Half Moon Run's embracing of bands they love (Radiohead, large swaths of Montreal's breakout mid-00s scene) make much of Sun Leads Me On sound familiar. But it's not so bad to be visited by old friends.

Some songs work. He makes great use of Ethiopian-sounding jazz samples and M.I.A.-style children’s chants on ABCs, and excels while rapping over some of the album’s otherworldly beats.

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

While a layer of fuzz covered most of that debut, here the production is sharper and highlights Dee Dee's voice and twangy guitar lines, and her vocals are more confident and evocative.

What's missing is the emotional heat.

Although the album's frenetic energy doesn't quite match that of their breakthrough (whether they like it or not, 2008's Visiter will always be their benchmark), it's a solid new direction.

Once you wrap your head around The Knife's strange little world, it's actually a pretty interesting place.

They occasionally slip into derivative territory, Beggars Banquet-era Stones in particular, but strong solo material saves Lifeline near the end.

Dreams In The Rat House isn’t as diverse or ambitious as its predecessor, Sleep Talk, but it shows an increasing ability to balance winsome harmonies, raucous drumming and jangly guitar riffs while maintaining the unvarnished punk quality that makes them irresistible.

Long-time fans will appreciate that Napalm haven't toned down their extreme approach to metal.

Some will long for Oldham’s minimalist era, but Beware is still an engaging record from one of the indie world’s best songwriters.

The intricate vocal arrangements and alluring harmonica parts of opener 'Shampoo' grab the listener with bright potential, while 'Hey' is a lovely upbeat duet with Lavender Diamond’s Becky Stark.

It's experimental and improvisational but familiar. When she puts her psychedelic soul spin on the trappy drums of today (what she calls trap&B), it's the sound of an artist embracing change and all the new possibilities and complications that go with it.

It’s their most accessible release in ages. The Melvins hit the riff-heavy heights of their foundational 90s records while freewheeling into plenty of experimentation (like chimes and accordions on The Bunk Up) and straight-up curiosities.

This album is a stylized, slightly-paranoid romp sure to pluck the heartstrings of anyone who has ever lived life with reckless abandon.

Arriving ahead of a full-length, this five-song EP confirms our suspicion of the duo's pop genius.

They have yet to capture the spontaneity of their live performances on record (leave that to recent doc The Ballad Of Shovels And Rope), but their sophomore effort certainly gets closer, even as it shows off the duo’s newfound musical breadth.

The music often verges on innocuous, but it serves its purpose as a backdrop for Darnielle’s steadily churning imagination.

Addicted, Magic, Priceless and Fool No Mo are as sharply written and realized as they are unapologetically indulgent of heady atmospherics, each song its own exaltation of the understated power of Tweet's singular voice.

It might be too overwrought for many, but for those of us who like drama, this is a fine introduction.

What's immediately striking about Challengers is the unabashed mellowness of it all.

My Make-Believe is a refined continuation of Santi's dubby, militarized, post-punk experimentation.

The album is a fun novelty, but as with most tributes, there's not much to keep it in rotation.

Lyrics, when employed, are simple and to the point, thoughtful but sparse enough to let the classical musicianship shine.

While it's hard to question their motives and integrity, Avocado fails to deliver the grand statement we might expect.

Regardless of Tatum’s ever-shifting musical obsessions or emotional moods, an enjoyable lightness and subtlety to the arrangements and overlapping textures draw your ear in closer.

His major-label debut after years on Def Jux feels status quo for the most part, and new labelmates will.i.am and Snoop only dilute his product with lazy cameos. But there’s still much to admire about Mur’s campaign to turn on some heads.

When they're flowing about anything but shooting people over the expensive-sounding synth-goo production, the record could pull a school bus with its teeth. But aimless, boring gunshot-laden tracks like 9mm and Gun Blast find Bone unable to let go of their dated murda-isms.

His brilliant, whispery, Gainsbourgh-like vocal delivery is replaced by base shouting, his hilarious wordplay reduced to grating, beat-poet-like observations.

The Sadies have proved themselves master instrumentalists at country and twang, and a fluid backup band able to execute any genre. Doe, who co-fronted seminal L.A. punks X, on the other hand, has a voice you could charitably call serviceable. Whether this collaboration needed to happen is debatable.

The whole idea of Philly fruitcakes Man Man releasing an album that sounds like a dusted deconstruction of Tom Waits’s Swordfishtrombones--complete with grumbling old man affectations--on the same label that releases albums by Waits is too much of a nutty coincidence not to be a cockeyed po-mo parody.

Canada’s answer to the Fab Four, Sloan, are still charming after 23 years together.

Impeccably produced, Valtari ultimately feels like two diametrically opposed albums.

Satellite feels very much like a transitional record in which Kid Koala is exploring new terrain. Not all of his tangents are successful, but his enthusiasm for stretching beyond his turntablist roots is refreshing.

Product is Sophie's debut LP, collecting four previously released singles plus four new ones in a concise introduction to a producer who has quickly crafted a style and perspective all his own.

Leave A Light On, for example, sounds an awful lot like the Rio-era ballad Save A Prayer. Unfortunately, these doppelgangers are the album's best songs, which makes you wonder why the band bothered.

Yes, the melodies are all bubble-gum lightness, but don’t worry, Raveonettes are still very dark and won’t be making inroads into top-40 radio any time soon.

Nobody Knows is a more complete, fleshed-out version of Beal’s vision, replacing his former no-fi folk with ominous, gritty blues and soul (not to mention a guest spot by Cat Power), but it’s still a work-in-progress.

There are a few too many “Get off my lawn, kids” moments, and the interludes are entirely unnecessary (hi, the Lonely Island), but as far as comebacks go, this album is anything but a non-event.

After a while the tripped-out builds can feel formulaic, but the mind-altering textures and melodic flourishes are so gorgeously realized that Luminous’s feel-good charms become hard to resist.

The songs are fast-moving clouds, riffs with drift (let's call them "driffs" for now and leave it to someone else to come up with a better term), immediately catchy and contemporary but also tastefully inflected with gazey and psychedelic sensibilities.

On the Dears’ fourth album, the Montreal melancholics take simple melodies and spin them into seamless epics.

It's unlikely that anyone will prefer the covers to the originals, but Isaak's fans will find plenty to enjoy in this rock 'n' roll love letter to a bygone era.

Cautious listeners should be warned that this is a very dark and strange album, but wrap your head around the dissonance and general creepiness and you discover one of the more startlingly original takes on 60s rhythm and blues ever put down to disc.

On his sixth album, the New York anti-folk singer/songwriter takes a step toward silencing the critics, tempering his creaky half-spoken vocals with some surprisingly sophisticated arrangements and harmonies with guests like Dr. Dog and Frances McKee of the Vaselines.

The emphasis on texture and style can obscure Dienel’s storytelling, however: it all sounds so gorgeous, you sometimes forget to listen to what she’s actually trying to say.

Rae's languid enunciation gets lost on faster tracks, and on Caramel and Night her vocal style shifts to a heavy-handed singer/songwriter coffee house/lullaby mode. Most captivating are the moments when she returns to exploring the thrill of vulnerability on Hey, I Won't Break Your Heart; emotional standoffs on Been To The Moon; and anxiety-inducing ruminations on Do You Ever Think of Me?

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

A geekier and nerdier Rush? Yes, which is actually a very good thing.

Ultimately, your appreciation of the quaintly crafted pop ditties on Soft Airplane will depend on your tolerance for listening to an adult male trying to sound like a naive little boy.

The constant dynamic shifts between intimate verses and extroverted choruses become a bit repetitive.

It opens with the raucously bluesy 'Nothing Too Much Just Out Of Sight,' a promising start. But before long, McCartney reverts to pop messiah mode and tries to turn each tune into some grand statement about love, life and/or world peace in the hope that positive vibrations might inspire people of all races to join hands and sing along as one. Really.

It's the strength of his conventional songcraft, however, that makes his late-career foray into the frontman role successful.

While New Wave will probably compel you to pay attention to singer Tom Gabel's rasping rants, it's still a record that's pretty damn fun to dance around to.

There are rhythms and sounds that instantly come off as nostalgic, but in the best moments the beats and textures merge to form something wholly unidentifiable.

The album has its super-twee moments but is never insufferable.

The band makes focused noise with pop undertones, and their new record is undeniably grand.

White’s yelps and screams, reverb, synth and jittery guitar riffs could be more pleasant or cohesive, but that’s not White’s style, especially not on this record. Piling it all on seems to be the point he’s trying to make--this sense of being overwhelmed, constantly, at the hands of technology.

Some songs lack raw emotion but have sombre vocal melodies and engaging lyrics.

It's a holiday album that actually leaves you wanting more.

A sameness runs from track to track--brisk tempos, mid-range key, the loud/soft thing--but if you take time to work out the lyrics, you'll be rewarded with intriguing surrealism, goofy fun (no surprise considering their band name) and, on incendiary pop-punk Psykick Espionage, a welcome dose of badassery.

Luckily, they keep things relatively concise. If this album were any longer, it would be exhausting.

His social commentaries occasionally overwhelm the music, as on Bottled In Cork, a doozy that might elicit an “I get it, I get it, the world is fucked” response. And though he also stumbles on the underdeveloped, raspy, pop diversion One Polaroid A Day, Leo’s still built a sturdy addition to the band’s discography.

Gibson is a very talented young artist testing his limits and only occasionally stumbling.

Less party than their live show (and some of their previous releases), Inner Fire is still damn hot.

Shannon Shaw's heart-in-throat vocals and the Clams' joyous abandon take hold right away and rip breezily but dramatically through 13 lovely new songs.

The lyrics are vivid and occasionally rote in their romanticism, but the formlessness of Endless is deceptive.

It seems like they decided to go whole hog with the Duran Duran template. Not the best strategy, considering it isn't even working for Le Bon and company any more.

Working closely with guitarist and co-producer Joe Pisapia, who co-wrote most of the album, lang has created a mature record that avoids being boring or staid.

This is easily the most danceable record she’s produced. Surprisingly, the weakest tracks are those that sound most like the electro-rap we’ve come to expect from her; fortunately, they’re in the minority this time out.

The songs are simple, but Nap Eyes always inject small surprises into them, like clever guitar melodies or tempo changes.

The squelchy playfulness in Ewen’s arrangements that marked FBH’s most memorable tunes is now cloistered by cynicism and studiousness.

Turns out they’re adept at sad, moody ambience. Wish they tried it a little more often.

Despite the album title, there's an undercurrent of humour in these songs of loneliness, betrayal and death.

The album is plagued by similarly banal lyrics about sex and drugs that make his playboy image feel all the more superficial.... More positively, the poppier musical strategy perfectly suits his boyish vocals, and he sounds more open and less pretentious than ever before.

It's early morning or late-night music, and more than capturing a specific place and aimless time, A New Place 2 Drown is a soundtrack for a slowed-down pace of life.

The album is as solid as its maker's last name but so predictable you could set your Flavor Flav clock to it.

No One Is Lost is the best kind of pop music: the universal made intimate (and vice-versa), one note at a time.

Her fourth album comes as a pleasant surprise, arguably tough country at its finest. Her clear, pristine vocals convey longing, heartbreak and the sexiness of the working class with honesty and grace.

The tongue-in-cheekness can create a distance that prevents the songs from hitting hard and/or stirring up your feelings. But you can still sit back and appreciate Arner's songwriting craft, knack for memorable hooks, the intelligent places his songs go to, his and Delisle's harmonic chops and the lo-fi production aesthetic that speaks to a talent for doing a lot with a little.

If you can deal with the frequent ridiculousness of the songs, Wild Cat is a fun listen. The production is raw enough to approximate their live sound, and more than a few choruses will get stuck in your head. If you’re looking for much more than that, you’re listening to the wrong band.

These guys are passionate about what they're doing.

Rare Chandeliers is both soft-lensed yacht rap and roughneck hip-hop that's as New York as pastrami and Waldorf salads.

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

Vetiver’s 2006 To Find Me Gone found that nice place for campfire listening, but tracks like Everyday and More Of This sound more like background tunes released for the purpose of selling a digital camera or a cellphone with really good reception.

There are no big hooks, no clear single. Just a boozy-and-woozy late-night vibe that’s pretty damn satisfying.

Torbjorn Brundtland and Svein Berge move away from millennium trance tracks like '49 Percent' from 2005’s "The Understanding," and that’s a good move.

Papini’s vocals seem scaled back, too--there’s less energetic chattiness and more silent resignation.

Occasionally, the band comes close to falling back into old habits, but with their new enthusiasm for sounding nothing like they used to, they've successfully created an album's worth of intelligent music for the Warped crowd.

Houndmouth resurrect a blistering, off-its-hinges breed of Americana complete with tangible wild heart and soul.

Danny Elfman’s Notorious Theme feels stranded between two worlds, while the Legacy remix of 'One More Chance' is a perplexing and disturbing Pro Tools-era creation in which Biggie’s 12-year-old son rhymes back and forth with his father, lewd lyrics and all.

Every song on this--her fifth--album sparkles with intelligence.

Dan Auerbach’s production helps shape that drama, but he’s accurately interpreting her vision rather than directing Del Rey, who suddenly seems completely in control of her brand.

While it fails to match their previous hit quotient, it's still a decent listen.

Aside from a couple tracks with standout hooks (Wild Gardens, The Better Plan), their songs are forgettable.

Fun, easy listen? Not so much. But Calder's vocals are too cheerfully bright and the sounds too pleasant for things ever to become a downer.

A beautifully tense and thoughtful record.

Singer/lyricist George Mitchell sings clean and fairly melodically, but with convincing disaffection.