A Positive Rage isn't much of an opening gambit. It's a memento for the fans, for better or for worse. But if you were too loaded on Halloween 2007 to remember much from this show, maybe this is the album for you.

The ideas sprawled across Mirrorland are mostly in service of songcraft, adding color and texture to their vibrant visions of a super-black Emerald City. It’s Atlanta rap fantasia, manifold in form and style, each track a new, distinctive set design in the production.

With Cantus, Descant, Davachi has arrived at maybe her purest distillation of those ideals. The attention to detail is itself a kind of time warp; in its patient hold, the music becomes something entirely new.

Cheater is concise, well-paced, and thought-through. Its chaos is held together precariously, a ride that feels at once dangerous and secure. Though you know exactly what to expect, you keep getting back in the line.

Most Normal is a direct attack that hits like chugging gas from the nozzle. It’s not only thanks to its mauling noise, but the antic and insistent cadence of Kiely’s delivery.

It’s bleak and beautiful in the same way Keep You is, and it gives a lot provided you put your share of effort into it. And so you’ll probably feel exhausted after listening to Keep You; as well you should.

We Shall All Be Healed is complacent, formulaic for a trailblazer, lapped by Destroyer, optimistic-but-joyless in that it is pessimistic-but-punchy, and gooped with the silly putty of vagueness and cliché.

Gist Is is full of clever turns of musical and lyrical phrase which will dispel possible accusations of self-indulgence and pretension, and somehow, within just a few listens, it becomes easy to enjoy this unusually paced album of so few easy hooks, and so many seemingly insignificant words.

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.

Parades' recipe--soft verse, big chant, heavenly "aaaaaaaaa", elliptical, Nordic orchestrations, stir--is clever to avoid repetition but extremely taxing.

The Bride Screamed Murder is the sort of album one might expect from a long-in-the-tooth group trying to rediscover its purpose and rejuvenate itself.

The sound is as warm and rich as could be expected from a craftsman of this caliber--David Piltch's upright bass tone alone should be bottled and sold to the highest bidder--but musically and melodically Civilians falls short of making much of a connection itself.

A step left of center yet still striking familiar chords right on time, Allen Toussaint show us his understated brilliance one final time.

This is raw and raucous rock-- pounding drums, throttled prog riffs and breathy, hypnotic invocations.

All told, Migration is an impressive improvement over The North Borders, and easily the most listenable record of Bonobo’s fifteen-plus year career.

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

An infectious collection of grooves that proudly utilizes the traditional vocabulary of rock and roll.

The result is a lot like Elvis Costello's periodic returns to rock territory: snappy genre exercises from a reliable songwriter, but not much more.

Demon... is a near doppelganger of [Architecture in Helsinki's In Case We Die], down to its multitude of vocalists, its adorable accents ("It Is the Law", coming out something like Hopelandic), its short attention span, its 50s-style romanticism, and its infectious giddiness.

Unfortunately, these tracks don't have the charm of their more traditional jangle-rock, and at times the disc suffers for it.

So despite a pretty high hit/miss ratio, as a big-step-forward record, Living ain't exactly Armed Forces.

Despite all the haunting vibes, woodwinds, and honeyed strings, rock music's guitar/bass/drums dynamic is dominant on Rust; it hovers between the rambunctious clatter of Broken Social Scene (which shares two members with DMST) and the elegant contortions of Jaga Jazzist.

God Save the Clientele sounds like the work of the same band, but it shows them in a new, brighter light, broadened in both sound and outlook. In terms of sonics and tunes, these changes are welcome and logical, expanding upon the sound with which they made their name without sacrificing intimacy or risking coming across overcooked.

The more succinct songs on North Star Deserter sound like a return to the dark woods after years in the city.

The gradual and hesitant payoffs of these songs give the feeling of standing on a precipice, while their brief but gorgeous outros are like looking out on a limitless horizon. The latter half of the record could have used more of these moments.

So Embarrassing is a bold change in direction for Capillary Action, but one that pays off as well as one could hope.

Nothing Hurts is full of that kind of excitement: the sound of a fast, fuzzy rock band racing from hook to hook, plowing happily through breakdowns and guitar blasts, springing through scrappy melodies with style. It's one of the happiest surprises of the year so far.

Sky's Edge has some of the old Hawley magic in the form of "The Wood Collier's Grave"... But for the most part, it's an unwelcome return to a less distinguished period in Hawley's career, back before he knew how to make more beguiling music than this.