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.

By the end of this beautiful, relatable record, Savage has proven again why she’s one of the most exciting voices in music today, able to meld her unique stylings with a cathartic core. It’s an album you’ll return to again and again, finding new layers or lyrics on each listen.

Granted, this is no masterpiece, but it’s quite good and very often it is even compelling.

Shortcomings are well disguised, and even when they are exposed, the originality of Papini's storytelling is enough to keep the ears alert for several listens.

There's plenty of material worth diving into on this album, but the results could have been much, much stronger.

SASAMI is a promising debut by an artist who’s been part of the scene for years but has now started down a path on her own. With a gift for confessional lyrics, a dusky, atmospheric touch and an outside-the-box mindset, Ashworth has more than proven that this is the time for her to step into the spotlight.

Romance Is Boring is fun, knowing, astute, energetic and packed with vignettes of youth and love lost.

Sound Kapital, with its concise length and sound quality (omit none of these songs), should be the flagship for such a shift. Spencer Krug should take note.

Perhaps the most rousingly, entertainingly, ridiculously dumb record that 2013 will have to offer.

The 20/20 Experience is an absolutely delicious guilty pleasure.

As dedicated as he is to forming these characters into life-size beings, it doesn't change the fact that some are less interesting than others due to a lack of personification.