Many of Morby's tunes sacrifice his twangy, down-home warmth. Luckily, both still write simple, timeless hooks.

King Animal doesn't sound like a nostalgia-fed cash grab, nor is it poisoned by the desperate commercialism of Cornell's post-Soundgarden projects.

It took me a few listens to accept the trance synth riffs that dominate, not to mention Alice Glass's increasingly melodic screeching, but the apocalyptic undertones are surprisingly effective with some sugar on top.

Themes of isolation and solipsism unfold musically as much as lyrically. Produced with help from Flaming Lips go-to guy Dave Fridmann, Lonerism surprises with layers of detail.

Listen to House Of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes Of Silence in one go and you'll find that the music remains impressive. If there's one quibble, it's that as Trilogy enters its second hour, Tesfaye's lyrical ambivalence begins to sound a bit one-note.

The band's heavy, high-octane assault gets an extra kick of power from MacNeil's throaty growl, making their third LP their most direct and pummelling yet.

Palmer seems intent on cramming as many ideas and textures into every song as she can, which is exciting at first but exhausting by the halfway point of an excessively long album.

Countless acts have shamelessly imitated the Velvet Underground, but DeMarco has come up with a new tweak to that formula, coming closer to a lighthearted Modern Lovers feel without sacrificing the edginess and darkness of the VU.

His best songs tap into the wistful-pop-anthem tradition by simultaneously exposing and celebrating the artifice of club culture.

Their method is simple and their personnel limited, yet they still throw in plenty of headphone-friendly psychedelia and jittery vocals.

There's a rich sense of open space and movement that feels close to dub reggae at times, which leaves plenty of room for LaVette in the foreground.

Azari & III's sound is less about chasing contemporary club trends than it is about summing up the last 30 years of underground dance music, so the album still sounds fresh.

Despite the production side's strengths, Two Eleven's themes and lyrics are ho-hum.

The result often sounds claustrophobic, though it's also much fuller than Soft Moon's earlier work.

By trying to please all demographics here, Clark gives little sense of who he is.

At times the album feels just a bit too airy, but it finds its footing when Jessie Stein's ghostly falsetto blends with the band's unique orchestral-psychedelic instrumentation more directly.

It helps that lead singer Tim Cohen is gifted with an expressive baritone that easily lends itself to any style the band tries on, but their subtly complex guitar rhythms and melodic hooks do just as much heavy lifting.

Lacking the jangly, well-crafted gems that made Morning Comes strong, the album sounds B-side-ish at times.

There's nothing terribly innovative going on here, but their unguarded passion is irresistible.

Lamar's invincible on good kid, and reveals just how deft his hand is.

The new textures suit singer Mark Sasso's gravelly voice and Days Into Years' historical themes, inspired in part by a visit to a World War I cemetery in France.

Psychedelic Pill is exactly the kind of noisy, joyfully loose and oddly hypnotizing guitar album we love Crazy Horse for.

Gorgeously inventive.

This album is their least messy and most consistent, but it hasn't left singer/songwriter Mike Donovan's slacker charm behind.

The Haunted Man is yearning, elegant pop music in line with the past year's best.

These are personal, contemporary story songs that centre on DeMent's signature plain delivery, the gospel-soul horn arrangements and the occasional wailed vocal

By finding the beauty in isolation, Efterklang have made their most triumphant record yet.

Lyrically, he's still clever but also much more direct, and there's greater impact because of it.

On this trippier, more scattered collection, it emerges in the looming calm, the open moments that peek through pneumatic melodies, beatific, druggy vocals and that throbbing, omnipresent kick.

Taking cues from disco and synth-pop, TOPS are better suited to drifting and daydreaming than dancing.

You can hardly call it original, but they've definitely done their homework.

Jiaolong feels more organic and warm than the kinds of bangers the genre's superstars are playing in massive arenas.

[Dead Silence] sounds exactly like what you'd expect from the maturing Mississauga pop-punk band: more middle-of-the-road radio-friendly guitar rock, with less punk energy and more classic rock than in their younger years.

Miguel's second album delivers on the L.A.-based musician's early promise, taking the best ideas from the debut--slow, lilting grooves, layered electric guitars, darkly squelching bass lines, meandering falsetto--into a more expansive, emotionally varied and personal sound.

It's mostly just softly plucked, atmospheric guitar and Webb's weary vocals building up songs that are achingly slow, sombre and intimate.

With fewer experimental throwaways, the album puts the band's best foot forward: toe-tapping, harmony-laden kernels of pop.

All the best cuts are Ye-led and stellar. He's as inventive, hilarious and potent as ever. The guest list, however, is less consistent.

This much-anticipated follow-up essentially repeats the foot-stomping, banjo-picking formula, but scrubs away the subtlety.

His house-derived grooves don't have a lot of the swing and soul that older heads crave, but they're also not nearly as heavy-handed and macho as his haters claim.

It comes off like a neutered reprise of the band's decades-old spirit.

Still charismatic, quirky and iconic into her 40s, the singer grounds whatever style the band takes on with a trademark confident and longing delivery.

LeBlanc's garbled vocal delivery only serves to obscure weak lyrics.

There's an underlying complexity here, but ultimately these are bare, potent rhythms created to, in global parlance, make you "werq."

Past the dancehall signifiers (Paul's increasingly strained lilt and tepid syncopated pulse), the new record is brazenly mediocre.

It's a bold, intense and confrontational album that uplifts through catharsis.

This isn't the best Oh Sees album, but at least they probably won't wait too long to try again.

The Baltimore psych-experimental rock band's ninth begins in a youthful and joyous way, but the exuberance unravels into something close to obnoxious chaos.

Meat And Bone finds Spencer at what is arguably his most Bowie-esque.

The Owl City duet is a bit of a misstep, as is the Justin Bieber collaboration, but two just okay songs and 14 great ones is better than most acts can manage on their greatest hits packages, let alone their second album.

Shields is not going to grab you, but it rewards patience.

Most of the songs, including the strong opening track, concern the duo's history as a couple and a band.

It's like Koster has a wellspring of positive vibes that he channels into songs without engaging in schmaltz or clichés.

Toy manage to be psychedelic and craft memorable pop.

The alien textures of St. Vincent's guitar heroics and the crunchy electronic rhythms lurching behind the trombones and sax stabs keep things just on the right side of gleefully weird.

The result is one of their most serene and sonically consistent efforts to date.

For a band so heavily influenced by modern classical music, Mono are not at all restrained, and that's what's great about them.

The album's middle is slow, contemplative and ambient, allowing Marshall's deep-seated melancholy to reveal itself.

Its low frequencies, irregular rhythms and slow-burning dance beats creep into the songs and draw us in deeper.

This is one of his best albums in many years, although that's not exactly a ringing endorsement.

This is fairly arm's-length music--more about beat and texture than emotional confessionals.

This batch of 80s-pop-inspired tunes is packed with earworms and remarkably filler-free.

Pink's weirdness is a major part of his appeal. It just requires a lot of patience.

At best, the songs on their ninth album are bland recreations of their past successes.

It's lush, sophisticated pastiche, best epitomized by debut single Running.

The Seer will definitely raise the band's profile, although its sheer intensity and ugliness may scare people away.

Mainly, it's good for some frivolous fun.

They're still doing that brooding medieval ambient pop thing, but with less drama and inventiveness.

They return to remind us that there's still one side of dance rock they haven't tried: rock. On Four, Bloc Party turn up their amps and tune down their guitars.

It's hard to shake the notion that the songs are leftovers from the songwriters' other bands.

There are great production touches all over Beams, but unfortunately the songwriting is just okay, and the arrangements often bury the best sonic details.

Using hardly any words at all, Deacon conveys the freedom, triumph and catharsis that can come from a journey across ever-changing yet familiar terrain.

Ascent is still recognizably Six Organs of Admittance, but it's often hazier, heavier and trippier.

Overall, it's an ambitious and beautiful album.

The fractured sounds give us little to hold on to; the songwriting's hidden behind so much distraction.

You can't deny how interesting some of these dynamic post-rock explorations are.

Essentially, Is Your Love Big Enough? is a restrained, technically proficient showpiece for a gifted artist.

It's an extraordinarily consistent pop album.

From start to finish, Researching The Blues satisfies. It's too bad there's no ballad, but the energy that crackles from these rockers makes it easy to forget about the lack of love songs.

After four albums of American girls, dirt roads and fingers in dust with the radio on, it's tough to overlook the clichés.

On MTMTMK, the duo moves through a range of global sounds, from Congolese kwassa kwassa to reggaeton to electro house.

The album's production work is predictable, and its high-concept narratives (Hold Me Back, Diced Pineapples) are painfully over thought.

While there's definitely some anger here, Pujol seems to make equal use of pure adolescent joy, and you soon realize that his nerdier tendencies are what holds all of this together.

The inventiveness in James's vocals draws attention to the lack of that quality in Roddick's production, which grows clichéd after a while.

Some stand up to the violins and mandolins, but others get overwhelmed.

For the most part the newfound earnestness is balanced by quirky arrangements and Chris Connelly's unpolished yelp reminiscent of Destroyer's Dan Bejar.

Musically, songs are altogether pleasant, ranging from languid to downright danceable, with undercurrents of the German art pop that influenced much of the 'Lab's sound.

The latter half of WIXIW has enough to offset their plodding attempts to be experimental.

It's a solid album anchored by The Don, his best single since 2003's Made You Look and so raucous it belongs in raves and on runways.

It's simultaneously of the moment and an undeniable classic.

Sure, it's bloated and loaded with overreaching, pretentious lyrics, but it wouldn't be the Pumpkins otherwise.

An endlessly listenable album.

While Do Things is "easy" music, music that sounds great on a boat in the sun or accompanying front-porch Coronas, it's not likely to stick with you after a listen or two.

A few, like Lion In Winter Pt. 1 and 12-minute closer In The Beginning Is The End, test your patience, while others, like Nova Anthem and Lamb, become so surprisingly transcendent that they vanquish any and all tedium.

Every element is given space to shine--a nice break from the overproduced bedroom-recording sound that's become standard in indie rock.

The result is murky, hazy, psychedelic and endlessly replayable.

Highly listenable bangers like Tapes & Money, Garden and American Dream Part II make Trouble ideal for bouncing around your bedroom or the club.

Live From The Underground is a generous, humble statement record that should ensure K.R.I.T. won't end up another label-scooped lost boy.

It's nowhere near as offbeat as they'd have you believe, but if you're looking for catchy, danceable rock, it does the trick.