While this leap into the big leagues proves that he’s still very much a rare talent, it unfortunately seems that genuine inspiration is even rarer.

It quickly veers into a curious stream of whim with their most alienating, and unfortunately, their most characterless yet--they deliver an onslaught of acrimonious synths in the post-apocalyptic, jazz-tinged Mystery Disease, while Cool Song No. 2 shamelessly takes a page out of the Can playbook with its grimy, overcompressed effects.

Imperium is more homage than innovation, and while it further preserves the integrity of early indie rock, it only hints that Blouse is more than a revival act.

Crystal Stilts won’t be winning many new listeners with Nature Noir but that won’t matter to the band’s fanbase, as another album comparable to their previous work has been created, albeit with an improvement on the production side.

Janelle Monáe has not simply lived up to our expectations here; she has shattered them, delivering a confident, creative, and enormously entertaining record that marginally betters her sublime debut.

It is a solid and dependable album, sure of its own purpose yet ready to complement those poignant moments when all that seems to be missing is a cue for the dramatic music to start.

There’s no denying that the elements that make up Nobody knows. are profoundly captivating, from the album's rich sonic detail to Beal’s reliably powerhouse vocals and personality. But as refined as these elements are, they still don’t quite add up to make the excellent record that many of us are still waiting for Beal to finally make.

Buckner’s songwriting, both in the arrangements and vocals, is laser-focused on the development and exploration of his scorched-earth aesthetic. Together, they project it with grace, refinement, and skill.

While not his best album, Hesitation Marks shows that he has no intention to fall back on old formulas.

It’s never a bad record, or even less than listenable--the individuals behind it have more than enough good taste and sense for that to happen--but it is a mildly disappointing one, considering the sheer potential of those early releases.

It’s well done, fun to listen to, and a damn sight better than 90% of other pop music right now, yet you couldn’t really describe it as essential.

This is perfection from a band at the absolute top of their game, but this by no means implies that they’ve peaked.

On this, her latest and most emotionally charged album, she's managed to create a painful outpouring of honesty, one that strikes that coveted balance of both melodic and lyrical expression; her message is equally powerful from each direction.

Chelsea Wolfe captured the essence of the album title eloquently, succeeding in making an album that is frighteningly honest, poignant, and graceful.

There’s still much celebration to be had in Carrier; they just channel it in a way that’s not expected of them.

Drenge’s debut is excellent, and it will no doubt have you appropriately ‘drenged’.

Though Out Getting Ribs already gave us little reason to underestimate him, 6 Feet Beneath the Moon holds up as the kind of statement to truly brag about--a debut that’s masterfully crafted, reasonably ambitious, and, more importantly, exists as a truly unique statement.

The resulting album feels fresh and contemporary--as much as any new young guitar band around today--and not at all a retro step.

That they somehow manage to fit together to seemingly describe an entire world makes Engravings something of a minor (key) marvel.

It’s a loud, raucous affair for sure, but as much power and aggression Pop. 1280 can inject into each and every track they create, it can’t distract from the fact that Imps of Perversion is a muddled, frustrating affair, and it’s clear that Pop. 1280 still have ways to go when it comes to developing their sound.

By the end of the album, the technical ability of Hindman and the lyricism of Versprille feel exhausted, gargled, and outsized by the very same influences that they try to honor in their thoroughly hackneyed attention to 80s Cocteau Twins-inspired rock.

Despite being nothing original, Crimes of Passion comes off a good rehashing of the genre, making you rethink what Jesus and The Mary Chain's Just Like Honey really meant.

Interestingly enough, Where You Stand may be the first Travis record that snugs comfortably into an adult contemporary format.

Even though there aren’t any forcible tracks or extreme depth to this album, it captures an experience that should be played out entirely.

Where The Heaven Are We is a solid start for B-Town’s latest export, and when considered the almost fainéant construction, there’s probably a lot more to come from this lot.

Whirr crafts their own mold out of their influences, and, with an effort that feels grand and mesmerizing as it does dreary and bleak, Around hits the nail on the head and all those long lost sentiments of not having a shoegaze band to get behind seem to dissipate.

It’s more of an unconscious escape hatch that Lynch has constructed with intangible aural elements--a fantasy place that he allows us to walk around in for a while until we are forced back into the realm of the painfully awake.

It sounds like a labor of love through and through, and its painstaking process of development only augments a desire for something exclusive. In all accounts, your satisfaction is most certainly guaranteed.

Like Grouper before her, she’s wonderful at exploring those liminal spaces, washing over and subtly overwhelming you.

Pond constantly struggle to find a balance between prog, classic yuppie rock and psychedelia in Hobo Rocket, cramming a cheat sheet of tired rock trappings and psychedelic clichés that were already fatigued even before corporate rock detoxified its very essence.

If we could compare each of Fuck Button’s works some sort of dazzling spectacle, whether it be a firework display, a meteor shower, falling in love, or something of the like, than Slow Focus makes a strong case for being their most brilliant event yet.

Most of the songs on In A Warzone are full of energy, and it’s hard not to get swept up in the slimmed down punk rock that the album delivers with gusto. However, there is definitely a point where they start to sound very similar.

With Jinx, we get to see a promising band push their sound outward and gracefully mature, even if it doesn’t always floor you as immediately as some of Sports’ loudest moment do.

Circumambulation practically evades any trace of sheen that was found on their two previous efforts. The differences are minimal but not predictable, lying somewhere between sludgy stoner metal and expansive, yet acute rhythmic precision; it’s their ability to never stand on solid ground that elevates their caliginous mid-tempo tunes.

You may well have to look elsewhere for music that will one day remind you of 2013, but this is still a great, brief blast of noisy, off-kilter rock; a consistent debut which sounds better each time you hear it.

Yes, it’s been done before, but as much as there is to nitpick, there’s just as much to revel in.

Me Moan is a challenging effort that rewards as much as it confounds, and really doesn’t bring us anywhere closer to understanding Gibson’s true guise.

So while it’s worth checking out, DVA lacks any real core.

While the music might still be a bit detached and remote, the more collaborative nature of this record does make it easier to meet half way, as does Stelmanis’ unerring sense of pop melody, and of when to drop a 4/4 beat for maximum effect.

Kveikur is a strong album, one with no low-lights and an intriguing progression of sound.

What we have here is an album’s worth of incredibly passive, indifferent music-making.

Between the two, disc 1 is more memorable than its counterpart, but together they still form a fascinating insight into one of the foremost production talents operating on our shores today.

Even if they’re slow in the uptake, and a cursory listen will only reinforce them as makeshift compositions, the tuneful nature of the album begins to flourish with repeated spins.

For Long Way Down is an album that, while often samey and, in the grand scheme of things, says next to nothing, heralds the arrival of a highly talented artist.

Soft Will won’t enter the annals as album of the decade, but it showcases the tools and talent to make it happen one day.

Tomorrow’s Harvest, the duo’s latest, is a perfect reminder of how well these two can bring their unique aesthetic to life through music.

There’s enough raucous obnoxiousness, not to mention effortless expert musicianship, in these eight tracks and thirty-five minutes to mark Melt Yourself Down out be the front-runner for not just that token Mercury nod, but the ironic moustache twiddling party album of the year.

It’s a dense, difficult listen, nigh impossible to compare to the rest of Kanye West’s work, and its rewards come slowly.

It is by far their most focused and polished album, and Danger Mouse makes sure that everything is sonically smooth (even if a few feel almost like Broken Bells b-sides).

While it undoubtedly holds some of the strongest songs of his career, it doesn’t entirely fulfill the promise of a conceptual framework.

It’s a solid record; put it on and forget it.

Sunbather needs not to be judged as black metal, post metal, or any other subgenre, but simply as heavy music--loud, visceral, beautiful heavy music.

Crawling Up The Stairs has strong riptides that have no qualms over carrying you away, but if you embrace them you may be pleasurably surprised.

While it would be remiss to question an artist’s chosen working methods, perhaps if Elizabeth hadn’t been quite so fiercely independent in its recording, and had had to compete with the usual unwanted distractions of the outside world, then Dancing might not have been just an impressively accomplished album, but a more striking, perhaps even outright essential one.

Any band that can turn over vocal duties as often as they hold onto them and somehow make all the music sound like their own is a band worth watching, and despite its inconsistency and even its lack of imagination, there are a lot of thrills to be had in this hour.

This is an album of average to good songs, with only a few highlights.

...Like Clockwork is easily the best release from the band since Songs for the Deaf.

Though it’s tough to get a sense of what exactly it is that’s causing all of this suffering, the details don’t seem so important in the end, as Drifters / Love Is the Devil is the sound of pure isolation and dread wrapped in one bleary, beautiful package.

There are two primary things that make Once I Was An Eagle take flight: Lyrics and progression, which together make the album intelligent, confident, and, perhaps most importantly, recursive.

The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here is up there with the best Alice in Chains albums, with each track a conquest of structure and composition.

Obsidian is a shallow and unsatisfying exploration of this dark side.

Campbell’s resplendent tone delights with the plaintive cry of classic torch singers; instead or feeling pity or sympathy, we’re now in the presence of a commanding performer who doesn’t have to sacrifice an inch of naiveté to make an impression.

Overall, One Kiss Ends It All is a little uneven but still an enjoyable piece of cosmic pop, and once you get past the occasional stutter, there is a lot to take from this one. If only every day could be Saturday.

What starts out as inviting, quickly becomes a bit irritating and ends up overwhelmingly draining and drab if tackled all at once.

As it is, Big Black Delta offers more than its fair share of thrills, but there’s the sense it could be so much better if Bates didn’t feel the need to draw the line quite so clearly between his various projects.

The album is stacked with jaw-dropping moments, underpinned by seismic emotional shifts.

The third chapter in She & Him’s discography won’t convert those who dislike the genre and it won’t alienate fans of it either.

Melodies swoop and soar, vocals are sweet and clear and some of the choruses are truly fantastic. However, its lasting impression is as an omnishambles of poor choices and awful skits and is, simply put, an absolute mess of an album.

This mind-expanding record will inspire a more inexpressible connection: you will carve your own niche within its deep and absorbing textures, and you will find new things upon every listen.

Slow Summits presents The Pastels at their most amiable, bearing the quiet, understated splendor of a picnic with friends on a warm Sunday morning.

This is The National’s 4th or 5th comfortably strong album in a row, another slight variation on a tried-and-true theme.

By utilizing a synth-based soundtrack just as organic, emotional, and unadulterated as Welsh’s voice and lyrics, Impersonator successfully matches man with machine and gives each an equally powerful, equally human voice.

With the amount of care and attention to detail found in tracks like Begin to Remember and Into Distance, it’s a shame that their more atmosphere-oriented tracks feel the least realized, coming off as throwaways in an otherwise structurally sound record.

What Daft Punk have done on Random Access Memories could be seen as a methodically curated, musical museum of the future, rather than a conservatory for experimental collaboration.

Boats has made something beautiful and invigorating at moments, while puzzling and slightly alienating at others.

Overall, its their most accessible, one whose highs are much more pronounced than its lows.

There’s a melancholic elegance in Amidon’s pieces that express nuanced forms of sadness, and as demonstrated in songs like Short Life and Pharaoh, sublime chamber arrangements spruce up those feelings of sorrow.

Silence Yourself is more than just this year’s best debut record so far and even more than one of the best records of any kind this year. It could be the closest post-punk has come to full-bodied artistry since Interpol took their own post-punk influences and gave us Turn On The Bright Lights all those years ago.

Modern Vampires of the City is nothing short of a pop music achievement, a standout album in a year full of standout albums.

he Way We Separate is an undoubtedly intimate and romantic synth pop album that, for better or worse, pulls no tricks on the listener.

It works because you can tell how much Pharaohs love house music, how much they seem to wish they’d been there back when it was taking off in the mid-80s.

MCII sounds much more concise and meticulously assembled than any of Segall's efforts.

Bottom line, this is a fun, solid output from !!!; a highly enjoyable trip with full cohesion, no true blunders, and at least three standouts on an album with only nine tracks.

While Ghost B.C. could certainly use a little added variety, both musically and lyrically (maybe Satan could sit out as lyricist for like five songs on their next record), there’s plenty here to admire.

As an initial barrage of sound, Weird Work can seem overpowering; but as we begin to divulge pockets of sense in the chaos.

Taken as a whole, Monomania is arguably their most imposing, and by far their most courageous, proving that Deerhunter have a frontman who’s willing to open up his soul to fit the demands of the stage.

What emerges is a fascinating, infinitely bleak break-up album, but one without the scope of Disintegration or the raw, intellectual power of Blood on the Tracks.

Because they write interesting but still enjoyable songs, as they do consistently on Change Becomes Us, they make their music worth coming back to again and again.

Blissfully addictive and dangerously catchy, Heza is most certainly one for the more bright and breezy of us this summer.

This is a pop record, and a great one at that. Hints of Elastica, Veruca, Republica, even Neko Case (isten to the country-inspired refrain on That Ain't Right) pepper this satisfying debut.

Good but not as good as you might think it is on a song-to-song basis, enjoyable but somewhat less memorable.

Twelve Reasons to Die doesn't quite carry the hefty weight of earlier works, but when those rank among the pinnacle of the genre, it’s not to be expected.

Conveniently, he’s premeditated every song in #willpower with a bevy of wishy-washy, quotable clichés that are meant to fit the space of 140 characters. Sadly, that's as deep as it gets.

The Thermals promised that their next album would be “loud, fast, incredibly scary and undeniably catchy.” The album we received, Desperate Ground, succeeds in most of these characteristics, but only at the bare minimum level.

Maybe it’s a struggle to really get your teeth into Mosquito because of the track listing; the three song dry patch after Mosquito is a huge problem considering the ease these days of being able to find something more interesting to listen to.

The truth is that No Joy is unadulterated, all-surrounding sound.

X’ed Out is unmarred by any narcissistic disposition, or pretentious or elitist demeanor, but it makes no creative sacrifice. Bravo.

Despite many good songs on this album, you will definitely get a sense that Depeche Mode is in a holding pattern.