There’s nothing embarrassing here, just a few miscalculations amid some typically strong material, but Mascis has proven that he can muster more joyous ingenuity and imagination than he does on Tied to a Star.

Pale Communion only toys with the building blocks, revealing influences that were already apparent but refusing to invigorate them alongside each other.

An album this guileless is bound to be polarizing, for the very fact that it resolutely resists the urge to provoke.

Outclassed by their own ambition, the band has aimed Annabel Dream Reader toward the lofty heights of Poe’s glum, fog-shrouded majesty--and winds up hitting, at best, late-period Tim Burton.

The main issue with Green Language is that it feels scattered.

While Junto is at least happy enough to lift spirits, it feels like they've left it to others to reintroduce anarchy to the dancefloor.

The ample generosity of Manipulator highlights the cruel paradox of showbiz: When you give the people everything they want, you can’t leave them wanting more.

An album that retains the precise brutality of London Zoo but feels labored in comparison.

The Man Upstairs has warmth and charm galore, but it needs someone, anyone, reaching down to more strongly pull the strings.

The takeaway here is that, two albums in, Cold Specks have the graceful part down pat--but there’s room for more expulsion.

Wire never wanted to be a satisfying band, yet they somehow became one--which leaves the otherwise bold impulse behind Document and Eyewitness curiously inconclusive.

With the futurist sound of Brill Bruisers, the whole band embraces a more electric version of itself—bulked-up in chrome-plated armor, firing on all cylinders, and ready to steamroll anything in its path.

Wilderness of Mirrors isn't groundbreaking in general, but it is new territory for the often-cerebral English, and he puts an engaging, commanding stamp on this style of ambient overdrive hymn.

While [Matt Sharp] wisely defers to Wolfe and Laessig to deliver the album's biggest hooks, his unwavering wistfulness still has a way of flattening out Lost in Alphaville’s emotional terrain and lending the album a steady-to-a-fault temperament.

In seeking their answers from the indie rock firmament, Literature have found something freeing, as Chorus sounds surprisingly fresh. More importantly, it sounds like the record their previous recordings hinted that they wanted to make.

As immersive and deep as the lake around which it revolves, Meshes of Voice adds a new dimension to the output of both its makers.

Dialing down his avant tendencies has given Moiré a fresh perspective and helped tame his music, for better or worse.

A fragmented 12-song album that trends toward the same path that he already spent five albums exploring.

Oddly, for an album that cheekily presents itself as a long-lost ’70s prog cut-out bin artifact, Musik, die Schwer zu Twerk’s most notable characteristic may be its 29-minute brevity, offering a tasting-menu sampler of the various modes the Lips have been exploring for the past five years.

As obsessed as Pallbearer is with endings, the music here is timeless.

So though it does often feel like JJ have hit a wall on V, when they're able to scale that wall and dance with the stars, the album's a treat.

For now, though, Kimbra's status as "That singer from the Gotye song" woefully underserves her full potential, but so does The Golden Echo.

While there is much to admire about Beal taking such an abrupt left turn at this crucial juncture in his trajectory, in this case, it’s one that, more often than not, leads to an aesthetic dead end.

O’Connor is pushing herself on every song here--maybe not always in the right or most obvious or safest directions, but always with some purpose.

That air of obligation presides during The World We Left Behind, a nine-track slog.

With every bungled attempt at pop, metal, or pop-metal, Get Hurt just rewrites its own worst case scenario.

The new-stuff disc offers few hints as to where the label is headed next, which is unsurprising, but the variety on display is only matched by the quality of the tunes themselves.

Wagner’s songs remain skeletal--still just bone and flaking flesh--but the sound is more polished, crisper and starker and at times even slick.