It's not that these 40 minutes are too extreme or overly dependent on too many ideas; it's that Dragged into Sunlight haven't found out how to synthesize their best impulses and broad ambitions into a whole.

They don't sound like a mélange of other bands anymore; they sound like Early Graves, and that's a damn good band to sound like in 2012.

Read is full of great, idiosyncratic house tracks and Jummy is packed with them.

Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors is on the one hand a genre-busting statement of artistic restlessness but it's also a mess.

Hill's work is steadily gaining its own hue, and this album is a step toward a recognizable Umberto sound that won't instantly be tagged with all the influences he so adores.

It has a facing-the-beast quality of a punishing spiritual quest, as if Elverum steeled himself and left his house at midnight, barefoot, and just kept walking.

At its best, this music feeds into a similar sentiment, pushing close to the kind of deep introspection at the heart of Jarmusch's films.

On the whole, it's more entertaining than resonant.

As a stylistic culmination of sorts, Vanitas is a fine place to start.

For contemporary metal fans, Lights Out might sound more like Wolfmother--or a supercharged version of the Black Crowes--than an actual metal record.

With Lovelessness, Bison B.C. prove that rudimentary doesn't mean uninteresting or trendy.

It all sounds so serious without any real reason for it.

While Grace/Confusion may lean too heavily on Hawk's production, it's a hair better than Player Piano. But it's hard to call it an "improvement" or "progression" considering it's hardly outside the scope of what Memory Tapes has done so far.

Shifty Adventures feels more like a collection of gadgets than songs.

Kin is not an assertive album, nor is it surprising, but it's as solid an aesthetic as you can expect of two artists mostly new to this genre.

Mellon Collie is a Smashing Pumpkins record that just so happens to be 28 songs in length, stunning in both its stylistic range and overall excellence.

Connected is far from being the first record to make a virtue out of spinning in place, but there's a discipline and control here that's rarely heard, a feeling of two musicians utterly dominating their craft.

If Butler falls slightly short of convincing that this particular brand of old will be made new again, it remains hard to find fault with his survey of all the fun we could have had.

Everyone on the album sounds engaged and happy to be in the room.

"New Day" has a transformative effect within the album, whose middle is as strong as any sequence of songs Keys has recorded.

The question that all improvisers have to answer is whether something you play once can be worth listening to more than once. Experience and forethought ease the answer toward yes, and Drumm has both at his command.

While Pangaea and Hessle's peers have resorted to mealy, house-music gruel (Hotflush) and thinly veiled populism (Hyperdub), Release offers willful, self-conscious antagonism of the purest variety.

As much as it can sound like it stands alone, Bish Bosch is part of a tradition of music that tried to find new ways to articulate that same old misery.

These are dance songs so strident that no one could ever hope to move to them, pop songs so thin that no one could choose lines worth singing along to, rap verses so fumbly that practically anyone could rewrite them and make them better.

While each song could pass for a portion of a larger jam, they all get to the point rapidly.

A lot of what's here doesn't really demonstrate what they can do to Philip Glass, but what Philip Glass has already done to them.

Allah-Las are ultimately preoccupied with sound above all else. So long as there are 12-string guitars, four-piece drumkits, and lots and lots of reverb, the rest of the world can go away.

Frankly [add-ons would] just be a distraction from the underlying theme that becomes clear once you get absorbed into the music, which is that Blue Lines is still Blue Lines, and most of the world is still trying to catch up to it.

It's an enjoyable detour, one that affirms how well these producers have honed their approaches to sound.

The dozen takes are every bit as crafted as those on Kylesa's increasingly excellent five studio albums, with tones both enormous and exploratory and vocals both large and enthusiastic.

There is dark humor and interesting angles--even joy--to be found in basic realities and mundane commitments.

Though he's still not the best rapper (his refusal to abide by traditional rhyme schemes will be frustrating to purists) he's made great strides here and is helped along by a NYC underground producer showcase.

The key to Dagdrøm's daunting mystique: You're never really sure if what you're hearing is the calm before the storm or the storm before the calm.

Sloppiness has crept into their once-perfect attack, and there is a certain any-era-of-modern-rock, unstuck-in-time vibe to the production choices and songwriting.

True, a thematically consistent whole, sounds like the product of a lovingly forged artistic bond.

On Reservation, Angel Haze shows herself to be the rare rapper who has copped a great deal of contemporary popular hip-hop and R&B and come out the other side as purely herself.

Like Hardcore, A Wrenched Virile Lore features 10 tracks, though it only references eight of the originals. However, even the mixes that draw from the same songs are different enough in approach and sequenced in such a way that the reappearances feel like purposeful reprises.

Unlike the meticulously pleasant Songs for Christmas, which more or less sounds exactly like what a casual fan (or detractor) might expect a Sufjan Stevens Christmas box set to sound like, the music inside Silver & Gold can be as downright strange as its accompanying accessories.

The Alchemist's beats on Rare Chandeliers are perfectly good, but they do little to amplify Bronson's character.

The measurable failure is the album's music. On a track-by-track basis, the songs make for dull labor, not worth our time and not befitting Rihanna's talent.

There's a sense of discovery to Quarter Turns Over a Living Line, with Andrews and Halstead unveiling the slow evolution of their sound over its 40-minute runtime.

If you simply want a rap album that will inspire all-caps quote sprees on Twitter or hourlong Gchat exchanges with your fellow microphone fiends, it really doesn't get any better than Reloaded.

Times changed; Dntel, less so. Aimlessness, his third album of new material, arrives without context, scene, or convenient narrative.

For the second time in one year, both on a large label and on their own, they've released a record ruthless and rewarding enough to animate that image.

Feed Me Diamonds is best, though, when it gets emotionally heady.

Appropriately named, Movement feels like a progression and challenge from one of the year's most exciting new voices, producers, and composers.

The problem is that the strangely smug We Don't Even Live Here feels more like P.O.S. preaching to the converted than attempting to make a believer out of anyone, lacking any palpable resistance necessary to justify the constant underdog pose.

Ghost demonstrates well enough Ferreira's versatility, certainly her stylishness, but even more than those, it shows her empathy.

The Odds is, in every way, the product of scaling down operations rather than of giving up or throwing the fans a nostalgia trip. It's fair to say that the Evens have set their target low and close; you could also call that intimacy.

Pale Fire doesn't command your attention so much as wait patiently until it drifts into your view and then goes away.

Right now Sequitur feels like a step forward for a genre that could happily stay the same forever.

For all of the stylistic hopscotch being played, the individual songs on Nebula Dance cohere into an impressively solid whole.

As big and bold as it can sound, there's little here that's especially flashy or blatantly attention-seeking.

The group's first album since 1996 just sounds like the one they would've churned out in 1998.

Few can match their feel for arrangement or sense of structure.

The tracks themselves are, per Reznor and Ross's pedigrees, immaculately pieced together, richly detailed and suitably moody. Maandig, however, continues to stick out of this mix.... She still hits all the right notes, but brings a generic prettiness to her delivery that doesn't gel with the moody futurism going on around her.

He's no longer hiding in clever loops or layering. This sensual album suggests a producer at the height of his powers.

Despite its three-disc bulk, it exhumes too few buried-but-necessary takes and does little to illuminate what Isis did, why they did it, and what it all means.

Though imperfect, Hill's intensifying sonic clarity presents the Babies as a group that still believes in rock'n'roll as a powerful language, one that can help sort out mortal complexities and say something about the way we live.

Tame Impala prove far more exciting because, by maximizing the use of the available technology, they tap into the progressive and experimental spirit of psychedelic rock, and not just the sound.

Power and Passion is blighted by a rapper who seems too distracted by his woes to sit down and write more than a couple of full songs.

Perhaps this release is their own way of dispensing with some lingering ghosts before moving on to something new.

Ital's sense of abrasion and his notion of groove are both finely tuned, so it's all for the best when they work in parallel.

Trilogy's triumph is in how it makes its three hours feel necessary to fully embrace it all, to acknowledge its existence inside ourselves and to vicariously live through it as art.

It turns any living room into an art installation where interesting things may or may not happen, and its lack of direction and specificity is in its own way brave.

While not as immediately striking as either Crystal Castles (I or II), the streamlined sound allows more maneuverability and subtle variety in the actual songwriting.

It sounds exactly like what a fan of Bailiff would hope for, while offering something new and distinct.

This is a cherry on a cupcake.

The Bears for Lunch, however, is the most consistent of this year's trifecta. It may not boast an instant, indeliable earworm like Class Clown's "Keep It Motion" or Factory's "Doughnut for a Snowman", but there are no buzzkill duds like "The Big Hat and Toy Show" either.

As Free Reign shows, when Clinic take their time, they can build up a bewitching groove.

For the most part, the analog warmth of live instrumentation is employed thoughtfully, reminiscent, in some places, of some of the best tracks on Oddisee's fantastic Rock Creek Park.

End of the World still isn't quite as fun as it could be, as the Larson sisters slip back into old habits on a string of tracks that are too reminiscent of last year's Trust Now.

The Man With the Iron Fists OST is a strong album and certainly the best Wu-affiliated product since Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. II, but it never strives to be awesome. And for a RZA project, that means it can't be great either.

Smalhans is a reliably generous gesture from an artist that takes pleasure in indulging himself and his audience.

Deer Creek Canyon is a deft fine-tuning of her meandering rustic tendencies, the tweaks so minor and carefully placed they're at first nearly imperceptible.

Rave Age makes you wish you were listening to other songs.

This album sounds every bit as absurd, chaotic, and exhilarating as it did 14 years ago.

Critcheloe's songs and productions are pleasant and utilitarian-- if any of these came on at the right moment on the right dance floor, you'd wanna dance-- but ultimately insubstantial, fizzing out of one's memory almost as soon as they're finished playing. Still, there are some nice touches.

It's not unlike the effect of the Grateful Dead or even drone music, where subtle changes within a much bigger system provide thrills beyond the surface. That said, Atra Mors isn't an easy or amicable listen.

Even if Burning Daylight occasionally slips into shtick, Cowgill is still a good songwriter who can evoke a dark mood and the big, warm, beating heart underneath it.

Rather than dismiss Just to Feel Anything as a mistake, perhaps it's better to think of it as a mixed detour, one that some of the band's followers might in fact welcome.

The main issue here is a distinct and debilitating lack of craft.

We're left with some pretty pictures for our refrigerators and some worthwhile domestic jams, but little to be excited about.

Vasquez's knack for atmosphere was there from the beginning, but he's becoming a better, more defined songwriter.

The many guests on Young Hunger prevent the album from getting too bogged down in schmaltz, adding color and texture to the record.

The overly fussy, played-too-safe System Preferences seems to be begging for a bit of Earlimart's old weirdness, an oddly placed bridge, a couple of bum notes, a "Burning the Cow", something. Without it, this record winds up feeling a little too perfect for its own good.

Loneliness aside, Come Home to Mama is not a somber affair. Credit's partly due to new producer Yuka Honda from Cibo Matto, who freshens up the sound considerably.

There's no overall sense of narrative to Order of Noise, but the depth of the production leaves itself open to interpretation.

The moments of goodness and light here bump up against plenty of songs that are depressing or otherwise unseasonal-feeling. You're happy to get the present, but it's not exactly what you would've asked for from Santa.

Holding all of this together, as always, is Riley's sharp humor.

Hands of Glory possesses an almost academic quality, as though Bird and his cohorts were presenting a musical essay about endtimes imagery in country music.

What puts listeners in a difficult spot is that, no matter how infuriating it gets, Matricidal Sons of Bitches is clearly the product of serious compositional intention; it's not an accidental mess.

There is a lot of loud, full-bore belting. It's a little showboaty and on occasion his voice threatens to overpower the song itself.... Still, not a note of Magic Moment rings false.

Even though it operates under the familiar laws of Mayer's universe, Mantasy's appeal largely comes from how self-contained and individual each cut is.

DeMarco writes about life--both the heavy moments and the mundane ones--with economy and newfound grace.

Meek has made the move from mixtapes to the majors with a solid vision.

Cold of Ages is a big leap forward for a band that had already started out a few steps ahead of the pack.

On their proper full-length debut, a sound in danger of stagnation has been brightened and reconfigured in appealing ways.