As humble, tastefully appointed psych-pop goes, the Proper Ornaments surely have their hearts--and heads, wooden or not--in the right place.

Braid don’t have the athleticism or explosiveness of their earlier days, but in a Tim Duncan way, they’re craftier, better about picking their spots.

A well-polished album that sometimes feels perplexingly one-dimensional.

This is an album that asks you to sink into its sounds, takes a left every time you expect it to take a right and moves slowly most of the time, letting things happen rather than forcing them.

Though We Are Only What We Feel plods through similar tempos and uniform textures, Wäppling sings with enough character to keep the record from fading into the background.

This album can't be written off purely as a repetitive mess--this is the sound they were going for, after all, and when they rely less heavily on repetition, drones, and electronics, they find some decent material.

A startling and inspiring record. Eno’s been involved with quite a few of those in the past, but it’s especially nice to experience a new one that reaches us in the present moment.

A record too tart for beauty and too well reared for intractability.

It's easier to listen with fresh ears and hear these strange sounds as something playful, unfamiliar, and approachable, qualities that Gamel definitely possesses.

For now, Careers stands up as a testament to the power of serendipity and a decent first effort from a blooming young songwriter.

It’s better to conceive of Ex holistically, rather than as seven individual tracks—in part because the album's distinct parts tend to blend into one another, with little to differentiate them.

As an entry point into two of the distinct faces of Cabaret Voltaire, #7885 is an undeniably valuable document, and one that’s as much about the importance of growth and change as it is about the birth of a sound.

Too many shards of ideas are shoved into the long songs, and Fickeisen’s flash sometimes borders on showmanship, a glaring incongruity for a spartan outfit like Trap Them.

It's a record just as baffling as it is beguiling.

The bulk of Neon Icon resists coherence or purpose.

Even with their most aesthetically orthodox track, Total Control's total message is radical.

The Atlas Moth hope to be heavy and heavenly, aggressive and accessible, to exist in worlds of light and dark simultaneously. In this instance, they wind up in the shadows of their own intentions, hidden in flat gray instead of beautiful white or harrowing black.

That Eyehategod exists at all is a miracle in and of itself, but the fact that it is so damn great is simply extraordinary.

Given what he’s proven capable of as part of his main gig, though, it’s hard not to wish that, when left to his own devices, he made more of an effort to get outside of his own head.

Liberation! gives Bauer a voice, and the mystery of where he goes next is just as exciting for us as it is for him.

Electric Brick Wall is a far more coherent synthesis of those disparate influences, and possibly her strongest record since the Trux’s peak.

Evolution takes time, and Mastodon continue to publicly work out their growing pains as they determine which traits best represent the unified sound they’ve been chasing this decade.

On HEAL, it’s not just the lyrics that are memoiristic, but the music as well.

Sea When Absent has the quality of one of those spectacularly bright summer days when they color in everything seems a little over-saturated, and it induces the same dizzy, woozy feeling you get after staring directly at the sun.

The occasional sense of compositional confusion makes sense: even if it doesn't always result in a thrilling listen, Seek Warmer Climes captures a promising band in transition.

There’s little left for the DJ crew to prove with the fourth installment of their mix compilations for Strut, but that doesn’t mean that IV fails to please. If anything, it clarifies that when it comes to crafting dance mixes, Horse Meat Disco find a way to stretch out, queue up the campiest of disco cuts from their shelves and wring the most aural pleasure out of them, whether they’re from the dollar bin or in the triple digits.

The title of this album is a challenge as well, as How to Dress Well’s modern masterpiece is conducted with the most eternal transparency--Krell asks “what is this heart” and lets you look right into his own.

Da Mind Of Traxman Vol. 2, for the most part, is a stellar collection of songs--playful, ballsy, informed by the past but living very much in the present--but they’re songs that relate more as cousins than as siblings.