These tunes feel huge, enhanced by a newfound confidence, choirs literal and adhoc, and the snap-bracelet rhyme schemes of pal Aesop Rock. [No. 82, p.54]

His guitar solos are more electrified than usual, and they sound like burning juke-joint riffs... a true American original. [No. 82, p. 53]

Throughout the album, Wedren knows when to go from maximalist to minimalist. And his multi-octave vocal range still delivers accessible melodies. [No. 81, p. 59]

The album holds up better than most dustbin acquisitions reissue labels make, but it's not without its limitations - namely, in the way it mixes and matches aesthetics. [No. 81, p. 59]

This is the most blistering set the duo have put out in a long time. [No. 81, p. 56]

What's missing ... is a sense of perspective, or humor, or anything to leaven Buckingham's monochromatic intensity. [No. 81, p.54]

A glittery and effervescent package. [p.55]

Offers both considerable beauty and ugliness. [#82, p. 62]

Williams pits his angst-y tendencies against grunge's proven, angst-coddling backdrop. [#82, p. 62]

Inni takes the listener on a walk through 15 or so years of a robustly lush and sumptuously luxurious ethereal-pop weirdness clashing with colossal waves of noise rock. [#82, p. 60]

For the most part, we're just not feeling Everything. [#82, p. 60]

While they haven't really changed up their formula on this second LP, they have gotten exponentially better at brewing it up. [#82, p.59]

[Lopatin] knows how to integrate plangent tones with somber piano chords to give the title track a plaintive, wistful quality, making sure to throw enough glitch in so that it doesn't get stranded on Windham Hill. [#82, p.59]

The imitations/references spill out... But Spills Out is considerably less interesting and more cerebral, when Pterodactyl sounds like other bands.[#82, p.59]

Dracula gurgles with slower, more experimental moments at times, but the brief drags are balanced out by funky hip-swingers and modern nuggets. [#82, p.59]

A series of genre-bending compositions written with New York chamber-music ensemble yMusic that puts [Worden's] full vocal range of on display... a really powerful synergy. [#82, p.59]

Converts to the cause will find much to love here, and curious newcomers and Anglophiles, it's as good a place as any to start. [#82, p.58]

His latest EP pushes his glossy pop inclinations even further; the five tracks are quick and sweet, gussied up with quirky instrumentation. [#82, p.57]

As mesmerizingly Zen as Korallreven's dreamy, glazed gaze is, it's hard not to long for the band to shake itself free of its googly-eyed trance, if only for a moment or two. [#82, p.57]

It's all very appealing and completely listenable, if sometimes overreliant on mid-tempo rhythms with occasional surges in passion and pacing. [#82, p.56]

Circles finds the band leaving a bit of the motorik behind for more melodic and dynamic territory. [#82, p.57]

This is dense and metallic and gorgeous. [#82, p.57]

Joker unwittingly set the bar high for his debut full-length. Unsurprisingly, it falls short. [#82, p.56]

Despite certain songs dragging on longer than need be, Night combines classical and flighty pop quite masterfully. [#82, p.53]

Though it reveals apparent influences ranging from Eyeless in Gaza to Simple Minds, the Baltimore trio's third album finds the band updating rather than simply recreating. [#82, p. 55]

The inanely literalistic Looping State of Mind magnifies that trend [toward expansionism], offering seven mutations of his trademark sound, in a newly expansive array of tempos. [#82, p. 55]

Though Deer Tick has moonlighted as a Nirvana tribute band, it's the group's love for the Replacements that shines on Divine Providence. [#82, p. 55]

DJ Shadow first made his name by delving deep into the world's bottomless pile of debris to redeem the wannbe hits and half-formed artistic statements of our musical past. Now, he contributes to it. s[#82, p. 54]

Crow's sense of humor still peeks through an otherwise melancholy baker's dozen of tracks. [#82, p. 54]

There's a noisy undercurrent on Breaks in the Armor, which may become even more prevalent with the return of and cross-pollination with Archers Of Loaf, but the album's stripped-back, still powerful songs might be indicating Crooked Finger's path from here.[#82, p. 54]

Howl works best when Feck and Co. marry their frustrated empathy with hopeful jubilation, letting the kids know that although they're lonely, they're certainly not alone. [#82, p. 53]

Wolfroy goes to Town is a meditative and sparse collection, and much of it continues the same train thought at work in the "There is no God" b/w "God is Love" single. [#82, p. 52]

Conatus hits like a miniature hurricane in a box. [#81, p. 60]

If the stoner rock of the Atomic Bitchwax and Nebula crashed, with care and caution, into Swervedriver and the Doors, you'd have West. [#81, p. 60]

The Whole Love works best as aural comfort food.[#81, p. 60]

WWPJ returns to the moody and energetic sound of its debut with In The Pit of the Stomache, a 10-song set that bristles with raw post-punk power while pulsing with pop subtlety. [#81, p. 59]

His songwriting keeps growing hookier and more ingratiating. [#81, p. 59]

Glass Swords is a testament to the importance of cutting right the chase, boiling house music down to climaxes the way Lightening Bolt compresses wild metal soloing into hard, gnarly blasts of attitude. [#81, p. 59]

Lucky for Conditions of My Parole, Puscifer has graduated from embarrassingly stupid to simply boring. [#81, p. 59]

They focus more on freeform jams than commercial song structure. Then, as now, it makes for indulgent and difficult listening. But, if the path of wisdom lies in such excesses, then the Larsons are certainly well on their way. [#81, p. 59]

Heaven? or Las Vegas? or, more probably (circa late '90's), Chicago? Hard to predict quite where Twin Sisters will end up, but it's a lovely, leisurely, labile journey all the same. [#81, p. 58]

"It's not sad, but it's not OK," sings Emil Svanangen on Hall Music, neatly delineating the album's emotional landscape, a narrow isthmus of calm stretching into a sea of sorrow. [#81, p. 57]

Hunt manages to turn in his most intense and provocative album yet, a stunning mix of prog, punk and soul that can challenge even the most jaded listener. [#81, p. 57]

Darnell has written and produced as many alluringly and subtly contagious melodies -- featuring lyrics rapt with cuttingly humorous tales of ruined relations, self-satisfying sexuality, vacation thrills and street-level detritus -- as Sondheim. [#81, p. 57]

They turn out to be pretty good influences on one another. Jay sounds generally reinvigorated: good-humored, full of nimble, intricate wit and atypically emotionally revealing, and if Kanye's rhymes occasionally remain as clumsy and crass as his personal life choices, he drops far fewer boners than usual. [#81, p. 56]

It's fine that none of this is the least bit subtle. Memorable, or anything other than baseline catchy, is another thing entirely. [#81, p. 56]

Tripper is a strummy, breezy delight. [#81, p. 55]

Cronin learned how to pack garage/punk fuzzbombs with big hooks as the Moonhearts' frontman, and he hasn't lost the ragged-and-reckless urgency here.[#81, p. 55]

Especially in today's digital context, the album feels torn between big-P pop a la La Roux or happy-mode Goldfrapp (or, at least, Annie circa 2004) and the darker, broodier likes of Ladytron.[#81, p. 55]

Most of the songs deal with romance in its more dysfunctional guises, but Feist's comforting vocals keep things from getting too forlorn. [#81, p. 54]

The Milwaukee-based post-rock sextet pretty much turns its back on proggish theatrics this time around, instead crafting tracks so organic, they could pass for natural phenomena.[#81, p. 54]

If Bondy's been searching for a suitable solo identity, Believers may be his charmed third time.[#81, p. 54]

The lack of focus and discernible melodies keeps CANT from being anything more than an interesting diversion. [#81, p. 53]

The songs' infectiousness outweighs their questionable stylizations. [#81, p. 53]

This compelling album is dominated by a spirit of grace and hope. [#81, p. 53]

Lush and smooth, funky and ethereal, Celestial Electric is a sublimely down-tempo album filled with beautiful vocals and gorgeous orchestration. [#81, p. 52]

With the right proportion of leadership and lawlessness, Wild Flag sounds like liberation. Long may they wave. [#81 p. 52]

The band rarely strays from the album versions of songs (sometimes to a frustrating degree; would it have killed B&S to record a version of 'Sleep The Clock Around' without the annoyingly long fade-in?), but such faithful rendering doesn’t make the material predictable; rather, it shows the band at the top of its delicate game.

Secrets Are Sinister’s unflagging energy keeps it from sounding tragic, as if with a few more tries, its narrators and subjects might be able to bridge the gap between them.

The duo’s third LP won’t reconcile the two camps; in fact, Heart On may be the first EODM album to really make the detractors’ case. Chugging riffs and falsetto vocals abound on these 12 tracks, but instead of indulging whatever black magic that kept 2004’s "Peace Love Death Metal" and 2006’s "Death By Sexy" from devolving into jokey karaoke, Hughes and Homme decide to play it mostly straight.

The constant fluidity here makes the album’s unpredictability seem grounded and cohesive instead of erratic.

Every song on debut Alight Of Night seems to be falling apart, mostly because vocalist Brad Hargett’s melodies are off the map.

The album’s sound is a more intricate remix of Fauna’s futurama, another hyperbaric disco chamber filled with technoodling beats backing pop operettas, while the lyrics sometimes do that magnum opus one better.

While Parts & Labor’s grinding wall of noise seems to invite this kind of egalitarianism, the experiment never seems gimmicky or extraneous. Instead, it becomes virtually impossible to distinguish what sounds do or do not belong. It all comes together in one glorious racket.

The emotional tenor on Lambchop’s 10th LP is hard to miss. Not that there’s anything wrong with being touchy and tender, but the calm, spare arrangements on OH (ohio) can only be described as pretty.

By drawing from their past and crafting intriguing sonic hybrids rather than self-consciously aiming for some dubious new turf, the Rosebuds have, accidentally or not, wound up with their most satisfying album yet.

For all its guest appearances (Neko Case, Silver Jews’ Brian Kotzur and Devotchka’s Tom Hagerman), the album’s overall sound is tight and consistent.

Mercury Rev has talked about reinvention and veering away from its comfort zone, which is only to be commended, but the band has really fallen flat on its face here.

By keeping the songs a little shorter, and by bandleader Gustav Ejstes not being such a musical ball hog this time around, Dungen has made a record that’s far more sophisticated musically and melodically.

Like their English ancestors, the Girls deal almost exclusively in exuberance and wonderment, making found squalls and rattles sound like their own. But that might have more to do with the copious amounts of reverb echoing through the album’s best songs.

The Power Of Negative Thinking is a weighty, absorbing, often hugely entertaining and occasionally thrilling curio. JAMC completists will love it, but four CDs’ worth?

Rest easy, the group that makes you wish you’d gone to film school so you could’ve built a movie around its expansive instrumentals--works that seem to come rumbling from the molten core of the earth itself--hasn’t changed much from the glory days of early albums such as 1997’s "Young Team."

Enjoying Furr, then, depends entirely on your ability (or willingness) to ignore the heavy footprints of familiar musicians.

Brightblack Morning Light has always been a druggie band; this time, however, the drug of choice is Dramamine.

Hagerty’s Howling Hex, which plows the radically different but equally worked-over field of nerd-rock whimsy on Earth Junk, starts promisingly, with a spooky clutter of hooting keyboards and echo-soaked vocals.

Led by mercurial crooner Stuart Staples, the current lineup’s grand balladry is more stately and slow-boiled than ever.

Even on the weaker songs, when the chord changes come secondhand and the influences arrive undigested, Wrecking Ball remains an ugly slab of guitar sludge that’s well worth the pain.

Though I generally partake in the Kool-Aid, some of Pollard’s post-GBV stuff has admittedly either gone over my head or missed the sweet spot. Brown Submarine’s pleasures, however, are inarguable.

Carried To Dust is definitely Calexico’s best-sounding record: Each voice and instrument has its place, wheeling around Convertino’s graceful drumming like dancers going around the maypole.

Okkervil River can deliver terrific songs when ambitions are kept in balance, but this uneven record is in dire need of an editor.

The unrushed songs are equally appealing, gussied up with elegant guitar and piano accents and spiked with disarming lines.

It’s a step forward for sure, though at times it reinforces the cloying feeling that the need to complicate rather than simplify makes for overwrought music. But you can’t blame a band for being thoughtful or for playing like something is at stake.

ProVISIONS tells a less reassuring truth than "’Sno Angel Like You," but one that’s just as true; you just never know.

Sunshine Lies contains some of Sweet’s best moments in years, with the classic push/pull of gloriously sunny melodies and lyrical darkness underneath.

For all the inventive whimsy of the arrangements, however, there’s no mistaking the slight lyrical content.

Loads of echo and reverb rescue the album from this potentially fatal flaw, but overall, You & Me is a mixed bag.

Repentance is a lot of fun.

Fatigue ensues from the relentless stream of common-man clichés, delivered in the most vocally bombastic way possible. Which makes the carefree 'Casanova, Baby!' such a pleasure; the Gaslight Anthem finally stops playing to the stadium, resulting in a positively joyous, catchy rock ’n’ roll song.

The Notwist’s last album, 2003’s "Neon Golden," was irresistibly catchy and irretrievably downbeat. Both of those qualities are muted on The Devil, You + Me, the German combo’s long-in-the-making follow-up.

Though there are crinkled guitars and tiny beats slipped into the mix, they only add to the eloquence of the lush affair.

Forget Evil Urges entirely; call this one Zzz.

To Survive is both sparser and more polished than last year's "Real Life." [Summer 2008, p.107]

The 13-track Parallel Play is a decidedly less ambitious effort, but it’s no less brilliant in its execution.

Velocifero is a mere knob's turn toward the excellence the band still seems to be working toward. [Summer 2008, p.107]

Fleet Foxes' full-length debut showcases a gift for folk-adjacent mini-epics that evolve in unexpected directions yet never lose their organic center. [Summer 2008, p.102]

This album isn’t a total disaster, but it’s difficult to imagine most people wanting to listen to Anywhere I Lay My Head more than once.

Some will call this regression, but longtime fans will likely call it focused and celebrate the return to form represented on The Lucky Ones.

Building considerably on the subtle expansion of 2006's "Bring It Back," the powerhouse Re-Arrange Us is both natural progression and quantum leap. [Summer 2008, p.107]