There's no denying the Joy Formidable's passion, vigor, and pop smarts; it would just be easier to appreciate those qualities if The Big Roar didn't so often sound like a big blur.

Civilian opens with the sound of ambient chatter, a room full of voices quickly washed away by steeled guitar and electronics. It's a shift at odds with the polar dynamics this Baltimore-based duo has sworn by in its half-decade career.

Let Me Come Home is still too overworked, but, as that final song proves, it represents a welcome shift toward (relative) musical simplicity and lyrical honestly that shows that the band is heading in the right direction.

These are not all indelible tunes--probably half of them will fade from your memory shortly after a listen--but they are pleasant enough while they last, and with half the tracks clocking in under the three-minute mark (and the others barely breaking it), nothing on um, uh oh overstays its welcome.

Kraus' arrangements used to be a tad predictable, putting the tools of Appalachian and British folk toward familiar ends; here, in serpentine guitar figures and rich textures, she finds her own forms.

Given Ruppert's past predilection for dramatic singing, one would think his vocals would be a perfect match for these backing tracks. Unfortunately, he often doesn't rise to the challenge.

DeVotchKa cycle through and marry varying strains of world music with great aplomb. It's very rare that you'll find a seam.

Chasny has distilled all of his impulses and obsessions-- slow drones and brisk picking, solemn mumbles and cheery riffs, ponderous lyrics, and ruminative instrumentals-- into 43 muted, marvelous minutes.

The most immediately striking moments on Collapse Into Now are those that sound like explicit retreads of previous R.E.M. songs.

The band's third LP, Gramahawk, is pretty much a do-over in every conceivable way.

While there are a few selection missteps overall, the first disc in particular makes for a great initiation to the Radio Dept.'s previous work. And that there is the opportunity to re-introduce this long undervalued band is something to cheer in itself.

Playing for the first time with Higgs--who's spent the last seven years on spoken word, jew's harp improvisations, and other unclassifiables--they've delivered their strongest work so far.

Constant Future doesn't much build on previous albums, stylistically or qualitatively, but it displays a group of now-veteran dudes who know their strengths and who never stop playing to them.

Martinez may not be able to right the wrongs of the past, but he does Palacio's legacy proud on Laru Beya. And by bringing this music to a world stage, he may also help secure his people's cultural future.

Whether he's channeling the energies of John Fahey or Tom Petty or even Bob Seger, Smoke Ring makes clear that the end result is his alone.

Discodeine settles too comfortably into a consistent four-on-the-floor groove that ends up sounding an awful lot like a rut.

Quever has extended his transition into dreamy territory really well.

Anderson's baffling work rate seems to have adorned his songs with a wide variety of skins. From a curatorial standpoint, what's been arranged and sequenced here goes deep in the name of diversity.

While the taste level occasionally falters, this is a fine and detail-oriented album that should be taken with a grain of salt by fans for whom music must always, at some level, be a site of iconoclasm.

Thematically it's as strong an instrumental record as I've heard in a while, this weird glimpse at a stranger's photo album that in the end is surprisingly quite touching.

Like Joss Whedon's show, Wounded Rhymes is an album of stark, scintillating contrasts: between fantasy and reality, between the powerful and the vulnerable, between the brash and the quiet, between the rhythmic and the melodic.

Throughout the album, Fuchs' playing is exemplary, but not in a showy or needlessly florid manner; he simply gets to work and gets the job done, content with being just one part of a greater whole.

Replicants' problems extend beyond vocal limitations; the real issue is that, at 13 tracks and 40 minutes, this record plays like a shiftlessly uninteresting, self-parodic slab of warm-in-2010 pastiche.

Port Entropy is charming and pretty and brilliantly assembled, but utterly two-dimensional, and listening to it even one time completely through yields strikingly diminished returns.

The relatively sparse and chilly tone of Departing ultimately feels less like a slump than a conscious decision to present itself as the wintertime counterpart to Hometowns' prairie summer.

That sudden stop is the only moment on Something Dirty that could be called a gimmick, but it feels oddly right. A fade-out would be too easy--better to bluntly suggest that there's more music beyond that final frame, and encourage the rumor that this version of Faust is far from finished.

Nothing Fits is the band's first release to be recorded in an actual studio, and the result is a shorter, more focused record, but hardly a cleaner one.

What makes Sun Bronzed Greek Gods work is the band's innate understanding of the power of a killer hook, and their ability to turn them out effortlessly on each of the EP's seven tracks. Sincere, sharp, catchy, funny--maybe these songs are all you need to know about Dom after all.

Calvi's outstanding vocal tone and arrangements carry the emotional punches, while her lyrics can occasionally take a backseat role.

As wild as a Danielson record can get, his compositions are always meticulously recorded and arranged, and his work ethic is palpable on every track--it's not that these songs feel over-labored, exactly (although they certainly don't seem spontaneous), it's that it's easy to hear all the ways in which Smith is consumed by his work.

The distraction of blatant unoriginality aside, Rare Forms' biggest problem is its lack of compelling structure, with a whole lot of atmospheric haze.

Invariable Heartache sounds more like one of Lambchop's more countrified records, which is to say the music is both lush and minimal, the sound of so many musicians giving themselves over completely to the song. It's a gateway album to Chart's back catalog, as well as to an adventurous era in Nashville history.

TRE3S, their third long-player (released by the Canadian supergroup's Arts & Crafts imprint), finds them continuing to home in on shapes and textures of their own.

This teetering restraint masks the true weirdness of Space Is Only Noise. I could understand someone finding the intensely self-contained Space a bit claustrophobic, but the album is most rewarding when you just grab a seat at the table.

A collection of lesser beats and hooks that somewhat returns to Original Pirate Material's sonics, Computers and Blues sadly trades that record's wonderful sense of place for a foggy vagueness that leaves Skinner's insights mostly impenetrable.

Because Toro Y Moi is so closely linked with the likes of Neon Indian, Washed Out, and Memory Tapes, it's tempting to read into the success of Underneath the Pine as some predictor of those bands' collective staying power, or a direction others might take. But Bundick seems to be following nothing but his own internal compass.

Like their revivalist peers, Cave Singers aren't reinventing a genre here, but they lend their local folkie scene a welcome dark side, and No Witch is their strongest album yet.

Forgoing the bitterness that made 2006's What Are You On sound so tinny and doomed, We Live in Rented Rooms, despite its endtimes stoicism, may be Cornog's highest-fi album to date.

The result is Young Galaxy's finest record, and while it's impossible to say if Lissvik made the band better, he definitely made them more interesting and relevant.

So they've made made a spotty but occasionally quite successful record, complicated considerably by Ramone's take-them-or-leave-them vocals, still the kind of thing only those with their minds already made up could truly love. You expected something else?

Radiohead's eighth record, The King of Limbs, represents a marked attempt to create a considered and cohesive unit of music that nonetheless sits somewhere outside of the spectrum of their previous full-length discography.

Return to the Ugly Side is clearly designed to be experienced as a single piece, complete with an opening instrumental overture that recurs later in the album, and seamless flows in and out of tracks.

The Magic Place, her first album for Asthmatic Kitty, stands above her earlier work in virtually every way.

In the end then, for all of Diplo's good intentions and curatorial muscle, the first volume of Blow Your Head struggles not just as a lesson, or a sampler, but also simply as a collection of songs you want to listen to.

Such persistent tonal shifts theoretically suit the lyrics well, but they lack oomph and often set the duo's songs to meandering when sharper contrasts might've been genuinely thrilling.

That idea, the notion of music as a cheapened, battered object, touches nearly every aspect of Ravedeath, 1972, a dark and often claustrophobic record that is arguably Hecker's finest work to date.

Hotel Shampoo manages to strike the right balance between Rhys' desire to indulge odd whims, lyrical humor, outright pop, and heartfelt sentiment. More importantly, he always makes it sound effortless.

On The Gathering, though, the sonic vista is flattened out, resulting in a dreary, grayscale trudge of an album.

The album comprises expanded and elaborated versions of incidental music crafted for the film, however, even in fleshed-out form, SYR9 can feel frustratingly incomplete, with many pieces coming off as a series of loosely linked fragments lacking an emotional center.

Natalizia recorded Banjo or Freakout with Nic Vernhes at the Rare Book Room in Brooklyn, and Vernhes' naturalistic production style deepens the expanses in Natalizia's sound while maintaining its clean lines and immersive chill.

Housing only a couple of keepers, Fluorescence might initially feel like another letdown after the end-to-end excellence of Citrus, but that overlooks the challenges Asobi Seksu are up against.

The residue of death that lingers on I'm New Here is wiped clean from We're New Here. It's replaced with brightness, an energy, and a historical milieu.

It's no reflection on him, but Go-Go Boots goes a long way to proving him wrong, suggesting a band that knows where all the bodies are buried.

Those out-of-character moments are few and far between, but listeners willing to roll with the lack of punch Little Joy offers will find that shortcoming easy to live with.

If Lerner just keeps on doing his thing, he's clearly getting better at it.

Say hello to Allo Darlin': a welcome reminder that any aversion to cutesy music in recent years may have been due not to the aesthetic, but the quality.

If the results aren't necessarily the kind of up-front and accessible electro that would appeal to their "Hustler"-adoring base, it's definitely an interesting shot at regrouping and concocting a few rapidly refined ideas.

Canty and Whittaker are impressively capable in that respect: they know exactly what will and won't belong in their creepy little mood-worlds, and as a result, Tryptych rarely calls attention to itself.

The number of actually transcendent live records--whether recorded at a radio station or in an arena--is almost laughably small considering how many exist. This one's a gift, the second LCD's given us this year.

That kind of less-is-more approach, where all the clutter is shaved down to a paper-thin framework, is where Ices produces her most affecting material, potentially sketching out a new strain of inspiration for her to follow next time out.

As their odd tics, off notes, and bevy of stops and starts build up, the logic of their approach becomes clearer and more addictive. In that sense Napa Asylum, with 22 songs stretched over 45 minutes, is probably the best Sic Alps full-length so far.

Every line is laid with the rich sense of rhythm and texture that he's mastered over the years, but it still adds up to very little: a wildly spiritual record without any spirit.

Dulli's only got a set number of tricks up his sleeve, and Dynamite Steps deploys them all: the vocal soaring above the maelstrom of guitars (a trick he perfected back on the Whigs' 1965), the off-key croon that other singers might AutoTune, the delicate piano contrasting the gutter guitars, the sordid come-ons masking dark existential doubts, the sudden groove as if someone stepped on the gas.

You almost hope Young the Giant acquiesced to some music executives' request to compromise their style, because nothing else sufficiently explains a debut so devoid of personality.

All that tweaking really brings out the details of his songwriting, which are sometimes lost in the orchestration and less polished vocals here. Still, these types of projects can help a songwriter refocus and between them Vanderslice and Choi have made a memorable album that successfully adds a new twist to Vanderslice's catalog.

Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will--doesn't change the pattern Mogwai have set for themselves on recent, often middling, releases: There are some anthemic guitar blasts, some prettily drifting comedowns, and one or two vocal tracks.

On Let England Shake, Harvey is not often upfront or forceful; her lyrics, though, are as disturbing as ever.

With inchoate, banal lyrics and blustering tunes that go for it all, all the time, Degeneration Street sounds like the product of too much euphoria. Definitely catch the Dears on the comedown, if at all.

This sort of brevity and emptiness makes the tail end of the album, already short at 26 minutes, feel throwaway and hasty. It's hard not to feel, therefore, that this would have made a much better EP, losing some of the shapeless songs that drag down the momentum and charm of the record.

Kudos is considerably more laid back and vibe-heavy. The guitars still jingle-jangle, just with a little more economy.

Yuck are worth hearing not so much because of who they sound like, but what they've done with those sounds.

The intricacies of this Earth -- Carlson's harmonics and harmonies, Davies' careful builds, Blau's unexpected bass maneuvers, Goldston's adventurous versatility -- demand attention and immersion.

Ultimately, End It All, is another well-earned notch in Beans' solo belt and a testament to the strength of his artistic vision-- anyone who can get a convincing hip-hop beat out of Interpol surely deserves some kind of ambassadorship.

So much of the album is straining to be more than just an homage to the club sounds of the late 80s that it ends up being a bit less.

They've certainly got the pure sound of it nailed down. More than most mini-genres, goth demands ambiance-- the mood is everything, and on this front, Violet Cries succeeds tremendously.

Religious music was never a hot button issue, and at no point does this, Moore's latest, feel like anything other than an honest expression of love.

Set your controls for the heart of your bong.

Tell Me, her second album, matches and at times even surpasses her debut in terms of rueful atmosphere and unflinching songwriting, and Mayfield works to break free of her country confines and showcase her vocals in new, unexpected settings.

Organic and jubilant, it successfully weaves psych, world, rock, and folk traditions into something new and endlessly compelling.

These spry melodies and generous arrangements are the stuff of pop fantasy, while the reach of Tyler's music offers calling cards for fans of folk and more textural avant garde pieces.

Its deeper appeal is that it's earwormy enough to take a casual listener multiple go-rounds to pick up on that.

Sure, they could use a few relatable sentiments to go with their outstretched sound, and the Clinic thing's just gotta go. But few bands this young are operating on quite this scale, and fewer still have the brass--and the patience--to pull off a big, glitzy, complex record like Zeroes QC.

Anika is shortsighted in the best way: it's a tribute, an exercise, the charming kind.

They sound more into straight lines than catchy arcs, more into the moment than what came before.

Sun Airway [has] crafted a mature and confident collection of alternate-reality singles far less common than its sound might initially imply.

Seefeel is a thorny album, a thicket of crackling guitars and faltering rhythms.

If Broken Dreams Club is indeed an honest glimpse of what's ahead, it sounds as though Girls have much more to give.

With this new LP -- released on a major label on both sides of the Atlantic, no less -- odds are, a lot of people are going to listen, and I don't mean in the tail-eating, blog-bite-blog sort of way.

The Golem is not a Pixies album, but it is a Black Francis record that walks and talks surprisingly well even without the master text of its film.

while Ghost Blonde can feel like it's keeping the listener at arm's length, further listens reveal a record full of vibrancy, the kind in which you soon find yourself fully immersed.

Even with all of the bands he punches the time card for, it's starting to become very clear that, with Is Growing Faith, his solo efforts are the ones that reap the most rewards.

So if the sprawling, all-bases-loaded Bardo Pond isn't the band's best LP, it might be their most representative: both the tiresome excess and the lung-blackening reward.

Lots of people use music to try and escape their living rooms, but Lady Lazarus seems more interested in inviting us into hers.

It's to his credit that he never seems too in awe of his most obvious antecedents, instead simply choosing to flex his own capabilities within the tight constraints that musicians like Rother, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, and Dieter Moebius have operated within for decades. Still, it's a shame Manley didn't choose to filter more of his own ideas into the myriad eulogies on offer here.

Compared to the last two albums, Zonoscope has precious little guitar crunch, which makes it hard to even call Cut Copy a dance-rock band anymore.

Though there have always been plenty of bands mining the same era, with reverbed vocals and drummers that don't sit down, Stay Home captures attitude and devil-may-care confidence better than most of today's bands worth their weight in Nuggets compilations.

Minks adapt the style that the Clientele matured into over their recent full-lengths, which adds a foreboding touch to these love-and-regret-focused songs.

Their personality-bereft voices take on a chameleonic quality in which, when surrounded by the accompanying music, they eventually become nothing at all.