest experiment, but it helps when peeling back the inter-textual layers of his still-impressive lyricism.

Despite the angst and contemplation, Ghost Blonde brings a bit of elation to a new, directionless generation of shoegazers.

Just when you think you've got a handle on the music, it moves forward into another terrain.

A minor criticism could arise in a homogeny of the individual parts, but that just might be splitting hairs.

The tone of the album is consistently mellow but not necessarily boring.

Jackson's gritty mobile-home-park vocals elbow their way through a mix where the outcome is as much punk as it is rock and the Queen confidently executes both with unexpected exactitude.

The British quartet masquerading as a Japanese duo is back with its fourth full-length, Ventriloquizzing, bringing along a signature slinky groove and wordplay that borders on the absurd.

Factor in fearlessly slick production and attitude and Violens have managed to create the ultimate gorge-fest. Loosen your belt and dig in.

In its first full collection of songs, Weekend splashes a thin, shimmery veil of Psychocandy nostalgia over a mess of noise rock, transforming a seemingly schizophrenic cacophony of guitar wails into something melodic, foot-stompingly powerful and entirely enjoyable.

It's a cleaner, catchier Tapes 'n Tapes that, despite often flaunting rather than infusing its influences, may actually leave you humming its tunes.

Other than a few missteps, Sidewalks displays a calmer, more self-assured band that seems to have graduated from a one-note "new-wave White Stripes" shtick.