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.