Build With Erosion is the kind of enjoyably sound-damaged effort where stylistic intrusions feel like just that, and not much more.

The countrypolitan aspirations of Bury Me often make it sound hollow--there's a basis in roots music, but it isn't "rootsy" by any stretch. Instead, the clean-shaven guitars, pedal steels, and violins (not fiddles) achieve an eerie minimalism.

There is no wobble in the bass or flutter in the melodies; they are presented as-is, with little space for the listener. Fever can sound plastic, unpliable at times.

Until they can really stand out from the crowd, Seapony just come across as garden-variety twee.

Like a lot of Vedder's experiments, the spirit is easier to admire than the final product. The ukulele might be a great campfire instrument, but sometimes what works best at the campfire should stay there.

Death Cab still sound like Death Cab, but Codes and Keys is undoubtedly the least pop record they've made since breaking through to the mainstream with their last indie-situated effort, 2003's Transatlanticism.

Like nearly all of their studio albums, Circuital may not reach the heights of the band's live show -- a good MMJ concert can recalibrate your gut, it can change you -- but it's a remarkably solid step for a band that's never stopped evolving.

There's no shame in catchy, concise, sharply executed tunes that communicate mildly fresh takes on relationships, either -- and this album has more than a few.

Alegrias is a pleasant stylistic diversion, another in a long series of non-revelations. That's Gelb's appeal: a guy, a thoughtful guy, who won't press you into adoration, even when he deserves it.

His belief in his own profundity is kind of endearing as Manchester Orchestra's driving force. It's hard to imagine something like the title track, which uses infidelity as a jumping-off point to question the entire basis of human existence, even standing a chance without it.

Though it's one of the few songs on Last that isn't sad and bleak, their voices come together just so, and the result is mystifying and devastating.

Conceptually, they're close to Mumford & Sons: opportunistic in their borrowings, yet entirely unimaginative in the execution. Theirs is a thoroughly timid, tentative take on Americana: roots music without the roots.

Wisely, the band's sophomore effort, Pala, wastes no time submerging itself into its own indulgent environment.

With In Blank, Davis has tapped into something vital that even the best backing band can't automatically afford: confidence.

With Demolished Thoughts, Thurston Moore solo albums have become more than fields of noise throwaways spiked with the occasional gem, more than Sonic Youth stopgaps.

If you're not inclined toward acoustic improvisation or unstructured abstraction, Orcutt won't change your mind. But anyone can admire the raw soul of his playing and the way he shoots out ideas in real-time, reacting so quickly it's as if he's creating a new language as he speaks it.

While it brandishes a certain kind of insular brilliance, it's music more ripe for conversation or think pieces than headphones or the living room hi-fi.

There's isn't much in the way of clues as to why they wrote and recorded in secret, but this, their debut, sounds like an album that wasn't yet ready to be heard. It is beautifully crafted and rich in demure detail, but Street of the Love of Days is largely bereft of energy or direction.

At least he hasn't lost his wry sense of humor. But about this newfound singing business: Argos has discovered a voice that sounds a bit like Jarvis Cocker's, only if he'd lost it after a long night out drinking-- a little hoarse, whispering low so as not to upset the hangover.

Laced is indeed bigger and bolder than previous albums, which is somewhat ironic since it has a more intimate, made-in-the-bedroom feel than the band's earlier basement forays.

Led by singer and songwriter Wesley Patrick Gonzalez, this band of early twentysomethings comprehensively captures the mindset of young men kicking and screaming against their inevitable transition into adulthood.

The set devotes each of its four discs to performances from a specific decade, but even if you don't think Iggy has produced a front-to-back great album since 1979's New Values, Roadkill Rising is still worth your time.

Heavy Rocks does the things you expect a Boris album to do.

Attention Please at least offers something fresh for Boris.

Davila 666's sophomore album is still rowdy enough for an impromptu weekend binge with a few friends, but it also offers enough carefully crafted tunes and feedback-streaked textures to fill your headphones.

There's plenty of zoned-out atmosphere on the tape, but it's a strong, focused, unified piece of work, not just a lava-lamp soundtrack. It stands on its own.

It might not be your cup of tea, but there's little denying its charm.

Murderbot could conceivably do more to smooth out his productions, but what he wants to do is duct-tape his record collection together and find pleasure at the resulting contraption. If you share his obsessions--or are merely curious about them--you're invited to smile and dance with him.

Diotima's glory is often in its details. It has fewer stops, starts, and redirections than its predecessors. Rather, the big shifts are now often misleadingly subtle and slight, created more by the way the musicians move against and with each other than how the band moves as a unit.

Director's Cut provides a unique opportunity to do an A/B comparison between a late-career artist and her younger self. But which you'll prefer likely depends on whether you favor a more assured artist working within her strengths, or a brash younger artist delighting in the defying of pop conventions.

Mountains are great at maintaining tension--their tracks never feel aimless or inert, even at their most toweringly monumental, like on Air Museum's "Newsprint". So if you liked Choral, here it is with more of everything, for better and for worse.

If it's any consolation, the songs are interchangeable and accomplished enough that long-time fans will be relieved that they didn't embarrass themselves. Newcomers, if any, will almost certainly wonder what the big deal was.

An album full of fake rap, famous-people cameos, and scatological jokes shouldn't have any replay value whatsoever, but Turtleneck & Chain holds up awfully well, partly because the music is almost always, at the very least, listenable, and partly because the jokes depend more on earwormy hooks and absurdities spinning out of control than on simple punchlines.

It's gritty and honest. Beneath the surface-layer thrill of some of these songs are subtle character shifts and brave one-liners, all of which confirm VanGaalen's status as gripping songwriter as well as a producer.

As great as all these songs are individually, they sound best together, and hearing them in relation to one another reveals things about them that are harder to catch when they're separated.

The dividedness of the record is especially plain here. Acher generally gets calm and luscious music, and then all hell breaks loose whenever Dose shows up.

Aesthethica is inventive, alive, and shrieking with more ideas than many bands explore over an entire career.

You may drift through recent Sea and Cake records more than you engage with them, but you still tend to want to drift for longer than a half-hour. Nevertheless it suggests the band is still master of the niche it's carved, and not out of new ideas just yet.

As with their other work with Michio Kurihara, False Beats and True Hearts is a slow bloom, an album whose rewards can become fully apparent only through thoughtful immersion.

On Feel It Break, they've got that creeping cinematic synth-psych style down cold. Moving forward, I'm curious to hear what else they can do.

White's natural eeriness and Jones' diffident eroticism certainly fit a sound built around mystical melodrama and chilly Euro heartbreak, but their voices are such complimentary opposites that they turn out to be what gives Rome much of its distinctness, keep it from being just another record collector (or film collector) exercise in getting everything period-perfect.

There is no scrape, no tension, no noisy bullshit, and Destroyed is eminently un-replayable as a result.

Wild Beasts have remained an act with no intention of blending in. Smother, their third full-length, is just as the above quote promises: completely uncompromising. And that's why it succeeds.

Stylish as Kirk's songs can be, they aren't always well suited by Creep On's contrasting patterns.

The Antlers won't hold your hand through Burst Apart, which will inevitably make it more of a grower, but stick around -- it's all the more affecting for how it allows you to pick your own stumbling, lonely path.

James Pants is his third album, less goofy and party-focused than 2008's Welcome, and a little less brooding and funky than 2009's Seven Seals.

There are still a couple of puzzling decisions--"Backwards Time" is such a pitch-perfect evocation of the Police that it's actually distracting--but The January EP succeeds where the other Here We Go Magic releases have mostly failed; instead of handing you a couple of shiny baubles, it provides you with an inviting headspace to fall into.

Like most of Kilgour's solo work, it has a relaxed and quietly accomplished air.

This is still playful stuff, just more subtly so. But to see WhoMadeWho settle into this mode feels like a significant loss of joie de vivre from a group who were once some of dance music's most flagrant disco clowns.

Celebration, Florida doesn't simply reflect the hubbub of America as the Felice Brothers see it. The album becomes a part of the spectacle, which is surely not what the band intended.

It's a tantalizing glimpse of how great solo Harvey can be, but unfortunately, a good deal of the rest of the album is simply unmemorable.

There's nothing even the slightest bit innovative about Gunz n' Butta, but it does give us Cam, Vado, and Araab, three guys with great chemistry, doing what they do. It's a one-dimensional affair, but that one dimension is pretty awesome.

Earle's albums have been extremely uneven for some time now. Certainly that indicates he's put out a sizable amount of dross, but it also means he's recorded a bunch of great songs that have gotten lost in the shuffle.

His fantasies and lack of filter are still huge roadblocks for many if not most listeners. They're depraved and despicable, tied in part to a long and unfortunate legacy of gangster and street rap. They're also one aspect of a larger, character-driven story -- a license that we grant to visual arts, film, and literature but rarely to pop music.

Past Life Martyred Saints is a fiercely individual record, made by a musician with a fearless and courageous approach to her art. Crucially, the desire to let such raw emotion out in song never feels forced.

It's never boring, and there's certainly plenty to wrap your ear around. But these sweet songs just feel like they would've been better served by either pulling back or revving up, not the slathering on that takes place here.

The best songs on Earth Grid have that quality, burrowing notes far enough into your psyche that you start to crave them.

Ending with what sounds like a tape spinning off its reel, it's a welcome break from the amorousness of the remainder of the album, which is charming, but may have a harder time finding a place in your record collection during the year's colder months.

While Honus continues to prove himself one of rock's best working lyricists, Life Fantastic contains as many musically compelling moments as Rabbit Habits and Six Demon Bag.

Even so, it comes as a relief that the song doesn't end with a big, fiery finale. Instead, the band lets The Rise fray apart on its own, a quiet conclusion to a lyrically and musically feisty album.

Eye Contact-- the group's latest album-- is Gang Gang Dance's finest, weirdest, and most uplifting statement yet.

It's when Wasser puts her voice front and center that The Deep Field collapses in on itself.

XI versions works best as a companion for smitten Black Noise fans, and it offers a couple of nice moments that Four Tet and Animal Collective completists might want to keep in their back pockets.

Magnetic Man's arrangements may proudly flaunt dance-pop's most universal qualities, but their efforts remain mere gestures so long as their beats continue to stare so resentfully in the opposite direction.

With Hit After Hit, he's made 11 more charming and knowingly primitive bursts of sunny fuzz. He's got plenty more left in him.

On their latest EP, Secret Walls, the Fresh & Onlys further mine that sock-hopping sound, albeit with fewer alterations and a looser, more jammy approach.

There's a lot to like here but only a few tracks to love, and for every two songs that sound delightfully out of time, there's one that just sounds out of time.

He seems perfectly content to let these small-wonder songs shuffle out unobtrusively into the world, and it's come to feel like a comforting spot to return to every couple of years or so.

Deep Politics, their latest, is among their richest, most expansive offerings to date.

Cat's Eyes is the rare side project effort that feels as (if not more) fully realized than the band from which it borrows members.

So while this may not be a great album or even a top-tier Beastie Boys album -- I'd place it somewhere between Hello Nasty and the inferior 5 Boroughs, neither of which can touch those first four -- anyone who cares about these guys will be glad it exists.

The Book of David is a pleasure-first listening experience, and Quik deploys each of his tricks with a showman's flair.

"Holiday Call" and "Black Lion Massacre" aren't among Barnes' best songs, but they are bold and show that he's an artist who is eager to challenge himself rather than stick to what has become a very successful formula.

Places Like This proved that Architecture in Helsinki could grow out of their early sound without growing tame, that they could change their voice but keep their charm; Moment Bends too often finds them losing one, the other, or both.

Helplessness Blues' analytical and inquisitive nature never tips into self-indulgence.

What's ultimately confounding about the album is how one-note its euphoria can be. The songs are almost interchangeable; the lyrics rarely stray beyond the easy cliche,

It's not a casual purchase, but the band's most dedicated fans and soundtrack heads will be thankful for its creation.

This band is particularly long on charm and short on technical ability, but anyone expecting a garage band to reinvent the wheel is expending far too much mental effort.

Though they'd likely see a frighteningly short life span in a place like Brooklyn, this music remains endearing for reasons that have little to do with their record collections. Intangibles.

Yes, the three discs of Golden Era are a zone of throwback pleasures. It's a chance to listen to one of rap's best voices run on, with breathless speed and breathtaking control, over the kind of effortlessly funky beats that sadly don't get much attention in certain quarters these days.

Some of the playfulness of their early days is missed on Best of 00-10, the loose analog charm of their earliest songs would have given the collection a little more lift. But these 17 songs collectively are a hell of a strong argument for why you're still reading about Ladytron now instead of, say, Miss Kittin or Fischerspooner or Peaches.

It's dense and impressive production work, but not as listenable as Herren at his best.

While many of those artists have since released their finest work to date by stripping away a lot of the dissonance, the same can't be said of Dancer Equired. Though revealing, this probably wasn't the right set of songs to unveil in the process.

Music Sounds Better With You is a mash note to a wide range of indie-pop-- alternately buzzy, peppy, shy, melodramatic, and grandly sweeping.

Start and Complete ultimately achieves what it sets out to do, which is to place a song-oriented frame around another off-the-cuff session by these four disparate talents, who will no doubt spin off in a completely different direction should About Group reconvene.

Music may lack the crazy ambition of his previous acts or some of the unexpected goofiness of the Gang's debut, but it's still a modest pleasure and a fine addition to Svenonius' catalog.

Everything on Thao & Mirah feels of a cohesive collaborative piece, separate from either artist's solo work, a combination that synthesizes their individual strengths to outstanding effect.

Terra doesn't just contribute to the quieter end of the spectrum, it reminds me of the boundaries of that spectrum, and all the sounds murmuring inside them.

Almost without trying, the track becomes a perfect psychedelic blister--headstrong and hot, five dudes marching headlong in one righteous moment. Long live major-label debuts, then: This is the sound of Eternal Tapestry finally turning its instincts into conquests.

Tension and anxiety don't always have to be cavernous and austere, and Black Sun reveals a way for dubstep's vanguard to express their more ominous impulses in a way you can still dance to, no matter how the steps change.

Now, he finally has some good music of his own attached to his name. It may or may not be enough to catch up to the rapidly accelerating talents of his younger peers-- but it's certainly a start.

Take Care is less ragged than Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, but it's otherwise a very similar album.

Woon's managed one assured and beguiling hybrid of UK bass pressure and slick blue-eyed soul.

So yeah, this record is a downer. But there's rare beauty in such darkness, too-- just look at forebears like Leonard Cohen, Elliott Smith, and Nick Drake. Or even Edgar Allan Poe. Because, along with its mopiness, WIT'S END is creepy as hell.

Sure, the band is rooted in American folk, but they're also adventurous listeners and composers, and Outside is unclassifiable in the same way records by northern contemporaries Beirut and Man Man are unclassifiable-- folk music, it turns out, is a broad and fluid thing.

Hanna mostly wins in the sea of Hollywood action soundtracks, but it's marginal as a Chemical Brothers album (I prefer it to their dry, overstuffed mid-decade works).

These guys don't showcase a similarly thorough ear for songwriting, but as far as rock'n'roll feats of strength go, GB City, their debut, registers quickly.