The group's warmest, most charitable album to date. [No. 98, p.61]

Shook Me offers little that doesn't sound like any one of those bands [Vampire Weekend, the Kooks, and fun.] sanded down to their blandest core. [No. 97, p.58]

The band's largely understated interpretation of punk offers a fresh and relatable perspective, mostly free of melodrama or righteous indignation. [No. 97, p.61]

Musically and lyrically, she shares more with Barbara Manning and John Darnielle, able to tell affecting late-night confessionals with sharp attention to detail and very little drama. [No. 97, p.61]

For the most part, he succeeds. [No. 97, p.60]

The noise that's here is lovely, heartbreaking, expansive and raw. [No. 97, p.58]

The band seems aware that it's on well-trod ground throughout Honky Tonk, though that doesn't seem to affect Son Volt one bit. [No. 97, p.59]

As with his solo output, Jose Gonzalez has a clear vision for his music's direction, and he sticks to it with admirably rigorous discipline here, making the majority of Junip more steady than indistinct. [No. 97, p.57]

Hi Beams has style to burn, colorful as a candy store and shiny as new-molded plastic. [No. 97, p.56]

Chelsea Light Moving finds Moore in renaissance mode. And it's pretty goddamn great, even if one might occasionally yearn for a Lee Ranaldo squall or Gordon vocal coo-roar up around the next bend. [No. 97, p.54]

Mala is his finest attempt at not killing momentum by diving down a rabbit hole. [No. 97, p.52]

Stygian Stride may officially be divided into six differently titled pieces, but it actually exists best as a start-to-finish totality. [No. 97, p.59]

Tales From Terra Firma takes them to a more generic realm of sing-along indie rock, which is too bad. [No. 97, p.59]

While it's a challenging listen, it's rarely jarring, making it oddly satisfying for both active and passive consumption. [No. 97, p.52]

This is Fol Chen's sharpest full-length yet, gaining cohesion from the often mechanically warped vocal presence of new frontwoman Sinosa Loa. [No. 97, p.55]

There's both freshness and familiarity to this live-in-the-studio effort. [No. 97, p.53]

Newman has pushed his voice to a human place, upon a mantle, as if finally proud of the boys. Good show. [No.97, p.61]

Some of the Milk Carton Kids' best work to date. [No. 97, p.56]

We find a band tapping into a distinctly American heart of darkness, capturing this nation's descent into partisan chaos and random, endless violence the way only the foreign-born can. [No. 97, p.54]

The album includes a perky Cure pastiche, a taste of synth-pop and some very Spoon-ish back-and-forth between fuzzed-out, noisy guitars, but the succinct, kinetic rockers are its high points, and leaves you wanting more of them. [No. 97, p.59]

Aside from getting off on the wrong foot and then later making an awkward exit, the bulk of Illusion is a bristling. [No. 97, p.57]

Structurally stripped-down and bulked up by Randall Dunn's satisfyingly solid production, too many of these songs fall short of memorability. [No. 97, p.56]

Despite the experimental tendencies in the music, this is an album that catches attention in the home speakers as well as in the art scene. [No. 97, p.55]

These eight songs get their Thurston Moore on, with all the razor guitar noise his real band forbids and no east e of ideas. [No. 97, p.55]

Occasionally a bright guitar line or luminous touch of piano floats out of the mix to deliver a hint of sunshine, but mostly the band does a skillful job of supporting Nathan Willett's anguished vocals. [No. 97, p.54]

It's clear that Vile still has great ambition to make robust, timeless rock--and the songs to back it up. [No. 97, p.60]

English Electric is a tremendously satisfying listen for fans who've worn out their copy of Dazzle Ships. [No. 97, p.57]

Shaking proves from the get-go to be easily the most ambitious and defiantly challenging release in either Dreijer sibling's catalog. [No. 97, p.57]

The album's numerous ballads meander at times, but Stories Don't End is an overall solid effort. [No. 97, p.54]

Floating Coffin doesn't add many new ingredients, but it blends them more thoroughly, making for an Oh Sees more like an Oh Sees show, which is a welcome surprise, indeed. [No. 97, p.59]

Savor Luke Lalonde's chirpy blurts on "Needle" and "Ocean's Deep;" they're soon replaced by increasingly ironed-out dance pop that goes through unfortunate puberty over 12 tracks, from good to bad to worse. [No. 97, p.53]

It's a dark, repetitive, uncompromising record, full of challenges and threats. [No. 97, p.51]

This time out, he brings all his influences together into an LP that may be his most musically diverse offering yet. [No.96, p.56]

The quartet has reached puberty on its second album, which sees the band embracing awkward teen angst a la Winona Ryder's character in Beatlejuice. [No. 96, p.61]

Tyler's command of his instrument is commendable, but his ability to use it for a compelling, lyrical collection of instro cuts is even more so. [No. 96, p.60]

Over a full-length album, he's as annoying as ever. [No. 96, p.61]

A headphone-friendly, Latin-flavored, hypnotic concoction of deep grooves, tropical textures and warped blips and bleeps compressed into fractured layers. [No. 96, p.55]

Though at times exquisite, the slow-burn even instrumental keel is, ironically, the most jarring aspect of Push The Sky Away. [No. 96, p.52]

A poor pastiche of Aphex Twin, Spandau Ballet and Gary Numan. [No. 96, p.60]

His new sound is interesting and may find its own fans, but it's such a strong departure from his last album that it will likely leave his current admirers scratching their heads. [No. 96, p.59]

A rousing, energetic exploration of the Roy Orbison-influenced rock 'n' roll, classic country and Latin influences--that blows all the damn mall-folk clogging up our inbox out of the goddamn water. [No. 96, p.57]

It boasts Wembley-sized sound and a few huge singles that aspire to confuse Stockholm for a UK colony. [No. 96, p.59]

Shapiro's singing is as wispy and wafer-thin as ever, her limp, lovelorn lamentations just as piteously plaintive. Your call whether that's charming or cloying, but it's not exactly the most versatile approach. [No. 96, p.59]

What stands out most on the Americana-saturated Miracle Temple is the way the band shuffles and tweaks country music and gospel/folk elements, yet still sounds very traditional, for better or worse. [No. 96, p.53]

He's perfectly adequate as a singer and melody writer, but he doesn't have the indelible personality of a Morrissey or Isaac Brock. [No. 96, p.56]

The musicianship is smart and faultless, but also too subtle. [No. 96, p.54]

Anxiety is the rare electro-pop album that's wholly synthetic, but plays without a hint of icy artificiality. [No. 96, p.53]

True, nothing here ever astonishes, but coming from such a unique voice, the familiar bests most else. [No. 96, p.51]

Their fourth full-length has the band members grabbing snippets of musical influence from all over the Pitchfork-approved map. [No. 96, p.54]

They take genre conventions and flip them inside out. [No. 96, p.57]

There's a refreshing sense of directness in the sound of the music, which, for all its abundant, unabashed prettiness and orchestral elegance, maintains a stripped-down, unaffectedly human scope. [No. 96, p.59]

Phillip Ekstrom's vocals echo the tortured moan of Robert Smith with a trace of Ian McCulloch's attitude, but he never manages to find his own voice. Except for the implied reggae pulse on "Blues," neither does the band. [No. 96, p.56]

Love From London could use more of those surprising or insightfully startling juxtapositions that define his best labors. [No. 96, p.58]

Arnalds' voice is the centerpiece, as each of the 12 tracks lives or dies by her pipes. [No. 96, p.52]

Lady gets high marks for nostalgic soul--with all the trappings of horns and strings--but ultimately the album recalls everything that was great about '60s soul, past-tense. [No. 96, p.56]

There is much to admire in the trademark plaintiveness and honesty on his seventh album. [No. 96, p.59]

It's all gorgeous arrangements, soul-wrenching songwriting and heartbreaking stories, inhabiting a space that's both rock and country, indie and folk, without pandering to the lowest common denominator. [No. 96, p.59]

The instrumentals, which mix grainy field recordings with more forthright electronic melodies, assert a strong presence, but not enough to rescue Hymnal from a state of irresolute inbetween-ness. [No. 96, p.58]

Autechre's are notions are studied as they are transportive and on Exai, the duo fairly dares us not to lose ourselves. [No. 96, p.53]

[A] momentous sixth LP. [No. 96, p.60]

This is a record that fans of Juliana Hatfield, Lightning Bolt or King Crimson could fall in love without compromise. [No. 96, p.60]

[Mike Polizze's] an understated master of the rock 'n' roll hook.... With big and booming Superfuzz Bigmuff-style production cleaning up the band's Drag City debut, that distinction becoming clearer. [No. 96, p.58]

The superficial snarl and by-the-numbers rawk in the middle on tracks like "Haste The Taste" and "Teenage Disease" never find equal footing with the album's inspired bookends. [No. 96, p.53]

The music is as icy and snow-covered as from whence it came. [No. 95, p.53]

This long-forgotten collection is a fine, representative memento of California country rock in its heyday. [No.95, p.53]

Blood Oaths Of The New Blues has us realizing, possibly for the first time, what an amazing, enrapturing voice the dude has. [No. 95, p.61]

Sure, it's a mess. But it's a brilliant, manically theatrical mess, true to Welles' self-destructive spirit. [No. 95, p.57]

The new one is faster, hookier, cleaner. [No. 95, p.52]

Fade is a gripping down-tempo treatise on the finer and coarser points of hunkering down. [No. 95, p.61]

Bassist Dunn and drummer Stanier lay down weird sprightly grooves, while guitarist Denison arranges their melodies into something hard and densely poppy with arch-but-upbeat harmonics pulled from Pet Sounds. [No. 95, p.61]

It's bright and shiny and perky.... But it also risks being faceless--it's Tegan and Sara's least personable, most superficial record. [No. 95, p.60]

For now, an engaging debut. [No. 95, p.60]

Hearing these songs all in a row, most sharing the same basic beat and harmonic structure, can make the title feel uncomfortably prophetic. [No. 95, p.60]

Unknown Mortal Orchestra's sophomore effort is marked by a certain familiar mystique that does well to recall the charisma and dazzling psychedelia of its predecessor. [No. 95, p.59]

Anything In Return us ultimately a chill listen, but not a necessarily memorable one. [No. 95, p.59]

Overall, Electric is another consistent yet unsurprising recent Thompson album. [No. 95, p.59]

This is a lovely, bittersweet and nuanced album. [No. 95, p.59]

Unwilling or unable to ascend the vertiginous heights of 2009 debut Gorilla Manor, Hummingbird instead buries its beak in the sand. [No. 95, p.58]

He mostly sounds like a fish out of water. [No. 95, p.57]

Eight is the sound of a band in flux, and that churn makes for some of Radar Brothers' most intriguing, compelling work yet. [No. 95, p.57]

This music has been cunningly hand-crafted, despite the album's larger ensemble sound, and at times the songs come off like incantations. [No. 95, p.57]

Flute and saxophone abound on this record, employed with a degree of schmaltz that works against the songs more often then not. [No. 95, p.57]

He seeks to boldly chase his pop-music idols, which hits the mark only about half the time. But when he doesn't, at least it's a glorious miss. [No. 95, p.56]

The duo constantly varies each elements of its sound in ways most rock bands could learn plenty from. [No. 95, p.56]

[Her high-pitched vocals] restricts her melodies a bit too much for their own good, and some more dynamic performances near the album's end can't save it from fading in a poof of uneasy effervescence. [No. 95, p.55]

While some songs drag, others are absolutely enchanting. [No. 95, p.55]

The album preserves--even perfects--the spirit of its delirious debut, while fashioning something even bigger: brighter, tighter, better, more. [No. 95, p.55]

As with all impressive novelty albums, it's hard to imagine getting to a sixth play of these nonetheless flawless interpretations, and even those would mostly be for friends and neighbors. [No. 95, p.54]

This is particularly adept record-collector rock for the rest of us. [No. 95, p.54]

It's a canny hybrid. [No. 95, p.53]

The result is a finely crafted collection of music that speaks volumes beyond its instrumental presentation. [No. 95, p.53]

These guys do so many things well--now if they could only find their weird again. [No. 95, p.52]

Alternatively gentle and jangly, The House At Sea is a delight. [No. 95, p.52]

On the band's latest, they continue the move toward the tighter concision found on 2009's King Of Jeans, but unlike Pissed Jeans' previous efforts, there isn't a seven-minute dirge on Honeys. [No. 95, p.51]

The Marriage Of True Minds is pure late-model Matmos: perverse, urbane, crowded, hilarious, and efficient. [No. 95, p.55]

The coarse sonic atmosphere remains, but in nearly every other respect, the evolution is substantial. [No.95, p.56]

After all these years, the band still possesses no originality or musical inventiveness that could distinguish it from the pack. [No. 93, p.58]

Mostly, the remix collection works in this vein, mutating the originals by further accentuating the brooding atmosphere and driving the beat harder. [No. 94, p.61]