Free Dimensional feels like a sequel [to debut album, Special Affections], more professional, calculated, and occasionally satisfying, ultimately lacking the anything-goes magic that called for a sequel in the first place.

Easily the slickest album the Fresh & Onlys have made yet, Long Slow Dance subtly expands the band's sonic palette without overwhelming the band's appealing simplicity.

The record doesn't abandon the moody sprawl of the band's last few full-lengths, but it does help restore urgency to an aesthetic that seemed in danger of growing soporific.

It's the headphones album of the year from a producer with a long history who has come into his own.

This might be BMSR's most accessible effort, but if you couldn't get past the vocoder and voodoo before, it's unlikely that you will now.

For all its psychedelic tendencies and marketing trappings, Goat's World Music feels as assured and unfussy as folk music.

The best parts of Banks are the ones that most resemble Interpol, rather than the stabs at spooky, old-guy mope-pop that comprise most of the record. In that respect, this album fails as a valid statement outside of the confines of Banks' band.

Though inspired by weightier and more evocative themes [than 20122's Too Beautiful to Work], Animator already feels less memorable-- it seems to constantly evade the listener's grasp.

Cokefloat! is not always admirable but it's emotionally open.

VII pursues no radical new directions for Maserati, but even though you sort of already know these songs, they still have enough engaging motion and kinetic force that if you ever loved them in the first place, you'll love them all over again here.

In the context of Matt & Kim's discography, Lightning is inconsequential. Like an echo of an echo, there's nothing here that Matt & Kim haven't already done over and over again.

At its best, Lost Songs' take on post-hardcore imagines an alternate history where indie rock's first-wave originators got to rule the modern-rock radio landscape of the 1990s, rather than just serve as an increasingly diluted influence upon it.

Unusual musical flairs pop up all over Who Needs Who... [but] the style never becomes the substance. Likewise, the drama behind the album's making doesn't overwhelm the music.

The young British producer Mark Taylor offers a more all-embracing vision of rudely extroverted modern garage, unified by his familiar palette of turgid bass tones, decaying synth riffs and shuddering, syncopated beats.

Yakuza continue to forge a specialized and strange alloy [of metal and experimental music] on Beyul. Don't expect to love all of their recombinations. Do, however, expect to be surprised by them.

You get the feeling their intent was to make a one-take road dog album. At that they've succeeded. But Local Business also marks the first time the band seems like it's holding something back-- like there is a Plan B.

Goulding can certainly inhabit a soundscape. Her next step is to inhabit just one.

Sunshine turns simple words and sounds into something larger.

However convoluted things get, you still wanna pump fist and bang head, even if you're not always sure when you should be doing so.

Bafflingly outdated alt-rock songs that could comfortably sidle between choice cuts from Marcy Playground and Semisonic [circa 1998] and get their asses handed to them.

It makes sense that, at almost an hour, it wants to make good on fulfilling its feature-length ambitions, though even the most devout midnight movie synth-pop fans will still find it a bit much.

What makes Gem feel like a such step forward (and such a straight-up enjoyable romp) is the way it playfully appropriates the debauched excess of glam rock to achieve its own singular vibe.

The miracle of this album is how it ties straightforward rap thrills--dazzling lyrical virtuosity, slick quotables, pulverizing beats, star turns from guest rappers--directly to its narrative.

A restless and sometimes laborious album that attempts to spotlight all of Enslaved's parts in one very overbearing package.

At once striking and enigmatic-- and artfully constructed.

That sense of the ludicrousness of life runs throughout Tragicomedies. It's what gives it its spark and forgives its slip-ups.

Night Moves rely on the sound that got them signed rather than pushing themselves in a new direction, and the results are not as exciting as they could've been.

Their debut does more than enough to stand on its own, not only ambitious in its own right, but leaving little doubt about Hundred Waters' capability of handling wherever their ambition takes them from here.

Department of Disappearance does sound strangely complacent and monochromatic, offering no twists on the technorganic aesthetic he's been plying since Grandaddy were still a bedroom act.

Unknown Rooms is a short album, but its nine songs capture and sustain free-floating fear and menace.

[Listening to the album is like] a reunion with an old friend, but not necessarily a close one. For half an hour, you think "why don't we do this more often?" until it ends and you remember how frustrating they can be.

As with prior Matmos efforts, the ambition here is bold, both in the base concept and its execution.

Numbers is a solid rap record, but MellowHype have shown themselves to be capable of more.

Daughter of Cloud accurately depicts an artist who has pushed his artistic license to its very limit. It also makes a convincing argument for the virtue of accepting some of those pushed-aside limitations.

Whether it's a unique opportunity to peek into a talented musician's creative process or a throwaway collection of sonic gags depends on your tastes.

Snaith's fascination shines, taking him places that po-faced peers are blind to.

Tender New Signs makes the listener work a little harder within Tamaryn's framework, but it rewards as much, if not more, than the walls of noise threatening to hem them in just a few years ago.

Even as he shifts from his typically elliptical songwriting to more structure-bound forms, he never sounds overly fussy. It makes Former Lives a brisk listen even when the songs themselves aren't particularly innovative.

There's never a dull moment across AWLWLB's 38 minutes. It's all peaks.

While Pink should not be conflated with a proper follow-up to There Is Love in You, even as a singles comp it suggests that the undergrad producer circa Rounds is now post-doctorate, and Four Tet is capable of going deeper and expanding higher than almost anyone else out there.

The looseness of Oblivion Hunter is a nice reminder that the core of their appeal isn't so much that they're pushing their sound into new places, but that they're two guys who can't hide how happy they are that they get to spend their lives making this kind of a racket.

Rather than stampeding recklessly forward on the heels of cataclysmic frontman Lee Spielman, Trash Talk have re-directed their energy into mountainous, pile-driving riffs that hit with a lowdown, deliberate force.

Sundark and Riverlight is like the thumbnail version: everything compressed, details lost.

The Killer works slightly better than either of its predecessors as an album, with the promise of what is to come relieving the earlier stretches of some of their grimness. The gaseous (and Gas-eous) ambient interludes, too, are perfectly sequenced, offering soothing counterpoints to the album's most pummelling efforts.

The discrepancy on Bootlegs between studious songcraft and rambunctious execution occasionally sounds distractingly self-conscious, but Lerche still sounds better here for sounding so unguarded and loose.

There's a surface graininess that amplifies the corrosive qualities of the band's sound and the strep-throat rawness of Edkins' voice, but also serves to accentuate some of the more surprising elements in the mix.

Newman's melodic gifts continue to serve the emotional core of his songs well, but he pulls his punches with opaque lyrics and too many wheelhouse-sticking power-pop cuts that keep Streets from achieving the impact it could have had.

Lonesome Dreams' instant knock of familiarity will prove comforting for some, but it gives these tracks something of a plug-and-play feel. Many songs are dramatically assembled, and all of them move, but when they move in pretty much the same ways as another, spryer band, it's that much harder to get caught up in their attendant drama.

Twins doesn't stick to the middle or even pick a lane. It swerves, visiting territory well-tread with a perspective that feels new.

An often unlistenable album from WHY?, a group whose music is often excellent.

The brilliant writing on First of a Living Breed ... would position the album as a candidate for one of the year's best rap records if it weren't for those drawback tracks ["For the Kids", "Cedar and Sedgwick"].

Without that commitment to either pop immediacy or boundary-pushing weirdness, let alone being able to pull of both at once, Tussle are always going to feel like they occupy some kind of tepid middle-ground, however sharply their cymbals are recorded.

Difficult, unapproachable, and gleefully abrasive, Verdonkermaan will be an addictive but acquired taste for those who seek out the horrendous, the inhumane, and the fucking brutal.

The four-track fidelity and crowded mix don't give her the space to fully command your attention as she does in concert.

The group's clearly more concerned with making great sounds and creating a distinctive vibe than they are with making lasting statements.

Add it all up, and you get one of Tejada's most varied records to date.

Cohen might have made the album for himself as a keepsake, an antidote to the rest of life's pressing noise. It works that way for us, as well.

His music is of the wholly sensual, painfully physical kind, and with Held he triumphantly translates his bruised intimacy to full-length format without losing any of its skin-prickling power.

With Formerly Extinct, Rangda not only prove themselves to be a going concern as a band, but that they might just be starting to really hit their stride.

Young Smoke's not trying to push things forward. Instead, he's trying to take the genre somewhere it hasn't really gone yet, by introducing new textures, giving his productions more space and room to breathe, and infusing the results with a dose of humor. Whether or not he gets there remains to be seen, but joining him on the ride provides its own level of fascination.

Everybody's Got It Easy But Me answers Finberg's ever-withering worldview with playful, rambunctious performances, enhancing the I-just-wasn't-made-for-these-times pathos of his lyrics by essentially making him sound like an outcast within his own songs.

What sets Sentielle apart amongst Fell's work is the residual synth pools that tremble like oil on water. They are sparse and alien, but they reflect light in a way their host matter can't.

It's respectful of tradition, quietly ambitious, and deeply personal, a wonderfully considered album from an artist who was starting to seem a lot like a forgotten gem in the wake of mishandled promotion.

Soft Fall just works, whether as a dazzling display of sumptuous synthetic ambience, rich, romantic pop, and quite a few points in between.

It's only when Apache Dropout indulge their pulpier interests too faithfully that they run into trouble.

[Circles] is an uncharacteristically varied, psych-y noise-pop record that just plain sounds and feels great.

There are no unexpected detours or superfluous tangents, just 10 songs of sweet resilience delivered by a voice of seemingly effortless expression.

The music is big but gentle, offered without tension or anger. When it is not big-- see the leaden sentiment of "You Make Me Feel" and "Delicately"-- it is laughably composed and calculating.

Darnielle finds equal grains of humanity and empathy in people crouched in the darkest corners and blinded by the brightest spotlights. It's not spirituality, escapism, or even optimism, exactly, that he's espousing--all you know is it's some kind of light.

Having seemingly mastered all modes of excess, you'd think The 2nd Law would be Muse's unimpeachable triumph. It's not, and the problem isn't that Muse have gone too far... they haven't gone far enough.

What feels missing from Heavy Mood is specificity: Where are the characters, and what became of those kids passed out on the lawn? The heart of Heavy Mood is lost its in own sloganeering.

The surface is a gorgeous invitation to return and see if you can figure out what it all means.

Don't Be a Stranger, American Music Club frontman Mark Eitzel's best record since 2001's The Invisible Man.

Bibio's [Ambivalence Avenue] had two things Look a Little Closer is missing, namely context and a true sense of discovery.

It's both overstuffed and messy, and so overworked that what life there may once have been now exists as a kind of primordial paste.

YOKOKIMTHURSTON is not so much a decibel-bursting showcase for the Queen of Noise and her unruly understudies as a conversation between intimates speaking in tongues and tangles-- a voyeuristic glimpse into a private, discomfiting exchange.

While State Hospital lacks for pure visceral pleasure, Hutchison can still convey such a deep, muscular ache in his vocals, indicating that Frightened Rabbit still know their strengths.

Sundowning is an empowering listen, and Lukic's roars force you to reckon with what's raw inside yourself.

Though this album is a beautiful, well-executed listen, Blu will only really be fulfilling his potential when he starts looking toward the future again.

These new songs are shadowy and spacy, a little bit lost, maybe even a tad sexy despite themselves--all brighter and richer than their predecessors.

It's true that destruction can be an act of creation, but the same goes the other way around: In building, Villalobos, with his big ideas and cheerful disposition, tears down.

Clark can, and hopefully will, do better. But for now he feels like a genuine talent unable to find a foothold.

Tennant's mature gift as a lyricist is for sentimentality tempered by slyness, and he pulls that off a few times... Too much of Elysium, though, misplaces its subtlety.

Lupe's dexterity remains his greatest asset.

For a collaboration between a songwriter and a producer who helped push her to the outer limits of her vision, Melody's Echo Chamber is an impressively immersive debut.

Though the album doesn't work in many places, it's a laudable attempt to mix together two styles which are, at first appearance, utterly alien to one another.

End of Daze is a confident and comprehensive showcase for everything Dum Dum Girls do well.

Long and lush isn't a bad look for the Soft Pack, so long as they're keeping the beat.

It is hard not to be a little dismayed to see that Efterklang have settled for what is likely the least daring--if perhaps not the least lucrative--path going forward.

All in all this is a kinder, gentler Dinosaur-- you won't have another "Severed Lips", sorry--making a very solid album, one that finds the band gelling with half the fuzz.

Stripped of the cut-and-paste studio trickery and celebrity cameos that defined the band's records from the mid-90s onward, the self-produced Meat and Bone boasts no ambition beyond capturing the Blues Explosion in straight-up, no-bullshit rock'n'soul mode.

Even as Sledge and Jessee work to add some rough edges to the music, their frontman keeps his distance on Sound of the Life of the Mind, as though he can't quite get outside his own mind. As a result, the album sounds barely able to polarize, like Folds is rockin' the suburbs gently to sleep.

The tracks feel like true collaborations rather than features. The energy exchange feels mutual. Sebenza feels like the future, now.

Minerva's music remains an acquired taste, and Will Happiness Find Me? is not a record to convert people who've been put off by her stuff in the past. Still, it's noticeably clearer in its vision than anything she's put out before.

Although Moms is the result of its two creators' putting themselves through the wringer, it never feels overshadowed by dread.

Total Loss uses the common tools of pop expression-- four-minute songs, autobiography, choruses, confession-- to create a work of poignant and devastating art.

The album starts strong, but is uneven, dragging toward the end.

Here Ambarchi shows how sharp about-turns and starkly dissimilar contrasts can be equally potent.