The whole of it is too calculated, even if they occasionally hit the mark with an obvious attention to craft which, to be fair, certainly counts for something.

Hang appears as an album of ambition that outdoes itself so spectacularly that it appears as a jazzed up, Disney-esque caricature of its own end product.

It’s easy to make comparisons with contemporaries--namely the likes of Best Coast--but Stina Tweeddale and Cat Myers transfer so much personality to their tracks that a deeper, more lasting impression is given.

Minor quibbles aside (Set Me Free is a little over-wrought and clichéd), True Romance is a simply stunning record.

Algiers is immense, genuine, and, at times, heartbreakingly beautiful.

The tension they harbor throughout can sometimes feel a little too detached for its own good, but that doesn't take away from an otherwise nonlinear experience that has the potential to grow over time.

Blood Pressures is a compelling forty minutes, and by the time we reach the closer, Pots and Pans, with a slider and twelve bar riffs to accompany its sultry, resonant admissions, you can barely imagine them any other way.

The result is an album that humanizes the machine and peels back a layer from Albarn's life while adding more to the music.

From the fuzzy way-wah bridge of Serve the Song to the soft and gentle swing of Holding Patterns, the band is taking great strides in diversifying their musical palette even if it primarily coalesces and not expands on their established personalities.

In many ways, What Do You Think… is a perfectly teenage album; it’s smart and it’s naive, it’s funny and it’s bleak, and, most importantly, it understands the appeal of pop while being frustrated at the apolitical landscape in which it exists.

As it stands, the best that could be said about Ceremonials is that it's a pleasant enough listen that will change absolutely nobody's mind about Florence and her machine.

Transit Transit justly follows the digitalized distortion their debut paved, keeping a decidedly drab mood that permeates throughout the entire production.

Dr. Dog's best effort yet.

It’s still haunting, and it’s still beautiful. It’s like a soundtrack to exploring some abandoned, centuries-old mansion in the middle of a desert, now filled with ghosts, lost memories, and cobwebs weaved around expensive furniture.

With all its shallowness and artifice, it can only ever be a guilty pleasure. But it is the most intense of guilty pleasures.

This brand of thoughtful ambient music is certainly not for everyone, but those willing to take the plunge may just come away surprised. After all, being perhaps too original and ambitious is often better than being trite and derivative.

At first, it’s a bit off-putting how much Mulcahy has extended his reach, also considering its numerous shapeshifting vocal qualities, but once you recalibrate your expectations you’re left with an album that bravely looks ahead. It’s a fond return riddled with unbounded creativity, and could very well be his definitive statement.

They've just released their second very good album, Hera Ma Nono, and the collaboration is still positive and unforced.

It's exciting in its pacing, invigorated in its writing, and illustrious in its instrumentation. It's not mad - nor, indeed, prairie-mad - to think that this is an early contender for album of the year lists.

As a collection of odds and ends, No One’s First… is a necessarily disjointed album. It’s alternately disappointingly simple and refreshingly unique from song to song, torn between country, radio rock and classic Modest Mouse.

Joyce Manor takes another assured step which reinforces their viewpoints, not their maturity, with finesse, and those who still think otherwise haven't been paying enough attention.

Their versatility and ability to channel some of the genuine peaks of the paradigm into their sound is a huge strength, and while it doesn’t break the mould or reinvent the wheel, Love in the 4th Dimension is a very impressive debut.

At once droll and melancholic, Cigarettes After Sex struggles to earn the aural beauty it desperately seeks.

IV is impeccably produced, one that tailors even the finest details with a delicate brush; even when it disappoints it’s still a joy to listen to since every instrument is mixed to perfection.

With just a bit more of a push, Centipede Hz could have been something truly special, but as it stands, it's a portrait of growing up that is wonderfully vivid but a tad unfulfilling, a collection of tracks boasting some remarkable tunes and a complex theme, and an album that is bound to satisfy both hardcore and casual fans.

The Rhumb Line is at times moody and downtrodden, but it's Ra Ra Riot's ability to pull out of those situations that saves the album.

Turner’s defense mechanisms are as honed and as vicious as his rather formidable bullshit detector has proven to be in albums past, and whatever Humbug lacks in middle fingers, or even thematic continuity, it makes up for with sinister gazes and scathing ambiguities.

There are some nice elements here: the vocals and vocal harmonies are reasonably solid, but they're trapped underneath layers of, well, noise.

It'd be a stretch to tag them as soul revivalists, but there's no denying these combustible pop tunes are still 26 of the most promising minutes you'll hear all year.

No holds barred, and no pitch-correction in sight, the tracks of 200 Million Thousand shine like diamonds in the rough, warts-and-all.

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.

The intensity of its stylistic approach leaves it feeling nothing short of a musical dissertation as it side-steps melodies, bridges and verses from the get-go.

For all [the album's] obvious flaws, none of it seems to matter. When you hear that guitar soar, those rhythms pulse, and that voice cry out, you want to keep listening, for all 47 minutes. And when they're over, you want to do it again.

It’s a glorious mess of a record, reaching for everything at once, and hitting most of it.

The lethargic energy of 'Come Down' precedes the smartly sequenced title track and country twanged 'And I Thank You,' Outside Love’s duel highpoints the perfect culmination of its previous output.

Nielson is comfortable enough in his own songwriting to settle into airtight grooves--with the assistance of the clattering, shifty drums from his brother--and allow them to simmer for a few golden moments. His guitar playing is sensational, and his use of warping effects to achieve the right mix of tightness and sensitivity gets better with each UMO record.

There's nothing particularly grating about their gentle, country-pop stylings—most of which deal with themes such as nature, gratitude, and fleeting time. And these are all worthy topics to explore—except that every song sounds so gosh darn wholesome that it's as if they discourage against any deeper introspection.

Whereas I don’t necessarily believe it a step above the Mystery EP, still ably showcases the talents of BLK JKS, their world-influenced musical hybrid a unique presence in an industry dangerously close to being oversaturated with no longer distinctive hipsters spouting tra la la’s.

The end result is a very ambitious piece of psychedelia-tinged indie rock that rewards patience with some truly inspired tweaks on the typical slow-jam formula.

EXPO never sounds fragmented. .... But at the core of the album’s sequencing lies a sense of formalism that, while surely freeing for a band with a penchant for taking risks, loses some emotional impact.

Side projects rarely eclipse their protagonists’ main works, but Apropa’t is one radical departure that finds the players perfectly aligning themselves to each other so convincingly that it’s hard to imagine Herren looking back again.

They write some good tunes, and they have some appropriately strident abuse for lyrics. But there’s not enough for an album.

Floating gracefully, and guided by a stylish demigod of his own imagining, he glides atop the current of the zeitgeist as globalized and immediately accessible as the modern urban hub he calls home.

Write About Love may not be a great leap forward for Belle and Sebastian, but it's such an enjoyable record it's difficult to hold it against them.

The album is at its most successful when Lanegan allows these alien textures [electronics, atmospheric guitar] to take a more prominent role in his songs, providing a counterfoil to his gravelly rock vocals. Elsewhere the songs meander too much for the album to coalesce into a convincing statement.

I am left with the impression that Corona's vision far exceeded his brief, producing a collection of serious abstract mood pieces that conjure up dark visions of Paris. Whether this is a release long-standing Murcof fans will cherish and return to however, is rather another question.

Callahan continues to be a nature's poet, painting his imagery with the most carefully detailed observations of the everyday.

Despite the amount of effort that appears at the surface, from the several websites to the layered and unique production, Dreamland is a project that’s as momentarily annoying as it is infinitely forgettable.

Acid Tongue is fuller and has more of a ragged, live-band feel than any of Lewis’ previous work.

With ambition and expectation clearly larger than its execution, (K)no(W)here relies too heavily on its “concept” to drive itself, music being its afterthought and, ultimately, its title only communicates its direction.

The songwriting does suffer as a result of their walloping, impatient joy, but as Spielbergs prove, some instant gratification is always called for.

Some of the arrangements stick, and some of them don't, but it's always enjoyable to hear where his open-ended narratives take you.

The Menzingers established themselves as a group interested in moving forward—even if they wrote about those high school days. Hello Exile fails to follow through on that promise.

Sucker is a one-two punch of wit and grit, as irreverently bratty as the lollipop Charli holds on the cover yet never impersonal, perfunctory, or insincere.

By stripping everything back, it often ends up just being a distillation of their sound. The songs are familiar but frustratingly lack any colour or character.

Molina and Johnson proves to be inessential listening for fans of either artist, but should prove suitable listening for those of us who want a mild-mannered soundtrack to our lamentations of modern city life.

Expo 86 emphasizes the fact that novel beginnings are meant to prosper whilst winking at the past from time to time.

The album sounds familiar far too quickly. [But] when Interstellar hits, however, it hits hard.

Definitely mysterious, but the songs on this record are obvious when it comes to the Concretes’ influences.

Each track in its own right has nothing inherently wrong with it, but put eleven of them together and it’s all a little one-dimensional.

This album simply lacks the impact that Vanderslice's trademark sound usually packs in abundance. The bare bones of his usually excellent songwriting are there, but it's more constrained by the orchestration than set free.

Magazine manage to retrace where they left off, rediscover their intricacies and do an excellent job at defining themselves for, what one can only hope will be, new generations of listeners.

Despite its moments of lucid release, Minor Victories mostly likes to loom in the shadows with hardly any form at all.

At his best, Walsch’s lyricism threads the line between clichés and anecdotal details with ease. There are exceptions to this, as Hesitation captures the curdling of a long-distance relationship superbly. It might be his best set of lyrics. It’s a disappointment that it’s situated between a handful of bored, washed-out emo tunes that hold I Won’t Care How You Remember Me down.

As it stands, Sunlight Echoes is a solid entry in the shoegaze canon, but its innate politeness prevents it from truly standing out in a packed field.

It is a meaningless shell of a record with few, if any, redeeming features.

These songs are all, for the most part, perfectly adequate, but we've heard better and stronger songs from Sadier before. It's not so much a sucker punch as a blunt disappointment from an artist who we know can do so much better.

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.

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.

Please Be Mine is a charming record that remains engaging and consistently pleasant, but you have to feel that there’s another gear in Molly Burch’s engine-room that could get the most out of her prodigious talent.

There are times when their elementary to songwriting can make them look as if they’re stuck in their teenage angst, which is expected considering their genuinely fun play on nostalgia is quite detrimental to their brand. But the tunes do stack up, and when it’s delivered with this much conviction, that’s reason enough to rekindle that loyal, longstanding friendship with their most ardent fans.

The songwriting here isn’t just adding superficial layers to Matsson’s previous sound, it’s a step forward in style. So while that may make the album his most pleasing first listen, the dulling of the edges of his previous work keep it from being one of the more memorable.

There may be nothing exactly wrong with Good Arrows as a record, and I’m sure that in a different time and situation it would be considered a respectable if shallow pop record.

With no track here surpassing the 3 1/2 minute mark, the band firmly anchors the key components of their sound with a tight, steady grip.

On their latest album, The New Abnormal, The Strokes have mirrored the career of Beck, offering a mimetic approximation of music they think people want, instead of music generated from their raw, inner demons or whatever fueled them on Is This It.

They work best when under the restraints of a three-minute pop song, resolute to achieving guitar resonance in a compact framework.

A lot has happened in 10 years, but DFA’s approach to making ferocious music certainly hasn’t.

Some good ol', serviceable rock ' roll always goes down easy, but with The Hold Steady, we know they're capable of so much more.

Weezer’s maddeningly inane lyrics sometimes work, but they aren’t doing much to move the needle here. At least the album sounds nice, as that’s more than you could say for plenty of previous albums from Cuomo and the gang. We might as well enjoy it.

Ensemble Pearl is an album of perpetual drift, expanding upon the defining characteristics of droning or ambient music.

Unsurprisingly Heartbreak is a grower. At first it does sound minimalist and sparse but the album is layered with delicacy and marked with a maturity.

Their latest, the duo remain steadfast to that commitment with creamy, dancefloor-ready techno (Happy People, Will-o-the-wisp)—joyously documenting the anticipation before a night out.

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

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

As Arrow progresses, we get a clearer sense of how she's beginning to understand what she seeks. And though we're never exactly sure what it is, her music leads us to a full conclusion.

Not everything works in Love Chant. He tries to sound self-serious with his stream-of-consciousness rambling on “Marauders,” but instead, comes across as artfully silly. Still, it’s just one of the many fun detours that Dando takes throughout the album, one whose existence—given his history of substance dependency—feels like a small miracle in itself.

It sounds like this would all blow over like a weird, twitchy blur, but Quarterbacks’ hooks and songwriting chops are so incredibly tight and catchy that each moment feels like its own accomplished statement, despite typically only having a few seconds to prove this.

If Thirstier was a declaration of love from the rooftops, What an Enormous Room is the relief of a serene evening in her partner’s arms.

It needs a more tangible emotional charge. What it most sorely lacks is spontaneity.

Ultimately, this is what more bands should be striving to achieve: to thrill us, inspire us and confuse us - often all at the same time; to utiliize technology for the betterment of the whole rather than for technologies sake; and to allow multiple talents to merge and shine without a sense of the intrusion of personal ego.

It's easy to see how the impact of this sort of music might be lost on record, but White Hills put their studio to great use here, proving they can sound both impressively cohesive and totally baked.

Though Cues features some of their most accomplished songs yet, their eagerness to please both sides (not to mention a woeful Beck cameo on the dub-reggae fusion of Night Running) make for a sometimes coldly calculating listen.

Now seven albums deep into their career, Liars remain a lasting and distinguished presence, one that continues to question the confinement of genre and fashions their identity around a refusal to do so.

It is essentially indie-folk by numbers, with a nervy wistfulness and soft-hued canvas, but its aching beauty prevents the record from stifling a listener with its persistent translucence.

Of course the question arises: is Rome the greatest thing 2011 will offer? Hardly. Nevertheless, I'll vouch to name it the most ambitious album of the year.

Dignity and Shame is just another day in the world-weary lovelorn characters that Bachmann has so vividly brought to life for the past five years with his Crooked Fingers entourage.

While the production is as fresh and exciting as you're likely to see anywhere in hip-hop right now, lyrically it's a regression to less enlightened times.

Quit the Curse is consistently hooky and elegant, and though it slumps with a few lax, jangly rhythms, it’s nothing less than a pleasant stay to her sighing thoughts and apprehensions.