It never sounds gimmicky--instead, the juxtaposing of acoustic guitars and synthesizers seems completely natural.

Full of 80s college rock and 90s indie rock feel-goodness, the band’s debut album Football Money will no doubt fool throwback slackers into adopting this band as their own.

For Los Campesinos! to come up with such a strong follow-up not even a year after their last is an amazing feat.

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

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.

Where the Monkeys come up short is in their compositions, which are beginning to sound formulaic.

Thematically the songs stick to the familiar pop terrain of love--the least adventurous thing about them--but Oh No nonetheless makes a convincing case for broadening the term "pop star" beyond the glamazons.

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.

If you don’t drift off too early, though, it all resolves, making for a sonically rich and delicately nuanced album.

While the tone keeps the wistful summer vibes of his earlier work intact, the Brooklyn-based Canadian also gets reflective on this dud-free second full-length.

Even naysayers can't overlook their second album's intelligence, uniqueness and ambition.

Whatever he calls himself, Young Thug is still one of the most distinctive voices in hip-hop, and Jeffery lives up to the best moments from his Barter 6 and Slime Season mixtapes.

So the cookie-cutter joints are tossed out the window for The Renaissance as Q-Tip attempts to show that he can creatively flow over whatever unusual progression or production twist comes along with each successive track.

The music means the world to him, and it's wonderful.

For All We Know could make a stronger statement, but that doesn’t change the fact that Nao’s voice is one of the most exciting--and fun to listen to--in modern R&B.

It has the vitality of today's top 40 dance-pop but is full of the kind of wisdom, wit and warmth that can only come with age.

Fade isn't a drastic departure, but when you've polished your eclectic sound as well as Yo La Tengo has, that's not always necessary.

The mood is still dark, druggy and claustrophobic, but this time Tesfaye is channelling a pain that's less about cold emptiness than it is about more traditional heartbreak and longing.

4:44 is intimate, refined and mature--fascinating partly despite its flaws and partly because of them.

Despite all the gifted-beyond-his-years hype, that over-arching concerns still feel inextricably teenaged, albeit precociously so.

Even if they’re generally delivered with an easier flow and more laid-back vibe, sharp production and catchy hooks increase each track’s impact.

The Vampire Weekend crew, who met at Columbia University, have clearly heard enough soukous and highlife to cop a few guitar licks to cloak their orch-pop pretensions, but almost by accident, the way their chamber strings are played over jaunty grooves makes for an engaging concoction, at least for a few spins.

The combo of ethereal prog rock and lead singer Guy Garvey’s hushed, careworn words couldn’t be finer than on mournful, horn-laden 'Weather To Fly,' while sing-along stadium-ready cliche 'One Day Like This' is the only discernible reminder of why I avoided them in the first place.

Totally cohesive and thoroughly bangin’.

Ultimately, it’s Rubinos’s unflinching lyrics that linger long after Black Terry Cat ends.

The only misfires include Brother, an old-tyme shanty à la the Decemberists whose Back On The Chain Gang-style background chants are an uncharacteristically tacky production choice. Still, The Wild is full of serviceable songs and outstanding playing, with Banwatt once again proving he’s one of the best drummers in the biz.

There are shades of classic 50s-style crooning in Cox's vocals, but his voice has a sublime spectral quality that adds a lingering disquiet.

The production has a pristine, streamlined quality, with Grant’s vocals high in the mix, so the album’s blend of orchestral and squelchy electronic arrangements mirrors the clarity and grace with which he delivers his crude, self-lacerating ballads.

The ambitious arrangements that separate this band from their moody contemporaries can actually make the album feel too emotionally intense for everyday listening.

It’s distancing stuff, though also hookier than earlier LPs. But it’s the humanity and levity of the lyrics that’ll really get you on board.

Compton is easily his most introspective album.

The album is a delightful access point to the cloudy emotional zones Bernice have always occupied, from a warm place of Snuggie-bound safety.

The production’s grittier qualities suggest heavy emotions lie beneath his sardonic facade, but the sense that Grant feels liberated in middle age is what comes across most strongly.

The sloppy rockers sound frozen in grunge time on their third release, and it works incredibly well for the dipso punks.

It's easy to get lost in the pleasant, euphoric drone, but at 47 minutes the album is more of a marathon than a sprint.

Hard-fought optimism fuels the political fury behind Savages’ buzzing aggression (timely given the momentum behind progressive political movements), but now the manifesto is delivered via more familiar, accessible sounds.

The Stage Names is much more of a balls-out rock album than most of Okkervil River's oeuvre, and also more orchestral and layered, with arrangements that include everything from non-sissy glockenspiel to metronome percussion. The complexity is the perfect counterpart to Sheff's dense writing.

On Overgrown, the chord progressions are more complex and the lyrics less abstracted, but it’s still the James Blake we love.

he band has already built a mystique with their live show (frontwoman Jehnny Beth’s penetrating glare and righteous wail transfixed a packed Horseshoe Tavern at this year’s CMW), but Silence Yourself proves they’ve got the songs to back it up.

It's not always the most comfortable thing to listen to, but like the proverbial car crash, it's hard to tear yourself away.

The gusto with which Springsteen delivers the many verses of Froggie Went A-Courtin' leaves me wondering if the millionaire everyman is simply unaware that his country is at war.

When you consider that the first song is only a minute shy of half an hour long, this collection of epic ambient disco revisionism definitely counts as a full-fledged artistic statement.

While you might be tempted to skip it, spending some time trying to absorb what he's getting at gives you a much richer context in which to appreciate his songwriting.

This career-spanning retrospective helps put Fucked Up’s unlikely critical-darling status in perspective, and serves as a handy catch-up tool for those who’ve come to the party late.

Vile’s laconic drawl and laid-back guitar heroics are so addictively blissful that eight or nine minutes don’t feel like enough.

The acoustic Clumps strips down for a particularly moving two minutes, but for the most part, Loveless commits to the stunning sonic evolution. Embrace it.

Probably his most personally revealing work yet.

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.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs haven’t changed as much as they’d like us to believe. They still write great pop rock songs.

The result is incredibly potent and human.

If the term “ambient house” hadn’t already been taken by the Orb in the late 80s, it would be a good way to describe this; we’ll just call it really good stoner dance music instead.

The band continues to find new ways to expand within rigid, self-imposed parameters. Although the album veers away from the spaced-out psychedelia of 2007’s Attack & Release, it retains much of that album’s slickness.

Post-Nothing is their eight-song debut, and it goes by in a flash of infectious, sweaty anthem jams about angsty youth problems.

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.

In terms of brightness and accessibility, the album feels like an extension of their breakout record, 2008's Microcastle. Yet it's clear the band has matured in the intervening years--and they're better for it.

With its haunting risks that resonate, Love Remains is a perfect fall record.

Pop music is never a purely cerebral exercise, and despite its intriguing concept, The Next Day is woefully short on anything to sing along to.

There's not much on proto-punk legend Patti Smith's 11th album, Banga, that would have sounded out of place back when she first started blowing minds in the 1970s.

Never Were The Way She Was is stunning, understated and poignant, evoking isolation and yearning for some unnamed thing. Despite some less successful detours, it's a monster of a journey that calls to mind a windswept, brutal white North fraught with life.

Sometimes the lack of definition and the deluge of words grow tedious, but in these songs, all lushly arranged, as is the entire album, the effect is nothing short of riveting.

It has some of the year’s best country songs, plus a groove-heavy take on the Bee Gees’ classic To Love Somebody.

Q might appear masked on the album cover, but his explicit tales of hardship, prosperity and loss hide nothing.

[The songs] are confessional and vulnerable, yet so strong. Of the quiet songs, only the grungy dirge slows things to a crawl.

Tears Of The Valedictorian is the band in top form, with Spencer Krug binding meandering tales of post-postmodernist artistic anxiety with wiry keyboards that echo Mercer's morphing vocals.

In beast mode, they conjure that rare mix of accessibility and contrarian, uncompromising power, helping More Faithful transcend its flatter fare.

Although Lay It Down is initially appealing because it has the super­ficial sound of Green’s classic Hi material, you soon discover that Green has nothing terribly deep to offer lyrically, and his vocals are locked on cruise control throughout.

All in all, a unique and satisfying effort.

The lyrics can get melodramatic (Verlaine Shot Rimbaud) and vulgar (Head), but there are gems here, too.

Shad's delivery and enunciation are impeccable. The only rewinds necessary are to catch lines like "hustle on the level of Barney Rubble on Red Bull." TSOL will no doubt give Shad the recognition he deserves.

Even if his singing never touches Damon Albarn's, he seems confident in his voice, using his shortcomings to his advantage to burn through 13 tracks inspired by a passion for late-70s Brit punk.

Ezra Koenig's songwriting is effortless and breezy, and the Afropop rhythms are as strong as ever.

The whole album is solid, save for Uffie's questionable club princess rap, and even that sounds better with repeated listens.

The brief tunes are sparse yet cinematic, tentative yet boldly inventive.

Like the elder statesmen, the teenage California quartet offer skewed good-time indie pop that won't change your life but will sound fantastic blasted from a front porch on a summer day.

Builds on the quiet drama of their warm, melancholic, sometimes creepy sound.

It’s a pop record, a history lesson and--for those uninitiated in the funky UK house tradition--a gateway drug all in one.

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.

Like many of Romano's meticulous creations, it possesses all the hallmarks of a classic: a compelling, twisting narrative that bends the music to its shape.

There’s an eerie blandness to the mood that is initially off-putting but turns into a surprisingly compelling, subtly evocative combination of sadness and contentedness.

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.

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.

Despite a couple of interstitial tracks just past the halfway mark, RR7349 is more like a suite of discrete moods than a cycle of songs.

While their eighth album doesn’t take any major left turns, it brims with life, ideas and energy.

Public Strain is front-loaded with some of the more patience-testing tunes, but stick with it to discover some astonishing beauties.

Think of it as avant-garde composer John Cage trying his hand at disco and getting it right.

Instead of knocking out another wall-shaking psych rock blast... Avatar comes off like a series of sedate recital pieces performed from sheet music while seated in the round.

In a tight but varied 39 minutes, Tyler is exploring the sonic terrain in Flower Boy with a narrative concept that, like a non-relationship, feels endless and all-encompassing, then hard not to put on repeat.

Goon is an indisputable triumph and a staggering opening statement from pop music's newest Piano Man.

Sky’s post-post-punk mellowing proves a welcome development, revealing maturity instead of postured snarling.

In parts, this is the most melodic--and pretty--Shabazz Palaces have ever been.

Another artist might show signs of disappointment or uncertainty when faced with the notion that not much has changed in half a century, but on Medicine Songs, in the face of the unchanging nature of the oppression she’s expressed through her music, Buffy Sainte-Marie has chosen to be just as determined, unflinching and constant in her own art.

As much as Kaytranada seems to be referencing genre staples and styles, his constant flights of rhythmic fancy make his music seem genre-averse. And when he connects with a vocalist or drummer who shares that sensibility, 99.9% really glows.

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

How The West Was Won stands on its own as a clever, mature and scathingly witty record with memorable melodies and choruses. It also marks the return of a true rock ’n’ roll anti-hero.

Performing live in the BBC studios affords the group the ability to stretch out and test the new song ideas that made these one-off recordings so sought after by the group’s most ardent sweater-clad fans. Regrettably, it’s not a comprehensive collection of their entire BBC recorded output.

Monomania somehow makes Deerhunter’s previous albums sound like they were controlled and constrained, as if it took four albums for Cox to finally be the shit disturber he’s always wanted to be.

This first album in five years from aural collage artists Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong is immensely listenable, as serene as it is unclassifiable.

Too much of the record lacks that song's percussive drive; all the pretty singing and unhurried tempos start to blend into a tepid listen, and the experimental near-spoken-word turn on Strange is just, well, strange.