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.

Hopefully, Rolling Blackouts marks the moment in the Go! Team's career where the idea of moving forward becomes less of a literal concept and more an artistic one.

If Samson's voice had the full-blooded verve of her old bandmate Hanna, she might be able to sell this stuff. Instead, she delivers all the album's lyrics in the same flat monotone, and she just sounds bored the whole time.

In its brief onslaught of sneery fun, Vicki Leekx only occasionally reaches the dizzy pop heights of Arular and Kala. But it does give us an M.I.A. who, once again, seems to be having a blast doing what she's doing.

On the new Party Store, the band leaps even further into uncharted territory, turning in a full hour of classic Detroit techno covers.

Spiritual, Mental, Physical-- a follow-up collection of grotty practice tapes and studio goofs culled from a set of tape reels recently unearthed in a Detroit basement-- is a bit less awe-inspiring.

Were they based in an indie rock hothouse, it's easy to imagine Eternal Summers feeling somewhat pressured to streamline or smooth out their sound in a way that would be more easily describable and digestible. Instead, the duo happily flits back and forth between nervy, combustible raves and languorously pretty head nods without a care for thematic cohesion.

Ventriloquizzing places undue emphasis on David Best's sing-spiel to move the action along.

We get truckloads of overzealous horns that sound ripped off from his buddy Conan's late-night band, White's own fuzzed-out guitar, bustling drums, and cartoon-y slide work. The wild excess often ends up shoving Jackson to the sidelines on her own album.

certainly have the energy to go a little crazy musically; no one can say Monotonix lack physical effort on Not Yet. But to get people to care as much about listening to them as witnessing their live shows, it's time to work on the muscles of their imagination.

In short, it's familiar without feeling rote.

They're sticking to their M.O. of repeating a single odd musical or lyrical phrase ("I did crimes for you, they're coming true!") again and again until it sounds like a hook; beyond that, you can tell that they're trying to wriggle out of what they've been doing in the band's previous phase, but haven't quite figured out what comes next.

Despite the emphasis on atmosphere that pervades the album and that seems like a necessary byproduct of its creative technology, The Fall may be the most earthbound Gorillaz album yet--and at times, therefore, the most banal.

If the sentiments are tough, the music itself is tender, borrowing from Belle & Sebastian and Brill Building pop to create a sound that is both pastoral and urbane, straightforward yet sophisticated.

The band that brought the funk to punk isn't in much of a dancing mood here.

More streamlined than their older music, Mine Is Yours' relative simplicity allows its songs to more transparently deal with love lost and found.

These songs are generally not the type to grab you right away, but there's enough mystery and melody there to call you back.

The result is another fantastic step forward, though not without some growing pains. In the transition from basement to studio, one component has yet to come into full focus: Baldi's voice.

Bejar's essential complexity ultimately feels human.

There Are Rules isn't a return to form sonically [...] but a return to results, a just-all-right record from a band that always felt a step behind even in their own genre.

Pollard and company seem especially unfiltered when it comes to ideas, yet unusually patient in bringing them to life.

This is a subtle refraction of the Ducktails aesthetic, where the brittle abstraction and detours down lo-fi cul-de-sacs are siphoned into songs that are breezier, less inward looking, more in thrall to the possibilities of pop.

Problem is, for the second straight album, they do so with the same exact set of tools as every other band in this sphere. So critiquing Ritual threatens to be a process of listing obvious influences that's just as dull as actually listening to the thing.

So while the record is pretty and intermittently enjoyable, it feels one-note and ultimately flat.

This time, though, the band at her back gives that point hooks, rhythms, and textures instead, not just tangents. It's a welcome, if obvious, deviation for a band that's finally more than interesting.

Native Speaker is by nature elliptical, never seeking out a final word even as it converses with itself, almost as if it's meant to be played as a loop, something that can begin as soon as it ends.

Though the leap is audibly huge, Dye It Blonde's many successes aren't wholly the result of its gilded production values and ambition. This band was able to furnish first-class melodies from the beginning. Now they've grown along with their resources.

By the time we reach the slow-burning title-track closer-- a quiet plea for eco-sanity propelled by tense, tightly coiled acoustic strums-- Wire have successfully reinvented themselves once again.

As long as British Sea Power continue to exist on their singular plane, it's easy to admire and probably overrate them for their ambition.

Outside is a fine but ultimately feckless return to form, an attempt to rebuild The Loon's simple charms.

If you're willing to make the time, though, Blurry Blue Mountain will repay your attention.

Stylistically, Strychnine Dandelion is all over the place, but that pan-60s diversity may be one of its most winning traits, as the Gifts make everything sound lively and modern.

Love Letter is mostly poised, polished, and lush beyond belief.

Young God's version is rattled and haunted, with guitars and voices that sound damaged and weary.

III/IV is a fine collection of outtakes, but chances are Adams' magnum opus is still forthcoming.

It's hard not to feel conflicted about Apollo Kids. Unlike Ghostface records that presumably get unfairly judged by the standards of his best work, it's tempting to overrate it due a general relief that he didn't try to make Ghostdini again.

Overall, the combination of outward-looking and backward-leaning influences on What It Means to Be Left-Handed makes for a pleasing combination of slacker indie rock ennui and joyous, ravenous culture-borrowing.

Whether you feel Photographing Snowflakes is a true return to form will depend on your reception of its six-minute title track centerpiece, on which Gough drowsily monotones his way through 10 increasingly whimsical verses with no chorus in sight; you'll either find its slow-motion, pedal-steeled sway charmingly wistful or tediously self-satisfied.

On the sequel, Curren$y and Ski go even further with that central idea, pushing into sleepy, smooth funk territory that fits Curren$y's rap style perfectly.

Rather than muzzle their ferocity, the band's tight, tense dynamic amplifies the fuck-off stridency of their fourth LP, Castle Talk.