And Never Ending Nights may be Willner's most fully realized expression in an already impressive body of work.

Women present a fresh lo-fi landmark that sounds like it was made in your garage before getting packed-up for a Sunday picnic in the park--well fused, lads.

They pull from various sources and somehow manage to make them unrecognizable; the mélange of influences so rich and varied--changeable almost by the minute--they constantly keep you guessing.

Like their past work, subpar filler holds the album back. It’s worth joining them for the climb, just know that it’s going to be an uneven ascent.

Like so many posthumous releases, Infinite is a tricky record to critique. It’s not Mobb Deep’s strongest record, but given the circumstances, it is a triumph—and a fitting testament to their legacy.

On Flower Lane, Mondanile and the gang stepped out of the bedroom and into the studio, and the result is something just as sterile as every other song by Real Estate.

It's short but manages to feel long. It's interesting but manages to feel dull.

Even though King Of The Beach marks a dramatic step forward in Williams' abilities as a songwriter, he's still the same lonely dude that can't keep his friends, can't get a girl, and can't catch a break. Except it seems like maybe this time he finally has.

The third LP from Jessie Ware sees her bring her diva mode to the forefront of her sound, but the lack of the scarcity and minimalism that saw her emerge at the turn of the decade results in the finished product lacking the effectiveness of her earlier work.

Smith doesn’t make any compromises to make things any more agreeable--in fact, the album’s bloated runtime and cogent lyrical content makes it a somewhat weary listen that rewards more when taken in short, sporadic sessions.

As well crafted and fascinatingly acute as Enemy Mine is, it lives in an alternate reality: a place where too much need be forgotten in order to grant Enemy Mine what it would otherwise deserve.

It’s got a great list of guest vocalists, too, and it feels like each one has been recruited as a result of careful consideration. If there is a criticism, it’s that it’s a disjointed record that sometimes feels like Steadman focuses more on showing off his preferences than his own soul, but it sounds delicious either way.

While The Camel’s Back demonstrates a clear progression in Psapp’s worth as songwriters and musicians, it becomes easy to ignore what they accomplish creatively as the ears only pick up on its “cuteness” factor.

Aside from Billie Joe’s willingness to open up on more troubling personal issues, of which he only hints, the majority of Revolution Radio is all sheen and no spark.

While there's no doubt that Port of Morrow is well crafted, then, it fails because it is ultimately unmoving, and what Mercer has gained in style and execution is overshadowed by the album's lack of either invention or sincerity.

Feels more like a steady progression than a revolutionary rebrand, with the accomplished songwriting impressing more than any sonic wizardry.

It’s the lyrics that truly standout.

In keeping it complex, shy and out of the ordinary, Broder has accomplished a composition of delicate and post-modern-day-genius proportions.

Dear John is a definite step in the right direction.

That lack of restraint, of wanting to offer moments of merriment through straightforward movements, is not as revealing as it is expected, though Compassion is at its most gripping when it decides to go against the grain.

Much of Cobra Juicy finds itself operating more on the sensitive side of their distinct weirdness, with the album sporting some of the bands gentlest, breeziest, and most romantic sounding tracks yet.

The sparkling closer “Reverie” and the excellent “Butterfly” deserve special mention, but honestly, side B is uniformly strong. The tragedy of Ricochet is that it follows such a feeble side A.

It also formalizes some of the sensual spontaneity of Woman, as he puts forth a lavish, spotless output that also suffers from some seriously tasteless lyrical choices. On Blood, Rhye's fixation with style does get the best of him.

Considering how the lyrical content and flat as a rug singing in Weekends was written for an elementary school child to understand, they probably should've kept it that way; it occasionally downgrades the songs to a point where they are unable to rise above their cheesiness.

After The Disco deserves to be heard and delivers a truly pleasant listening experience, rousing even, when the hooks hit the spot. But--and perhaps this is what the duo insightfully intended when they gave the album its title--don’t expect a party.

The boys are in peak form in (Girl We Got A) Good Thing, a sauntering piano-led number that has this bubbling, dumb-is-more-fun David Lee Roth attitude about it that could possibly cause one to shed a single, happy tear in its rousing finish. The colorfully romantic Wind in Our Sail is also typically gleeful, detailing a cute meet alongside one of the band’s most memorable choruses since Pork and Beans.

It's endlessly fascinating... [However] the album occasionally com[es] across as wilfully obtuse.

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.

Cloak and Cipher is unpretentious in every respect, escalating their previous subtleties with furious, transcendent melancholic moments. While many Canadian bands find themselves teetering on the edge after much premature praise, it comes as a pleasant surprise that Land of Talk keep getting better.

Largely, the band’s turn from paradoxically sweet Goth-pop to the more treaded territory jangle-pop works against them.

It’s dark and joyous at the same time, fun and epic sounding enough to seem meaningful, despite my inability to make out most of the lyrics.

Quality control has never been A$AP Rocky’s strong suit, but he remains a highly capable rapper, with a smooth, easy-to-appreciate flow. .... Rescue the highlights and move on.

If this was a band’s debut album, it would be a nice, pleasant first shot. But with the knowledge of what came before, too much of it sounds toothless or neutered.

Cut Copy are back, and back with enough danceable synth-pop to flatten the sensitive Bombay Bicycle Club member in all of us - but only just enough.

Despite the promising influences and the strong pedigree, essentially all that Blanck Mass offers is a distorted, unusual take on new age music, and while interesting in small doses, it makes for a long, repetitive slog over the course of an hour.

By mixing in a few lighter moments amongst all the dark the band do give the impression that they are on the way to becoming something quite special, but they still need to consider letting in a little more colour and variety into their songs before they can achieve this potential.

The big thrills come so fast it almost feels like a blur, only equaled to the ravished excitement of making a score on a big night. It’ll knock you senseless, possibly bankrupt, until the urge comes back in full force.

Skeletal Lamping is the brain dump of a troubled psyche, and you shouldn’t feel too bad if you ultimately don’t get it. I don’t think you’re supposed to.

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.

The album clearly bounces back and forth between those moments of emotional annihilation and utter hope and optimism. But more than that, with those tracks book-ending the effort, the record's most basic motif is clear: even as lords of rock, the men of R.E.M. still struggle daily with their own issues and the standards of the world, but welcome the battle with ever-glowing smiles.

Broken Bells is clearly a mood record, but even with so many textures, resources and talent, it all hits one stilted note. Either this is an indicator of where the temporarily Shin-less Mercer is headed or its little more than a curious footnote on his and Burton's careers.

As a title, Wonder Where We Land couldn’t be more appropriate. The answer is somewhere safe, both viable and habitable, but lacking in exhilaration and wonder.

The Crystal Antlers’ debut is a flesh-fattened cloud prowler emanating a strange, jilted tenderness, a record whose devastating expressive weight is amplified, not obscured, by its deranged, frayed-edge make-up.

It’s catchy, it’s energetic, and it makes you move--all plusses in my book. That said, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a record that sounds so much like everything else.

As usual the songs are superbly crafted, and very well-executed.

So, this may be Sic Alps' best album to date.

Whilst the majority of Stygian Stride is an abstract pulsing mass, beneath there is a narrative that draws the listener through an intense display without losing purpose.

Kindred’s arrangements are a heap of disjointed sound fragments glued into a form that exists solely to support the glossy veneer.

Some of the clever songwriting is still intact and that rescues an otherwise middle of the road affair.

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.

Jamie Woon has dropped a second LP every bit as captivating as his first, and it’s hard to find any faults with this piece of work. Sumptuously slick, and with the humidity of a tropical locale. Make sure you make time for Making Time.

Despite the occasional flashes of brilliance, Codes and Keys often feels like a half assed attempt at innovation.

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.

It’s all meticulously crafted, but thanks to an easygoing dynamic, each track sounds somehow breezy and nonchalant.

It sees the Cumbrian exiles embracing their maturity and demonstrating restraint, without scrimping on the songs.

In all, ERAAS, though fully invested in the possibilities of their vacuum and their vocal prowess, are at their best when the instruments can breathe.

Little Joy makes for a fine, self-contained little album.

This album displays the band at an absolute low-point in their career.

It sounds like good musicians doing a rush job, kind of like Blood on the Tracks without the spellbinding genius.

Sometimes the beats will have an extra kick to them, or the song structures will change up, but the keyboard tone is the same throughout the record. It walks a very fine line between intriguing and boring, and frequently drifts between the two.

Of all releases, their latest is the most cohesive, lucid, and interpretable.

These Are Powers are trying to find their way while building their form as formless as possible.

While I can appreciate their longevity, ironic style and pureness in their sound, I can't admit that this was enjoyable for me.

For Fanfarlo, this is a follow-up that does all that it needs to do. It keeps us critics and fans happy with a healthy balance of familiarity and expansion.

It's [their] mastery of one's musical landscape, both sonically and psychologically, that makes Beak>'s take on krautrock so poignantly effective, with >> possessing the ability to lure in both fans and newcomers to the genre into its paranoia-fraught world of distress.

Quaristice can occasionally be on the sloggish side. However, there's a lot to admire in such a brazen display of accomplishment, and, while it may not be looking to court the most gushing of affection, this will undoubtedly prove to be one of '08's most singular releases.

Devil Music sounds like a compilation of unpolished ideas taken from scrapped recording sessions, and though it highlights The Men at their best it also portrays them as lazy underachievers. And they’re too smart to be labeled as such.

Port Entropy finds Tokumaru-san at his most confident, but without the apprehensiveness apparent in the past albums, the tracks seem two-dimensional.

When this EP gets it right, it is a triumphant nod to Dear's versatile ear, but when it settles for being weird for the sake of it, it's simply messy.

I remember listening to the new songs and really enjoying them, but wishing the sound wasn’t so thick and muddy sounding. It’s a production problem that plagues this album all over.

Wrong Creatures is an impeccably produced record that will undoubtedly appeal to any devout Black Rebel Motorcycle Club listener. Every charging, hard rock guitar and squelching feedback strikes with a sharpness that does not come at the price of distortion. Still, the marked contrasts in Creatures give the impression that Black Rebel Motorcycle Club were aiming for a sweeping, meticulously-layered force of Be Here Now-like proportions.

I Can Wonder is not really a success musically, but it is worth recommending at least for the ideas that work.

While these tracks may not have made the cut, some strong melodies and ideas make this release worth the listen.

Take this album to your heart and cherish it as the sweet, accomplished, and skilfully made, underappreciated little gem that it is

The Strokes have managed to culture a great sense of the schizophrenic on Angles, mapping polar tones in tandem to produce a record that feels both confused and entirely deliberate.

When it closes with the eerie, smoky gospel influenced Youlagy, you know it’s fantastic and you know you’ve found the most breathtakingly beautiful album this year.

The direction they took this time around is more scattershot than usual, amplified with generosity, but hopefully these new ideas will guide them to a more focused and inventive pursuit.

The tracks highlighting Vik are showstoppers as usual, and his dominate wordplay only reiterates why others should drop the mic when any of DOOM’s personas enter the booth.

As with any album that features epic, largely instrumental tracks, pacing is paramount, and Sleepy Sun does an excellent job breaking up the Goliath tracks with hit-and-runs like Red/Black and with some lovely acoustic numbers.

Flash-forward to two years later and we get One Second of Love, which finds Gonzalez maturing into a graceful songstress without entirely abandoning what inspired her in the first place.

The power of this album comes from the mystifyingly cohesive blend of piano ballads, orchestral choirs, heavy metal, and completely danceable electronic.

It’s easy to commend this album on the sole basis that despite coating his tracks with an incomprehensible amount of tripped-out trickery, Toro Y Moi still branches out into less protected songwriting.

Born This Way sufficient for Gaga to retain her crown? Probably, but only just. It lacks the overall quality of Robyn's Body Talk or the stand-out singles of Rihanna's Loud, yet it's still packed with hooks, killer choruses and unexpected twists.

An absolute beauty of an album.

Respectably, Sun Airway do constantly challenge themselves by taking the unexplored route of achieving sturdy compositions through electronic textures, especially in a time when house and nu-rave are fast becoming indie's current electronic touchstones.

The hastiness and outlandishness of the swerving soundscapes are the album’s strengths and it’s weaknesses, simultaneously keeping a listener enticed and running them ragged. Such zeal keeps Krohn’s final destination on the horizon, just out of reach.

Ultimately, the project is still a little lightweight, if not a solid effort.

Champ sees Tokyo Police Club with a firmer grip on their sound, their vision, and their conquest; and although not destroying expectations, it makes good on a lot of the promises their earliest work showed off.

Fading Parade may be trodden down, and it does meander on too much diffidence to make it readily distinguishable. It is also a pleasant lull, prepped with a rich gamut of melodic rewards.

Gutter Rainbows instead hovers between a mainstream and an indie vibe, embracing neither and potentially isolating both audiences.

What I am saying is that the songs on this EP already feel old, excavated from the self-titled record and surgically removed from the romanticized 80s.

One or two irritations apart, Teleman have created something on a shoestring budget that intrigues enough to demand attention; there’s a way to go before they explode but Breakfast certainly represents a solid start.

Mirror Mirror may be easier to admire, or more likely be creeped out by, than to love, but it marks an interesting turning point for Sons and Daughters, suggesting either that they've come to terms with the fact that they'll never be particularly successful and so are now happy to push themselves into darker territory, or that they're struggling and this may be their last gasp.

So in a sense the imperfections are actually its perfections because it represents E’s state of mind purely: his every whimsical thought, his waking up and not knowing how he’s going to feel that day and his whole-hearted honesty to allow every fucking shred of it be put to record because he has the audacity, intensity and conviction to do so.

What’s most apparent on this record is that despite having a fairly eclectic approach to creating a pop song, and cooking up the occasionally psych-y moment to epic-ify the songs, if there’s one emphasis on here, it’s on great melodies.

This is not for all tastes. Slow, broody, experimental.

Communion is a very good album; it’s just a shame it’s been spread out over the space of two albums.

Tracer certainly makes a good attempt at being a strong electronic album, and there is still plenty of content here for big fans of both EDM and IDM music to enjoy. Unfortunately, Teengirl Fantasy still needs to learn how to incorporate more of themselves into their music.