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

It’s a formula to be sure, but Feast’s main delights are its textures and songwriting.

His mumbling drawl is introverted, whether it’s whispering or shouting, but never feels forced. It works well alongside his guitar.

Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, is an astounding electric guitarist, yet on her absorbing third album she never puts her mastery of the instrument ahead of a great song.

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.

While acoustically generated and devoid of any heavy electronic processing, the results are much darker and stranger than anything on Syro, with ominous detuned metallic percussion and mangled piano noises taking the place of bright, bubbling, acid synth lines.

It's the kind of album that resists being parsed out into singles. Aside from radio-ready lead track Love As A Weapon, the rest work together as a cohesive whole even while bouncing around lyrically.

These guys are passionate about what they're doing.

Better than anything they've done to date.

The rest of Autumn Of The Seraphs sounds a bit more meticulous, though it's self-assured in its footing.

Fortress stands out as gratifyingly heavy and heady.

The album's not quite as heavy as its predecessor, but there are enough down-tuned riffs and effects-laden solos to satisfy old fans.

Still on offer are his immaculately crafted lyrics and preoccupation with place.

Carey’s back to adding her sparkly touch to summer-ready pop tunes.

It contains some of her poppiest and funniest material to date, taking her minimal techno and Italo-esque electro rhythms into unabashedly melodic territory on the joyous So Right while swinging in the opposite direction with warehouse-friendly industrial sci-fi instrumentals Burn Me and Workaholic Paranoid Bitch.

An exciting and often unexpected listen.

A Folk Set Apart isn't where you'd go to contextualize McCombs, but it exhibits his dynamism.

Each song has bite, but every sound on Soul Power is kept fairly mellow.

String sections, brushed drums and, on High Hawk Season, backing vocals that recall the Jordanaires give the album a dynamic, varied sound and make it the Mountain Goats' most surprising creation.

Earlier generations of psych fans had the Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd to worship and pursue on tour. Now, three albums in, TOY could become this generation’s long-haired psychedelic heroes to follow around in VW campers.

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

Of course, hilariously outlandish quasi-mystical song titles like 'Fire Lances Of The Ancient Hyperze­phyerians' probably won’t help their cause, but the progressively regressive arrangements, more skillful riffing and their relentless, groove-conscious attack will go a long way toward endearing them to serious metalheads who’ll appreciate the Sword’s obvious Sabbath, Maiden and Budgie inspiration.

Mood-wise, there’s less of the unhinged joy of their last outing, "Love Is Simple." However, those moments of ecstasy have more power in smaller doses, and making that choice has allowed them to expand their palette while retaining their identity.

This entirely live album is warmer and more consistent [than 2010's Harlem River Blues], with a lot of heart.

The 17 tracks emphasize the latter half of his career, but he’s toned down his more avant-garde tendencies somewhat and injected a bit of R&B swing and jazz vibes.

It turns out that while he’s been working on these absurdly long stoner dance tracks, he’s also been holed up in the studio with vocalist Christabelle working on this amazing album of more concise material.

Fans of AnCo’s more upbeat and animated works probably won’t love this album, but it is successful in its experimentation and as an affirmation that they have and always will have something unique to bring to the table.

While the songs sound effortlessly crafted, there's a complexity to the melodies and structures that surprises on repeat listens.

With folky guitar picking, lush harmonies and sophisticated melodies, this album is a must-have for all of Bachmann's fans.

The interchanging players fit beautifully into B&S's repertoire of unrequited pop anthems and introspective acoustic ballads.

It's cliched to remark on a duo's ability to sound like a full band, but the Dodos' virtuosic acoustic guitar playing and busy arrangements undeniably defy their numbers.

Along with this requisite silliness come beautiful melodies (See The Leaves), exploding rock-out sections (The Ego's Last Stand) and catchy, laid-back guitar melodies (Silver Trembling Hands).

This isn’t Drake at his most exposed.... Production-wise, however, it’s his most mature, and frankly, most beautiful.

It was always hard to predict which direction he might take next, but on his new album, Hardcourage, he’s surprised us by finally bringing all those disparate tangents together into a cohesive sound.

Simply Grand is the perfect showcase for Thomas’s impressive range and understated power.

Hegarty sounds more in control of his remarkable voice than ever before, and this new restraint suits him. When you’ve got this much emotive power at your fingertips, it’s wise to reel it in a bit.

He's used what could have been a tragic turn of events as fuel for a vibrant, engaging and often playful record.

Veloso still sounds as smooth and warm as on his 70s recordings that helped spearhead the Tropicália movement.

Vapours dutifully recognizes the playful history of the group and, with the re-addition of drummer Jamie Thompson, is sure to appease followers and win over new listeners.

The Double Cross, a slyly titled nod to their anniversary, returns to the songwriting style not of their beloved first two records, but of the equally strong One Chord, Navy and Bridges era.

Well sharp.

It could easily stand on its own without Scott-Heron's raspy vocals, but it's the interplay between his world-weary lyrics and Smith's youthful enthusiasm that makes this an essential companion piece to the original.

They save overt prettiness for the music.

It's intentionally confounding and endlessly ambitious, but also eminently listenable.

The Sheryl Crow duet works where his Norah Jones collabo didn't; I Taught Myself How To Grow Old is classic tortured Adams, and Pearls On A String is a rewarding reflection of the time he spent hanging out with Willie Nelson.

Lends itself to numerous repeat listens and laughs.

MU.ZZ.LE finds the idiosyncratic artist more focused than ever.

It’s middle-of-the-road, but only by Wilco standards. A worthwhile listen.

It’s not a perfect record, but nothing this ambitious was ever going to be.

The adulterously titled I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too, which certainly has its issues, comes across as more grounded, learned and confident.

Three years later, Purity Ring's sophomore effort lives up to the anticipation.

Packed with lo-fi-meets-nu-rave parsings of UK post-punk discontent, the album’s distorted melodies are immediately catchy yet convey brooding emotional depth.

Taken all together, it’s a rousing record fit for serious-minded death metal fans convinced of the genre’s capacity to produce art--not just pained expression.

With Rather Ripped they continue their slow but remarkable progression that currently finds them, for the most part, dropping old SY standbys such as long experimental noise passages in exchange for a significantly more sedated route.

These are love songs with sharp edges that keep the sweetness mysterious.

Many great pop artists build imaginary worlds with sets, costumes, music videos and artwork, but Gwenno achieves something similar using a richly detailed soundscapes that gradually draw you in deeper.

Despite the limited tools, he evokes everything from jazz and doom metal to techno and classical music, often simultaneously.

Black Radio 2 falls a note short of its Grammy-winning predecessor, but just shy of spectacular is still damn good.

On their fourth album, the goal continues to be to outdo themselves in terms of heavier-than-thou riffs, thundering drums and ominous aggression.

Although the first half relies on straight-up classic house beats and lyric imperatives to be stronger, work harder and get higher, they upend the formula with an oddball-pop sensibility, beautifully crafted melodies and general silliness.

With this balanced collection of solid rockers, more airy, toned-down tracks and far less self-indulgent noodling, Oasis prove they can learn from their mistakes.

Over lush, sprawling production, Longstreth meticulously crafts a starkly honest account of a fall from grace and a rise back into it that embraces growth and forgiveness.

Old Ideas feels like you're hearing Cohen performing live at a small club with a top-notch band of veteran players, and this new level of intimacy suits him perfectly.

The shoegaze genre usually plays better in a live context, yet Ghost Blonde is a relatively immersive record. You need to crank the volume to hear the vocals, but it's the guitars that provide the hooks anyway.

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.

You'd be hard pressed to find an album as varied as Elvis Costello's National Ransom (his 26th, give or take).

Her pipes stand out most on Wait For A Minute: interestingly enough, it’s when she sounds softest (surrounded by cool R&B-inspired synth lines) that she’s most commanding.

It opens with the aggressive, heady breakbeats of Gosh, and segues into songs heavy on his signature steel pans and clean productions that are sometimes dull in their tidy minimalism but ultimately contribute to a wistful atmosphere that's Smith's own.

It’s relatable while remaining singular, and unsurprisingly it’s also (mostly) bangin’.

All of the more modern accents are refreshingly unobtrusive. The minimalist arrangements give each instrument room to breath so the richness of the tones and the relaxed confidence of the playing stand out in sharp relief.

Those who’ve come to associate him with theme songs to bad car commercials should check his reawakening on this late-career turnaround.

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

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

The intimate collection of low-key art pop is gloriously weird and deeply human.

While Orton has a tendency to mimic her own melodies, she explores jazz structures here in engaging, exciting ways, and the indigent heartland iconography of her lyrics is beautiful without being cloying.

Drake is increasingly astute at reframing hip-hop braggadocio about wealth and competition as a kind of existential crisis through telling--but now familiar--details about his life (“I got two mortgages $30 million in total”) and subtle uses of melody and atmosphere.

Considering Zeffira's vocal training and Badwan's ability to project, they could have made a boisterous entrance. Instead, hushed tones and sweet melodies lure you in and keep you listening.

It’s more polished than most S-K albums, but it’s still a flurry of frenetic chords, caustic drum beats and yelps and hisses from Carrie Brownstein and Tucker. Clark gave The Center Won’t Hold a very modern filter and sheen, but Sleater-Kinney still set the tone.

The xx have always been concise pop songwriters, but now they seem interested in approaching the gates of pop nirvana.

Sincerely, Future Pollution still sounds distinctly like Timber Timbre, and stands up easily against their other albums.

There’s something romantic and relatable in the simplicity, showcased best on the lively, poppy folk song in his native Spanish, Escucho Mucho.

Calling in favours from Neurosis’s Scott Kelly and Mudhoney’s Mark Arm makes Everybody Loves Sausages feel like a loose party record.

It's a remarkably controlled album that reveals layers of texture with every listen.

One of the best hip-hop records of 2013.

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.

They still show no interest in doing things the easy way, and we couldn't be happier about that.

This debut is mostly a collection of re-recorded singles so there aren’t any filler tracks. Excellent find, McGee.

The songwriting is outstanding: striking and smart, concise and full, and James Bagshaw sings superbly throughout.

Infinite Light offers mellow, contemplative folk-pop that never gets overwrought or fussy. The arrangements are stripped-down and intelligent, the melodies moving, the lyrics gently optimistic.

Some will be sad to find that his pulsating vocals and wacky storytelling have subsided, and that his vague lyrics have grown simpler. But anyone who’s avoided Banhart’s hippy-busker tunes now have a reason to give him a chance.

The Magic is not their best album, but it's an excellent Deerhoof album, and they are the greatest of all time at what they do.

RAA's secret weapon has always been the expert drumming of Paul Banwatt, and here he's given more of a chance to shine.

Not every song sees atmosphere, theme and emotional power meld seamlessly--a collab with composer Sarah Hopkins called Features Creatures feels like a b-side--but when those elements coalesce the result is all-encompassing.

Totally cohesive and thoroughly bangin’.

Here we are not even two years later and the band has taken a huge leap forward. Or, more accurately, sideways. Nothing in the angular post-punk of 08's Beat Pyramid suggested the band was capable of something this novel.

Stuff might not be a true follow-up to 2013's Fade, but it's an excellent follow-up to Fakebook 15 years later.

Maybe their tightest, most replayable album yet.

Rather than merely rehashing sounds of yesteryear, Speedy Ortiz add modern rock ’n’ roll strokes to their take on fuzzy noise pop.