Gone are the moments of meditative brooding that made up much of Quarter, replaced here by a bold, tenacious resolve across eight taut, meticulously detailed tracks. [No. 133, p.59]

The fantasy and the fantastic continue, and his soft sculptural Dadaist lyrical sense of romance will always go with DevBan's trembling, lilting melodies like cheese and chocolate. [No. 136, p.53]

Traversing this much musical terrain without a hitch is reason to believe it's showtime for the Apollo. [#69, p.86]

It's yet another solid Lanegan album, although it lacks the harrowing edge of 2004's Bubblegum or the lascivious humor of his collaboration with Isobel Campbell. [No. 114, p.59]

His best since 2001's The World Won't End. [#73, p.104]

The entire thing was tracked in just four days, and the pent-up, wind-tunnel sound and throat-shredding vocal runs that drive its 11 tracks reflect a renewed sense of urgency. [No. 133, p.61]

Tortoise makes like Herbie Hancock wandering through the '80s, all lost at the jazz-fusion supermarket. [#49, p.95]

At its best, Bewilderbeast promises pastoral beauty.... At its worst, the album's faux-jazz workouts, painful disco homage, sappy ballads and pointless instrumentals stretch a decent EP into a bloated, hour-plus opus. [#47, p.84]

For Kill My Blues, Tucker has made the kind of music she did when first inspired to pick up the guitar: riot rock with restless, pent-up frustration that buzzes with nerve. [No.91 p.60]

It's like 90215-era Yes meeting up with Air and fellow auto enthusiasts Trans Am for a jammola in the trunk of, yes, an indestructible talking car. [No. 93, p.57]

On release, a collection of singles over the band's career, its stability takes these years-spanning pieces and forms them into coherence, it's also one of the year's best listens. [No. 115, p.55]

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.

Let's Cry is at its best when it steps outside of this project's prescribed comfort zones. [No. 115, p.61]

A more suitable representation of the band's dynamic capabilities. [No. 111, p.57]

Cement[s] the Truckers' status as one of the best rock 'n' roll bands going. [#71, p.93]

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]

Things never bog down in the spectral murk, even when the tempos slow to a bump in the night. [No. 115, p.53]

Emperor is solid, dexterously played hard rock from a band that used to crush listener skulls. [No. 141, p.59]

What an odd, creakily compelling record this is. [No. 142, p.59]

[An] impressive debut. [#71, p.87]

Sparkles with glittering innovations. [#68, p.102]

Let The Dancers Inherit The Party is slickly produced, dramatic and cohesive but still has the drawback of sounding derivative and overly familiar. [No. 141, p.55]

Anyone who appreciated that combo's [OOIOO] giddy exuberance and arcane tunefulness will find plenty to like on this record's seven intricately arranged tracks. [No. 148, p.60]

A beautiful mess. [No. 120, p.51]

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

An inventive, truly out-of-time pop record that never registers as nostalgic. [No. 121, p.61]

This is very tasty Coffey. [No. 159, p.53]

Minus interludes and meandering artsy filler, many of the 11 tracks take fine-grain sandpaper to noise rock's jagged edges. [No. 146, p.57]

That's Harakiri never loses its human touch. [No. 109, p.61]

A twisted funk masterpiece that simultaneously evokes bad pornography and an outer-space barrio. Yeah, Change Is Coming is that good. [#52, p.97]

Folkier and less prone to rocking than [Ryan Adams], she's also more dedicated to preserving an overall country feel to the music. [#59, p.88]

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]

We Are Him arguably surpasses his work with his old band merely by simplifying things a bit. [Fall 2007, p.90]

With shimmering synths and deep, delicious grooves, Sinkane delivers a future-funk feast of global proportions. [No. 113, p.59]

Restless Ones is a statement of collective confidence and ambitious vision. [No. 121, p.55]

It's not so much airily psychedelic as totally stoned. [#69, p.99]

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]

The Jayhawks have always sounded nostalgic, but Paging Mr. Proust proves there's still vitality in the tried and true. [No. 131, p.57]

Gangster Star features a much stronger single (the idyllic "Shine A Light"), while Jealous Machines waders a bit further into the narrative forest. [No. 144, p.59]

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

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

Ryan Adams (the album) carries all the classic hallmarks of Ryan Adams (the musician), tightly condensed into an essential collection of polished Americana. [No. 113, p.52]

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]

Not nearly as tear-stained as his 2000 mini-album Gerroa Songs, Three zeroes in on the uptempo, if not the upbeat. [#55, p.84]

This may be more apple peel than you care to chomp on for a sloppy experimental pop act making its debut. [#53, p.92]

Nada Surf took it to The Next Level with 2003's near-flawless "Let Go" and has followed it up with two amazing, richly rewarding efforts. [Winter 2008, p.110]

It would be nice if they [her lyrics] cut through the music a bit more clearly; its richly textured blend of strings and electronica is attractive, but would stick better if it balanced its drift with a bit more assertion. [No.91 p.59]

Save for the slightly teary 90-second trudge of "The Real Wilderness," it's a rollicking pummel throughout. [No. 121, p.58]

I Can't Imagine might be her strongest release this side of I Am Shelby Lynne. [No. 120, p.57]

Tune in, turn on, and keep it fresh. [No. 149, p.53]

Sure, it's steeped in familiarity, but it's also fun in the sun. [No. 125, p.60]

Whimsical, immaculately realized music. [#67, p.98]

Though there’s nothing too saccharine on Emotional Mugger (even the line “I want your candy” on “Breakfast Eggs” is more of a threat than a statement of desire), the melodies are some of the strongest Segall has ever turned out. [No. 128, p.56]

Don’t fetch the gurney just yet. Seems Buffalo Tom still has a few good ones left in ’em.

The Private World Of Paradise does have a somewhat rustic, indie-rock feel, though augmented with a greater wealth of instrumentation. [No. 107, p.61]

Carousel One is Sexsmithery at its finest. [No. 119, p.59]

Regeneration is pretty, clever, meticulously planned and tastefully executed.

Alone's as good a Pretenders record as has been made. [No. 137, p.59]

[A] more muted follow-up [to 2014's The Way I'm Livin']. [No. 148, p.61]

It's a place Dessner has visited before, both inside and outside the National, and though he's earned plenty of concert-hall cred over the last few years, these incomparable Kronos recordings represent a huge leap. [No. 105, p.56]

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]

Much of the material is mid-tempo and occasionally bland, but in its best moments... Kill Them With Kindness soars. [#60, p.105]

What On really proves is that great albums aren't a thing of the past. [#54, p.94]

At points, Life Is Full Of Possibilities certainly sounds as if Tamborello realizes what distinguishes the good from the great. [#53, p.72]

Let's face it: Group Sounds is shit. But it's pure shit, which makes all the difference.... Everything is overdiven and mixed to within a decibel of ear-shattering heaviosity. It isn't just monstrous, it's gleefully, unapologetically monstrous. [#49, p.88]

A record that blows up like a supernova and runs the dinner-jacket nobility of its predecessor through a wood chipper. [#59, p.96]

Boot! goes back-to-basics in terms of lineup and material, but sounds heavier than ever. [No. 105, p.59]

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]

Another routinely enchanting, brilliantly exceptional, standard-issue stunner from Hoboken, N.J.'s finest. [No. 150, p.62]

Wainwright shows that his pop legs, while shaky, haven't lost their footing. [No.87 p.60]

The songs on The Repulsion Box sound like they were banged out in the underlit kitchen of a crumbling Appalachian cabin. [#69, p.108]

The Orb's relentless, yet somehow unaggressive dance beats have a timeless quality that endures beyond any specific electronic trends, and its muse remains undamaged by time and space. [No. 122, p.59]

Bonar sings with a bright pop voice that creates a startling contrast to her dark, disturbing tales. [No. 134, p.55]

On first listen, For The Season is pleasantly trippy. Listen closely, however, and it seems rather patchy. [#70, p.100]

A better-than-average Sonic Youth album. [#64, p.106]

While the song remains beautifully, remarkably, the same, it's getting harder to like. [#55, p.72]

The five tracks never end far from where they begin, but they're also forever shifting. [No. 103, p.53]

Its songs rest at the tipping point between melodic and atonal without seeming like middle-of-the-post-punk-road accords struck between dissenting intraband camps. [#68, p.106]

There's something undeniably mechanical about Room On Fire. [#61, p.107]

Take it all in, and you'll be carried away. [No. 111, p.59]

What elevates Meridian above the throngs of similar abstract, mod-synth ambient records are the same sensibilities that carried albums like Dreamless Sleep, even if the tools are different this time around. Tracks that, for the most part, sound formless--never careless. [No. 121, p.53]

So Pitted is constantly poking and prodding at its audience with a wicked glee and demented smile. [No. 128, p.61]

Most of these 10 songs in 40 minutes are lovely, peaking on one of her sexiest tunes, crunchy wedding toast "Love U 4ever." [No. 111, p.51]

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

[Neko] Case misses Carrier, and it her. [No. 102, p.55]

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]

If you want to hear him reconciling the roots of his music with a future he hasn't found yet, this is the next fearless step into the future. [No. 159, p.61]

Gangster Star features a much stronger single (the idyllic "Shine A Light"), while Jealous Machines waders a bit further into the narrative forest. [No. 144, p.59]

A wonderful rumination on late nights, leaving home and self-medicating. [No.92 p.54]

Autumn is as solid an effort as any in its catalog. [No. 135, p.

It's a wonderful-sounding record, too, lushly textured... and one that demands to be played at full volume. [No.85 p.61]

Could be a Tortoise record with vocals. [#57, p.81]

Through the first three songs, Confessions sounds for all the world like the masterpiece John Wesley Harding has seemed unwilling to make throughout the detours and bypasses his career has taken since his magnificent 1990 debut.... Unfortunately, he has a difficult time reaching those heights again. [#47, p.97]

File with the rest of your King Khan records under "readily accessible." [No. 148, p.59]

Even second-tier tunes (by comparison)--like the silly "I Love Kangaroos"--are indelible. [No. 150, p.54]

Overseas hits all the soft spots of longtime fans, while cohering easily into a new and striking whole. [No. 100, p.57]

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

Gelb's voice remains sweet as sandpaper, setting a tone that's elegiac, lyrical and lovingly enigmatic. [No. 104, p.55]