Hyetal has a firm grasp on his spin of sweeping, beat-infected sentimentality, and Modern Worship is strong enough to see him lead a crowd, or keep dancing on his own.

Saltwater is a pretty record and the songs are clearly heavy with personal significance, but it was almost better when they were a little rough around the edges.

What we’re left with is Boards of Canada’s moodiest record, a full-length tinted with atmosphere that unfolds slowly and is happy to allow you to come to it.

In the end, 13 isn't what every Sabbath die-hard dreamed it might be: a true pick-up-where-they-left-off comeback for the group's founding quartet. But the record does belong in the view of every metalhead--not just because such a seminal band still deserves obligatory props, but because, imperfections aside, the record embodies the kernel of the original Sabbath idea.

The structure is as expansive and freewheeling as any strange trip.

What comes up as a whole is this odd but endearing blend of plainspoken nonchalance and almost limitless musical eccentricity.

More deeply satisfying than extraordinary, it seems unlikely to displace anyone's favorite Camera Obscura record, but neither is it a negligible entry in one of the smartest and most loveable discographies in contemporary indie-pop.

It all adds up to a remarkably visceral, sensual, confident electronic record that stays absorbing from beginning to end, and should finally catapult Hopkins to stardom in his own story.

Williams has figured out his sounds, but he’s still working towards his voice.

Mixed and mastered without nuance or mercy, the relentless blare of Excuse My French becomes a paradoxically ambient experience.

How Far Away holds its juicy details a little too close to the chest to truly prove cathartic to anybody but Bleeker.

Despite Friedberger’s singular phrasing and voice, there’s something inviting and comfortingly familiar about Personal Record’s approach to pop melody.

A modest record of modest aims from a songwriter coming to terms with his current station.

Regardless of the inconsistencies, The Ways We Separate still leaves its mark.

Dinosaurs is a testament to how 90s alt-rock angst can translate meaningfully to middle age.

The Surrey duo have not only made 2013's best dance record so far--they've also concocted one of the most assured, confident debuts from any genre in recent memory.

It’s expansive and ambitious, and divorced of all the tweedy preening and aw-shucks raggediness the idea of “folk” has accumulated in recent years. It's dark, it’s angry, it’s even sexy, in a sly, subtle way.

Fittingly for a band that’s spent the past few years retooling itself, it takes some time for Queens to shake off the cobwebs and get back to full strength.

It takes a good deal of bravery to write and record songs that are so naked and unflinching, and it pays off: Savage's courage and palpable investment in the material makes it easy to connect and empathize with his subject matter.

Ultimately, the album’s heady diversity originates in Hval’s malleable voice, which alters style, approach, timber, and tone from one measure to the next.

Tricky might not have succeeded in bringing his old sound 100% back to life, but as an effort to hit the reset button and rediscover himself, this record's a better-than-expected surprise.

It's a long glorious exhalation of energies not actually dissipated, as it seemed for a while, but only multiplying in force under suppression.

Despite its highs, Ultraviolet is a patchwork of arduousness, with some seams still showing.

It's cacophonous and polyrhythmic, continuously falling apart and putting itself back together.

Strange Pleasures works on a much more modest scale, content to subliminally scoot its way in, to serve as connective tissue between the Cocteau Twins and Chromatics on a mixtape, but not as the main attraction.

Sticking with him through the machinations of the music industry has never been more difficult than it is now, but IV Play still has its rewards.

Cold Spring is miles from epic or strained, and it's comfortable with its imbalance.

It's all remarkably pleasant for a CocoRosie album--you leave it not with the feeling of having weathered an intriguing, baffling ordeal, but of having listened to something recognizable as an album.