For these 53 minutes, they also offer a barrage of the unexpected, relighting doom from the strangest corners.

These songs are fiercely internal, which also makes them remarkably hard to shake--here, Roberts is singing about the no-place of everyplace, the desolation we all know.

The most impressive aspect of 200 Years, especially considering it as the debut of a new collaboration, is its overall aura of cool confidence.

Outside the sagging middle section, the subject matter and production will be nothing new to those familiar with Yela's music; his voice and perspective remain sharp and unique, and he certainly hasn't lost any of his technical skill.

Ersatz G.B.'s abrasiveness, inscrutability, and tedium are increasingly tough to take with repeated close listening... a shabby, grueling album.

As pretty as it can be, New Album is another minor Boris album in a string of minor Boris albums.

Some of these feel like scraps and sketches, others like the B-sides they are--which is fine when the scraps are this frequently exciting--but given the range of his output so far, what would be most satisfying would be to get a glimpse of where MacLean's heading next.

For all its movement, GLAQJO XAACSSO feels a little frozen.

While it sounds like it was taken from the same creative burst that birthed London producer Zomby's recent LP Dedication, here that album's glum funereality gets an almost dance-friendly makeover.

Polymers isn't a total overhaul from the taut and punishing Travels, but it does dial back tempos and lean far more heavily on blaring arcade synthesizers.

Siamese Dream's songs don't blend into each other, but some transitions exist; each stands out in a brilliant sequence, forming perhaps the best concept album they ever made.

Taking the greatest-hits route through Gorillaz's career, it's impressive how few of the tracks sound dated.

These two releases [Gish and Siamese Dream] still resonate, as both a nostalgia fix underscoring how it was so easy to fall for Smashing Pumpkins in the first place, and as the best introductions to their music any newcomer could want.

Dive might not be the most ambitious instrumental record you hear all year, but it almost always sounds good.

Such dedication to an aesthetic means Far Side Virtual gets a little tedious: It's 16 songs that aren't all that catchy but aren't exactly ambient either.

On South Bank--the most vital and essential document of Reid and Hebden's five-year partnership--it feels clear that, at least onstage, they were finally able to go the distance.

There's more movement, more development, more variety; fitting for a trilogy's middle, it's where the sounds get thicker, where the possibilities simply become more intriguing.

Talk That Talk tries too hard to send a more one-dimensional message and ends up falling flat: Rihanna's obviously going for sexy here, but her music's at its most alluring when she's blissed out in her own reverie, not taking the time to spell it all out for us.

Unfortunately, Welcome to Condale is stylistically all over the place and, despite its generally upbeat tone, kind of a drag to listen to.

His admirers will find this record beautiful in the strangest places, while his detractors might choose to see its occasional impenetrable gloom as a kind of desertion in itself.

Bliss is eerie because it takes the seduction of those forms and turns it slightly askew; there's something unsettling about the musical equivalent of a permanent smile.

It's short and intense, and accordingly it hits hard and leaves enough of a lasting bruise on you that you can't help but touch it, just to feel the pain again.

In its pinnacles and pitfalls, Schlungs confirms that, even if the results can be cute, communicating with humans is usually the least impressive talent any alien has.

There are a few moments when all the backward glancing becomes a bit heavy-handed, but in their most inspired moments, Blouse find the connection between the limits of outdated technology and the terrible bliss of desiring something impermanent.

New York duo Sepalcure nimbly incorporate current trends but arrive at a sound-- politely mysterious rhythms put to life by haunted vocal samples-- that's familiar and rich.

Short blasts of distortion leave their mark throughout the album, guitar tones evoking the image of exploding paint cans in a mid-size room, adding to the unruly spirit of the band's albums and live sets.

Basically, this is exciting, skilled, fist-pumping, true-to-life stuff made by good-seeming guys who, in the end, aren't afraid to laugh, goof around, or make fun of themselves.

The record also feels like an important moment in time marked on a door frame--it's an intriguing peek into the restless, youthful development of King Krule.

It might be just a mix CD, but Scuba's DJ-Kicks is a landmark both personal and scene-wide.

In his own dogged, idiosyncratic way, he's keeping a neglected strain of dance music alive here, and while the joys are subtle, the more attention you give the mix, the deeper they feel.

Her best music, this album included, has the effect of putting one in the kind of treasured, child-like space--not so much innocent as open to imagination--that never gets old.

It's not clear what Tanton wanted this album to be... It's a loose collection of whims and desires, unrolled over vast expanses of terrain that Tanton could survey for a while to see how they fit.

It's an album of quiet excellence, one that aims to soundtrack your most idle thoughts while romantically demanding your attention.

The Beets' newfound focus on recording quality could have easily highlighted shortcomings, but instead, the band found a way to broaden its sound by recruiting a member who exponentially adds to its worth.

While Milagres may sound like a lot of music fans' favorite bands, it's hard to imagine anyone preferring this record to the real deal.

Unto the Locust does fall off a bit toward the end, but that's largely because the first four tracks add up to just under 30 minutes of the most exciting metal you'll hear all year.

The record keeps moving. Sometimes it moves with warmth, and sometimes with motorik rhythm.

Though this EP plows a narrower row than Judges, Stetson still manages to show us two very different aspects of his visceral minimalism.

It's ultimately more memorable for the way it combines its sounds than for its songwriting, which is a criticism that applies to a fair amount of the record.

Not everything here is as compelling, but the true takeaways (the first three cuts, including the outsized, life-affirming "16 Years") are well worth the misguided ambition and watered down moments that inhabit the EP's second half.

Thanks to Jónsi's impeccable vocals, a rare falsetto that loses none of its power in a live setting, everything remains indubitably the work of Sigur Rós.

Hello Sadness is their fourth straight great album.

Where club culture mythologizes a circuit of endless nights and after-parties, Passed Me By suggests physical and spiritual exhaustion, Sisyphus collapsing beneath the dead-eyed twinkle of the disco ball.

For a record fixated on personal nostalgia, Life Is Full of Possibilities still feels bright-eyed and forward-thinking.

Part Lies makes a good case that their later period has value too, and that the group had raised the bar so high for themselves that merely being very good could be interpreted as a failure.

Beyond the Lightless Sky doesn't meet recent high-water marks set by the Body, Rwake, Baroness, or Thou, but it does seem like the next stepping-stone for Hull.

It's their best release yet, but it it takes some time to sink in.

It's music pleasant enough to carry intergenerational appeal, characterized by a youthful spirit but rooted in a classic sound. Bad Penny, then, is ultimately a solid debut that is still surprisingly safe.

Fahey was a restless listener, tinkerer, thinker, and player--a combination that makes this set fascinating both as a history book and a lifetime listening indulgence.

At 15 songs, Severant is long and occasionally becomes drifty, but at its best, the album is a confident, even inspired, solo debut.

Just as his thematic concerns have become richer, so has the music backing them up.

Impossible Spaces isn't simply the most accessible and immediately rewarding album to bear Sandro Perri's name, it also serves as a handy musical roadmap to its maker's sinuous creative course.

If all of this sounds more geared toward Eno completists and poetry fans than the general listener, that's about right.

This is music that digs deeper and burrows beneath the level of shared associations to discover the sparkling emotional potential of carefully arranged vibrations moving through the air.

Bigger, stranger, and just plain heavier than any Circles disc before it, the first 35 minutes of Empros' empyrean, oblong alien-prog finds the band once again wrestling their grand ambitions into impossible shapes.

Its quality is mostly a testament to Pusha's connections and his ear for beats, but the rapping is sufficiently competent enough that the album never drags, which is less of a backhanded compliment than it might read.

His music nurses a profound ache, and he's now made enough of it that it's become a whole corner to visit, a unique transmission that feels like its own sentient being. As an artist, it's hard to aim higher than that.

The worthy additions in this "super deluxe edition" are nearly all visual.

There are a handful of solid songs on Humor Risk, though, without an outright dud in the bunch-- and if that represents a disappointment, then in the end, the joke might be on us.

The Misfits' schtick should stand the test of time. But The Devil's Rain makes supernatural feel like fairly workaday stuff.

Unfortunately, none of these songs actually feel like songs. Only a few have choruses or any significant chord changes. Instead, they're set pieces, which makes sense.

Parallax feels like a more complete work than any other Atlas Sound record, with the differences between the songs less distinct and everything flowing together more naturally.

Admittedly, the album's moves are exceedingly well-worn, yet like fellow 21st century synth-poppers Junior Boys, Pallers' precise craftsmanship means they're also able to elicit many of the same deeply affecting moods and sensations as their forbears.

His gleeful love of words not only elevates some pretty heavy subject matter; it also helps distinguish XXX as one of the most compelling indie rap releases in an already strong year.

After a point this lightless gloom can get a tad oppressive, but Evangelista are able to leaven the mood somewhat through consistently inventive instrumentation.

The Vision seems to be exactly what Joker wants: UK pop R&B of the vainest and most vacuous possible variety.

Everything is fast-moving, breezily entertaining, and patently ridiculous.

And yet all these reworks and revisions stay in the general vicinity of the original album's tone of massive yet starkly open spaces, adding a few new facets but always staying close to the fine line Waiting for You treaded between bleak and euphoric.

Instead of Lungs' largely charming yet discombobulating diversity, Ceremonials suffers from a repetitiveness that's akin to looking at a skyline filled with 100-story behemoths lined-up one after the other, blocking out everything but their own size.

What's here is brilliant, beautiful, and, most importantly, finally able to stand tall on its own.

Audacious to the extreme, but exhaustingly tedious as a result, its few interesting ideas are stretched out beyond the point of utility and pounded into submission.

This isn't the sound of a band closing up shop so much as tidying up the workbench before stepping out for a while.

A Very She & Him stands guilty not of being oppressively adorkable, but of being not nearly adorkable enough.

Deer Tick try to score points simply by sounding like they could drink all those bands under the table, and the self-absorbed and even downright hateful Divine Providence ends up drinking at you, not with you.

Apokalypsis turns out to be a kind of book completely different from what its cover promises.

If Bruiser's more straightforward rock turns mostly disappoint (one notable exception: the late-game adrenaline shot "Everybody's Under Your Spell"), the album does find the band showcasing its dynamic range in new and intriguing ways.

While so many bands at their status revert to bloated contentment or some vague idea of rockist salvation, Mylo Xyloto finds Coldplay successfully continuing to explore the tension of wanting to be one of the best bands in the world and having to settle for being one of the biggest.

Cloudy and labyrinthine at times, airy and placid elsewhere, People cuts a pretty wide swath, an approach that feels a bit more mature and confident than the bending over backwards he sometimes had to do to reach the disparate genres on his earlier solo records.

They spent all their daring on concept, with little to spare for execution. Even for a duo as image-conscious and savvy as these guys, there is little style in their reduction.

No particular melodies, images, or moods really stick out from the vast, dreamy atmosphere that washes over you while you're listening.

The songs here are shorter, less cluttered, and just generally easier to listen to than Bitte Orca, which will disappoint you only if you love Dirty Projectors because of their relentless complexity.

Tarot Classics' popcraft proves well beyond promising, and these songs are certainly sturdy enough to handle their lusher productions and knottier sentiments.

For all his indulgences, Waits never lingers too long; these tracks are concise and expertly edited, and Bad as Me feels as new as it does ancient.

When you're operating on such a grand scale, and the exultant, openhearted Enemy/Lover is rarely outpaced by its lofty ambitions.

Kinshasa One Two is worthwhile both as a cause (all proceeds from sales go to Oxfam) and as an experiment, albeit one that requires some judicious editing to extract the tracks that really count.

While it often lacks the moodier, polyrhythmic highs of Great Lengths and the character that came with it, Martyn's efforts to make it back through no-nonsense propulsion nearly make up for it.

There's a sharp contrast between the twin peaks of Coracle and the rest of its material, especially when they try to pointlessly channel Spacemen 3 circa "Honey" and shackle that sound to some perfunctory beats on "Ecstatic Truth".

Class Actress still sound a little too weird to truly break through (and if they toned that weirdness down, this record just wouldn't be as interesting).

Gauntlet Hair lasts only nine songs. But they're all potential singles in their own right, all different.

Taking the long view, the fact that WAND feels a bit overstuffed is more exciting than it is disappointing.

In a couple of decades, when you're looking for an instant hit of what electronic pop felt like in 2011, you'll be able to throw on Glass Swords and get a dose of that feeling in its purest form.

It's another merely fine, expectation-meeting entry into Boratto's discography, a stopgap until the next knockout single comes along.

Frustratingly, Trust Now doesn't advance on the better ideas from Shadow Temple, particularly the elements of dance music that occasionally surfaced.

All Things Will Unwind, both suffers and succeeds in relation to its scope.

At its heart, jazz thrives on bold, sensitive interaction in the moment, and Live in Europe 1967 represents the pinnacle of that practice.

Forever a slave to rock history, Gallagher feels like he's biding his time for the third act reunion rather than breaking from the well-trod path.

Real Estate have such a knack for classic-sounding melody that every song quickly engages on a musical gut level.