Spiritualized have always possessed an impressive grandeur, but on this album it is grandeur with a purpose--Songs in A&E is the sound of healing.

Why? the person always had unique ideas, but, for the first time, Why? the band complements these thoughts and feelings with consistency, creating an accessible, exciting and complete work.

Sounds are given room to breathe and interact, room to develop detailed relationships with each other, and therein lies Abandoned Language's most compelling facet.

Although an amateur sound bleeds through all the songs on Skeleton it is obvious that this group of Danes take themselves seriously. It is that seriousness that makes this album so enjoyable, as it affords the band a certain degree of confidence in their quirkiness.

Through all the fascinating genre shell games, the constant on Trying To Never Catch Up is a smart pop sensibility that rarely expels an unoriginal thought.

The slightly pretentious concept, though, is balanced by the equally lavish music and specifically Khan's voice.

With a marked improvement in lyrical content, !!! have also brought the beats.

Like each of Owen Ashworth’s wondrous works before it, Etiquette is intimate, often sorrowful, bedroom glitch-pop, but here it is more substantial.

Listening to The Avalanche is a lot like going back to visit old friends - familiar, cozy and safe.

How does it compare to his previous three records--or eight, if you count his former band? Suffice it to say that's a rhetorical question. If Joe DiMaggio made albums... well you get the point.

Present are the hints of early Guided by Voices, spotty Who outtakes and country-tinged acoustics that make East River Pipe so beloved, but here these influences tread, weighted, underwater.

While Chrome Dreams II was clearly modeled after his more "classic" sounding work, it finds Young sounding like little more than a knockoff of his former self.

Despite its lack of youthful anarchy, The Hawk Is Howling is an impressive record. Mogwai are among the world's most gifted musical collectives; perhaps they have just been making music too long to want or need to reinvent the game again.

A River Ain’t Too Much To Love has more in common with great books than it does with great rock albums; it’s intelligent, introspective, sensitive and best experienced in a very quiet place.

Robyn returned this year with two new EPs with an alleged third one on the way and while the construction of each flatters the contents, taken as a whole, they're wildly uneven. The stronger of the two is Body Talk Pt. 1, with three of ten best singles of the 2010.

The Secret Migration has the power to cast a spell over you with its dreamy, wraithlike keyboards. Many won't fall for it, though, and will undoubtedly find them too melodramatic.

We’re left with a brilliant, often mesmerizing but all-too-sketchy defeatist manifesto on the surface, which, with further musical fleshing-out (Verve guitarist Simon Tong is woefully underused), might have been worth serious investigation.

It rather gorgeously hums low and disturbing, hiding in the grass like some kind of jungle cat.

The first must-listen record of the year.

To simply not want to skip tracks isn't exactly saying anything, and certainly not that Wilco has made any kind of return to relevance. But Jeff the person is doing just fine, and instead of chastising this release, let's be happy that the guy who gave us more serious, occasionally harrowing masterpieces such as Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot finally seems to be having some fun. Next time it'd be nice if he let us in on it.

Their strength lies in the fact that the threesome are capable rockers with conviction, and just enough irony to make it work.

Different and perhaps more mature than S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D., this recent release from Out Hud measures out a liquid pulse, fervently paying homage to their antecedents and feverishly shaking their asses.

The sound on Alight of Night is a swinging, noisy, glammy and overall dark evolution of garage rock.

Interesting, unique, weird and inviting.

Whoa, is it ever tough, but wow, is it ever great.

At once soothing and energetic, ferocious and effeminate, beautiful and ballsy, No Shouts, No Calls is a passionate, confident effort.

Alopecia is a very good, occasionally great record that is just a little bit closer to nailing this hip-hop acid nightmare of a sound than what's come before it.

Like any good instrumental album, Maritime does its job in providing a getaway.