Konstellaatio fills a lot of room, then, with very little range. But what’s there is excellent and, for Vainio, a striking and surprising contribution to a scene that’s watched him work for at least two decades.

Dissed and Dismissed ends just before it starts to feel formulaic.

Her work on Boy should be sufficient to satisfy her longtime followers and perhaps draw some new onlookers into the fold.

YG and DJ Mustard have been dress rehearsing for nationwide stardom all along, but My Krazy Life is ratchet music’s Technicolor reveal.

Witch is a solid record throughout, but it is one of those records that feels like a collection of songs--good songs!--rather than an actu

Even though Owls serve as a touchstone in 2014, there's still little that quite sounds like Two.

Singles is risky, but the strength of the songwriting carries it over.

Dreams, with its ability to shuffle through genres while maintaining a cohesive sound, should please though who were looking for a little more ambition.

As enjoyable as it can be, Mess is a centrist record from a band without a lot of centrist strengths and appreciating it can feel like a symbolic gesture.

Fake Train and New Plastic Ideas hold important places in the history of 90s music, not to mention those of punk and indie as a whole. And they set the tone for unimagined Unwound greatness to come (which will be chronicled in subsequent volumes of the box-set series). But those two albums, and the tracks that accompany them on Rat Conspiracy, transcend time, place, attitude, and even the sprawling continuum of influence.

A meticulous assemblage of sequencers and synthesizers, drum machines and aleatoric percussion, small beeps and tectonic booms, Light Divide refracts and then reorders moody electronic music, creating more of a mirage than a mere collage.

This a pop album, produced like pop and structured to grant instant gratification. And yet, this presentation throws the flaws of Tokyo Police Club’s dullest songs into sharp relief.

Impressive as it can be in small doses, Waterfall as a whole plows ahead like a WWI-era tank, heavy and lumbering and powerful but pretty much limited to a single direction.

The progression from early singles to first album isn’t nearly the same arc as it was just 10 years ago, but it’s still weird that the first full-length showcase for Skrillex as self-contained album artist feels more like a transitional record than a debut that plays to his strengths.

When moments like the funereal horn lines on “Vostok” break into the open after several tracks of frigid drones, the contrast is absolutely heart-rending. But these transcendent moments are few, and No. 2 could still use a little more of that drama.

Mas Ysa was definitely the biggest suprise about Deerhunter's surprise show, and the strong follow-through of Worth should land his prospective first LP high on most-anticipated shortlists.

It's well-recorded, well-written, and teeming with both force and emotional depth.

Daughters of Everything is rock‘n’roll rendered on Etch A Sketch: imperfect and monochromatic to be sure, but infectiously playful, and liable to spin off into any direction at any moment. And, occasionally, you find yourself marveling at an accidental masterpiece.

They recorded in Nashville with the Black Keys’ Patrick Carney on seven of Underneath the Rainbow’s 12 tracks isn’t something to dismiss out of hand. But another producer is responsible for the album’s best songs.

Your Arsenal, unlike the previous year's Kill Uncle, sounded like the work of a real group--as indeed it was.... This edition comes with a slightly muddy but passable live DVD filmed at California's Shoreline Amphitheatre in October, 1991, four months or so after the concert that became the Live in Dallas video.

Vermont is a side project that sounds like one, a pastime for Plessow and Worgull, a minor curiosity for their fans.

Mirrors the Sky reflects a subtle yet effective refinement of her sound, as she tweaks these elements and influences to create music that is both familiar and idiosyncratic.

You get a good sense of just what kind of man Drew is on Darlings, reconciling monogamy with promiscuity, Broken Social Scene’s cheap-seats bombast with love-seat confidentiality.

To navigate successfully around a Kid Cudi album, then, is to get really good at squinting at the periphery.

This is a much leaner record that feels skillfully edited, with less use for indulgence and circular routes that don't lead anywhere.

The album is loaded with songs whose greatness is revealed slowly, where the simplest, most understated chord change can blow a track wide open and elevate it from simply pretty to absolutely devastating.

Even though the record is irresistible at times, it's also a feedback loop of nostalgia that's creaking as it turns.

It doesn’t feel corny or hyperbolic to call this record life-affirming, so perfectly does it capture the flashes of gratitude, self-knowledge, and inexplicable joy that often follow an experience of great pain.