There are more than enough licks to compensate when that tendency [to sound whiny or emo-ish] gets a little overwhelming. [No.91, p.57]

Love This Giant fitfully achieves its aim of unlikely, unearthly pop. [No.91 p.56]

While Moms never reaches the earwormy heights that it leads off with, there's still a bunch of choice moments [throughout the album]. [No.91 p. 56]

Arriving ten years after her solo debut, Little Heater has managed to take the anachronistic qualities of Irwin's sound and imbue them with real relevance. [No.91 p.55]

Like a tightrope walker toeing a slack line, the Helio Sequence enters and exits this fifth full-length at its highest points... In between, Negotiations breaks down. [No.91, p.55]

It's difficult to accept him as an angry rocker. He's so great as a lovelorn crooner - heard here on "Seek It," one of the album's few moments of tenderness - that it's hard not to be nostalgic for the old Hawley. [No.91, p.55]

It's all here - all seven studio albums, which, despite the hype, remain truly fantastic. [No.91, p.54]

The merger breathes welcome new life into both of their glorified shticks, though Brown will likely have serve a stint at the Keith Moon Memorial Flailing Rock Re-Education Camp before the Turks next reconvene. [No.91, p.53]

Algiers appears designed not to define, defy, offend and - most heinously- explore. [No.91, p.53]

The songs work as robust individuals, as well as in the dynamic context of the album's sequencing; up-tempo rockers connect with sparse 'n' sullen twangers. [No.91, p.53]

Try to listen to a whole [Azure Ray] album and time stands still, not out of boredom, just deja vu. [No.91, p.52]

Although the quartet might not have topped Merriweather Post Pavillion, it did the next best thing: make an album that's entirely new and just as exciting. [No.91 p.52]

This is easily her fullest-sounding, most animated record to date, dense with layers upon layers of sound... and copious multi-tracking of Marshall's intimate, elusive, dispassionately soulful voice, which is richer and more versatile here than ever before. [No.91, p.51]

The anthology does yield insights, especially where Mar is concerned. [#82, p.51]

The rest of Pleiades isn't so memorable [as "further"], but it's never less than pleasant and frequently pleasurable. [#82, p.53]

Peel back the layers, and you're confronted with a wealth of oft-unexpected sonic exploration. [#90, p.60]

It's easy to get caught up in TEEN's dreams without completely falling asleep, a tough act to follow with so many similar acts just simply getting lost. [#90, p.61]

There's no "Cinnamon Girl's" here, but "Farewell American Primitive" and "Only In My Dreams" breathe the same catchy air. [#90, p.53]

The Antibalas crew is in peak form, plating circles around any other second-wave Afrobeat outfit in town. [#90, p.53]

Hot Cakes isn't really trying to be funny so much as just plain fun. And it is. [No.90, p.55]

[Four has] the density that made Bloc's angular edge so full, rich and round in the first place. [No.90, p.54]

Some of the most compelling, essential rock music of the era, period. [No.90, p.61]

Ascent is an album that manages to find the perfect harmony between the normal and the weird, the dirty and the clean, the psychedelic and the straight. Put it in your psych-rock emergency kit. [No.90, p.60]

Researching the Blues is masterfully produced and keenly performed. [No.90, p.60]

It's an LP full of computerized, Auto-Tuned dance-pop anthems, perfect to drive the kids at junior prom into a frenzy. [No.90 p.59]

Although the harmonies and pickin-skills are still top-notch, Carry Me Back falls short in songwriting. [No.90, p.59]

[The album is] really fun. You don't have to know about 12-tone serialism to appreciate the wonderfully goody innards of this appropriately titled compilation. [No.90, p.59]

The band is beyond tight, and not only does singer Bruck Tesfaye possess the requisite mellifluous diction, he has an impassioned delivery that reaches effortlessly across language barriers to collar anyone ready for a good time and haul them willingly onto the dance floor. [No.90, p.58]

Occasional exotic loop or surprising flair aside, the rest [aside from three songs] is listenable, charmless and pointless. [No.90, p.58]

America is both a progression and a departure for Deacon: an album rife with danceable party music, but also a deeply political gesture. [No.90, p.56]

A super-catchy mix of stadium-rock bombast and punk simplicity. [No.90, p.57]

Major comes across as the next logical chapter for one of music's most-unique and positive forces. [No.90 p.56]

Heavy, haunting and wholly captivating. [No.90 p.56]

Sadly, Beams doesn't show Dear changing up his game in any meaningful way. [No.90 p.55]

All at-once nauseating, delectable and habit-forming. [No.90, p.55]

Tracks like "Fading Dawn" hew closer to Barn Owl's sound, with the instrumentation a little less cloaked, but meditative forays like "Absteigend" are the biggest successes here. [No. 90, p.54]

There's a duality to Fragrant World that, sized up alongside its two predecessors, reveals an inherent character trait and a more troublesome trend. Bad songs turn into good songs, and good songs turn into better ones. [No.90 p.51]

With its disjointed turns, it plays like a score to a David Lynch film: sinister, with moments of beautiful and icy-cool respite... Highly recommended.[No. 90, p.52]

Criminal Heaven is an infectious, off-kilter, damn near perfect indie-pop album that manages to effortlessly cover a bizarrely large plot of musical territory. [#86]

Occupied With the Unspoken plays as a chopped and staggered descendant of Fripp & Eno's Evening star, whose beauty is buried beneath a thicket of alien noises and reverb. [#89, p.54]

[Frontman Jesse] Elliott seems more preoccupied with packing prosaic lyrics with regional references than encouraging the participatory response these large-band arrangements often beg for. [#88, p.60]

Collaborations where the principals hail from different ends of the musical spectrum usually lack common ground, making their output little more than a curiosity. Thankfully, this a a problem Harmonic trounces with a big sonic shillelagh. [#88, p.58]

Standouts are so effortlessly and relentlessly infectious that it's impossible to think that Pujol didn't spend long nights spinning and internalizing Fleetwood Mac and Kinks LPs. [#88, p.59]

Some [of the songs] are funny, some are sad, and the best are somewhere in between. [#88, p.54]

The dramatic new music made by Bobby Womack - a true survivor - is an important listening session for any serious music lover. [No.89, p.60]

While the Universe is a fairly subdued affair, its quiet quality speaks volumes. [No.89, p.61]

The production has kept the focus exactly where it should be: on the longing of his voice... it's given him a deeper, haunting sense of quiet that strips these melodies to their essential, fragile beauty, delivered with joy, grace, and a wounded wisdom. [No.89 p.60]

Smith is least persuasive on the latter [unexpectedly aggressive, blues-based power ballads] - her delicate voices sounds strident when fronting heavy electric guitars, and those scattered tracks break the spell that her more restrained songs cast easily. [No.89, p.59]

Evocative bursts of noise and youth abound everywhere, and there's absolutely no reason not to succumb to them. [No.89, p.59]

Contrary to the urgency of the title, Silencio! is more intermission than showstopper. [No.89, p.59]

Although they rarely stray far from their now-familiarly icy aesthetic on Shrines, the decidedly captivating manner with which Purity ring navigates said aesthetic makes for one of the most exciting debuts in recent memory. [No.89, p.59]

Loud and big--stadium big, major-label big--and although it has soft patches, much of it hurtles forward with welcomed urgency. [No.89, p.58]

Worship makes solid use of driving pop and new-wave inspirations straight out of the sort of black-lit club that doesn't open until 2 a.m. and practically serves absinthe on tap. [No.89, p.58]

Elements of krautrock and psychedelia add color, buoyancy and narrative detail to the rippling dub-pop streams Dunis' disembodied voice drifts over like smoke. [No.89, p.58]

Admittedly, it's hard not to respect Patton's creative adventurousness, but sweet Jesus, the gulf between admiration and enjoyment of one of his projects has never been so wide. [No.89, p.57]

This wet blanket is a sheer bore. [No.89, p.57]

Serious fans will appreciate the sessions recorded with John Peel for BBC Radio 1 and the highlights culled from a 1982 performance at Boston's Opera House. [No.89, p.56]

Adviatic Songs shows the band musically reaching for extremely mystical heights. [No.89, p.57]

Disjointed, yes, but Early Birds is a fascinating document all the same. [No.89, p.57]

As she meanders through disappointment and hope, with pedal steel, accordion and strings focusing emotion, Mandell channels Nilsson and Newman to make a lasting impression. [No.89, p.56]

Home Again is an album with a powerful voice, but little to say. [No.89, p.56]

Fro all the hooks and hummable moments, none of them stick around after the song is over. [No.89, p.56]

In Our Heads sees them take their craft to its most dizzying heights yet. [No.89, p.54]

The rather unimaginative song selection is enlivened by inventive medleys, stylistic reinterpretations, and playfully arranged instrumentals. [No.89 p.55]

Here guitarist Dante Schwebel cedes more space [than on past albums] to Abraham Villanueva's dense beds of keys, bringing a fuller, more textured sound that makes a big hooks even bigger. [No.89 p.55]

Swing Lo Magellen sounds forced and cluttered... highlights a dearth of skill when it comes to self-editing. [No.89 p.54]

Friends lose themselves when they try too hard to sound like the Ting Tings, Cults or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, which they do too often here. [No.89 p.54]

Occasionally cliched and often anthemic, this is an old-fashioned populist rock record that grows steadily with repeated listening. [No.89 p.53]

Its performances over the past year have generated much anticipation for DIIV's debut full-length, but Oshin doesn't connect the same way. [No.89, p.53]

Serves as an excellent introduction to the power and eclecticism of this veteran Balkan brass band. [No. 89, p.52]

Skelethon finds the stealth-drawling rapper swallowing his wise-as-his-namesake words, then spitting out more quixotic phrasing and racing, racy syllables than Busta Rhymes might if he was on a hot martini of Red Bull, moonshine and methamphetamine. [No.89, p.52]

Beguiling and brilliant. [No. 89 p.51]

Their winding leads, ghostly shimmers and stacked luminous sound clouds wheel around each other like elegant skywriting maneuvers. [#88, p.54]

Cho's gorgeous, ghostly piano playing takes center stage on pensive slow-burner "Open Air," and finale "Gypsum" starts as a playful piano/bass groove, pit-stops at a carnival and transforms into what is arguably the most gonzo saloon tune ever. [No.88, p.53]

[On Spirits] Manhood yokes cosmic yearning to sublime tunecraft. [No.87, p.58]

Nothing here is throwaway. [No.88, p.53]

Like a modern-day Nina Simone, Cherry slips from light and soulful to insistent and forceful on this wild hybrid of an album. [No.88, p.53]

That this LP is less summit than plateau says more about the level of past work than anything lacking from this one. [No.88 p.61]

That Vol.1 can capture that energy and enthusiasm of the [excellent] live show, the youthful vigor that prevents it from going into the realm of self-indulgent fogey prog pretty much guarantees we'll be following their career until they're old men. [No.88 p.60]

While no one track jumps out as a single, the entire album is something of a near cubist deconstruction of the band's sound. [No.88 p.60]

Is White's nonchalant spectrum dabbling [found throughout the album] as interesting as the myriad variables of his own quirky sound? Eh, not quite. [No.88 p.60]

The songs on WWSFTC all hint at loss, limitation and aging, with Spektor's poetic sensibility and passionate singing giving the LP a wrenching sense of vulnerability. [No.88 p.59]

While the beats set SpaceGhostPurrp apart, his microphone skills are lacking; his flow, always sleepily riding behind the bass, doesn't fluctuate... But his apocalyptic perspective is refreshing. [No.88 p.59]

A surprisingly deep album that fleshes out the vaguely krautish electronica the band only touched on in previous efforts. [No.88 p.59]

Two albums in, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros sound just as phony as Ima Robot did. [No.88 p.59]

A spotlessly produced, classic alt-rock album that recalls Garbage's golden age. [No.88 p.58]

Midway through, it's already tiresome to hear the anthemic shouting and seemingly non-stop drum fills. It's a celebratory listen for sure, but one that could do with a breather that shows off this duo's skills. [No.88 p.58]

Though the quieter moments are choice tests in eerie tension, the Melvins work best in straight rock 'n'roll, especially on the album's highlight: an utterly badass cover of Wings' "Let Me Roll It." [No.88 p.57]

The music on Weekends is balanced between bright, up-tempo numbers and cheerless explorations of loneliness and heartache, but even on the dance tunes, the somber lyrics keep things from getting too exuberant.

A rich, mainly acoustic fabric. [#86, p.59]

These songs are every bit as spiritually urgent as those on What We Lose In The Fire We Gain In The Flood, but the motivation is as political as it is personal. [#87, p.57]

May piles up cresting false falsettos, disco pulses and Beach Boys wall-of-sound swells and, with the exceptionally sappy "Tell Her," offers a serviceable "So Happy Together" homage. [No.88 p.57]

Downright pretty. [No.88 p.57]

Most of Traps keeps the toes a-tapping with happily-sung, sad-bastard references to bygone lovers, running out of weed and coming of quarter-age. [No.88 p.57]

The title track ... and the unstoppably melodic "Billy Wire" are two of the catchiest tunes Pollard has ever penned. [No.88 p.56]

Exister may still press a heavy thumb on the melodic rock end of the scale... but enough Caution-era magic is recaptured for us to welcome these new transmissions from Radio Free Gainesville. [No.88 p.56]

Sure, anyone who has ever listened to 14 minutes of classic-rock radio has heard a good chunk of this ... but the energy remains undeniable and infectious. [No.88 p.56]

If you're a fan of heavy psychedelic bands, but wish they'd spend less time writing songs and more time blazing on the fretboard, this is your record. [No 88 p.56]