Wuthering Heights is a competent, glossy synth-pop work, with a handful of soaring highs that are offset by a couple of duds.

Despite some missteps (sadly, a few egregious ones), Some Loud Thunder is successful in displaying the group’s breadth of talent and ideas.

Cheatahs doesn’t make any great claims of originality, and it certainly doesn’t break any new ground. It just succeeds because it is what it is.

Guero is a record with lots of great ideas and some very good songs... but I can't help thinking that there's just something missing from this release.

In their dramatic interplay they find their lust for perversion and compulsion, as if exploring the infinite degrees of their relationship with the same piquant allure of Gainsbourg and Birkin (albeit less warm and more interpersonally brittle).

Into the Waves is an invitation to float. The mature lyrics and vocal performances in conjunction with the flow of disco-like melodies makes you feel like you're walking the fine line between fantasy and reality. It's a lovely indulgence.

Smalhans won't be the most memorable record of the year, but that's partly because its great strength is its subtlety, which makes it constantly refreshing.

It’s mostly a collection of decent tunes, polished to a blinding sheen.

Even if you've learned to appreciate the methodology of music, or lack there of, there are moments when too much misdirection can make you feel lost instead of dazzled. Nonetheless, this quintet from Leeds deserves at least one very enthusiastic thumb up for this compilation.

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.

It's in how she alters her ghostly, choral-like voice that she's able to elevate her entire environment.

It’s conservative enough to satiate longtime fans, yet lovingly crafted to such a degree that it confuses you into thinking that its reached its full potential when it could've been so much more.

Purposefully ridiculous but brilliant.

Tracks like Nina and Part III give some motion to the album's swaying ebb and flow, while the intricate contours of Ghostride highlight how they craftily maneuver texture and groove. Nevertheless, there's also a hidden complexity behind Jinx's playful variations.

They've never let us down before, and they don't here, as frustrating as it is to hear the band fall just short of crafting something incredible. All the songs stand up, but the album loses steam and focus and begins to drag by the end of its 65 minute running time.

The cryptic nature of Moonshine Freeze impresses when at its uncompromising best, but it can occasionally underwhelm when she favors slimmer bare-bones arrangements. Still, these marked contradictions only reveal an artist who’s allowing herself to walk on a less purposeful path.

By the end of closer Thirsty Tulips, it should be no wonder that Mattimore is signed to Ghostly International, a traditionally electronic music label. She makes ambient music better than the music that most ambient musicians are putting out these days.

As far as the songs go, there’s not a bad apple in the bunch. And some, like Lavender and its wonderful one-note melody, or No Reason to Cry and its breezy vocals, are really terrific. But oooooh, the cheese in that sound.

OK, it’s a depressing mess, needlessly turning the existential dread-ometer up to 11. But hey, it’s got a nice tune and you can dance to it.

Beach Slang are well-aware that there are people out there who feel just as they do, and they reveal their allegiance through the power of a good ol’ rock song.

All in all, Instrumental Tourist offers more proof that these two are undisputed masters in their field, regardless of how necessary a collaborative effort like this really is anyway.

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

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

Granted, the band's debased, arhythmic songwriting sounds a little obnoxious, if deliberately so, but they sure know how to translate their disarray into compelling expressionist noise.

Even if 12 has its share of flaws, Sloan still manage to write one of their most proficient set of songs since 2008's faintly more exploratory Parallel Play.

While their more reflective and even pop-oriented moments keep the double album catchy and worth revisiting, this new avenue also affords a clearer view of Baroness' Achilles' heels, which are a propensity for predictable lyrics and an occasional Foo Fighter sappiness. But those flaws aren't terminal, and for the most part, Baroness takes us on a thunderous langskip ride through angry seas that is as addictive and thrilling as their past output.

Out in the Storm is perennially bright, with its melodies maintaining a serrated edge that ensures the sound remains robust, immersive and hard-hitting.

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.