There's a dark undercurrent of dispossession coursing through these songs, which sound measured and conflicted even as they grasp for meaning and import. That generosity of spirit suggests Geiger knows that everyone, even Canadian collectives and celebrity kids, is an outsider looking in.

Nobody's ever going to this guy for clear, concrete ideas; abstract obfuscation is what he does. On Hello Cruel World, he finds some new ways to do it. They don't work out as often as we might hope, but at least he's trying.

Highlights aside, Total's belligerence is as predictable as it is teeth-grinding.

Thee Physical wants to mosh in the punk club as much as it wants to throw on some lip gloss and hit the town, and it's frustratingly enticing to imagine how the record would have turned out if Egedy had leaned on the gas towards the latter option.

On Random Axe, the verses are reliably good, but the tedium of clock punching replaces the spirit of competition.

Little Dragon have clearly mastered their style on this album; hopefully next time around they will deliver more songs worthy of their sound.

Whether a calculated retreat or just a natural maturation, the Horrors have found a sound more content with background and atmosphere, and it suits them nicely.

Mirror Mirror smacks of a band struggling to be taken more seriously, but simply settling on a more stone-faced form of pastiche isn't the way to do it. All they've really done is trade a Halloween party for a history lesson.

The Cool Kids have now proven that they can make an album, but they haven't proven that they ever needed to make an album.

All waves of revivalism and nostalgia aside, Are You Falling Love? sounds like it was beamed in straight from 1993.

While they're still a talented band, you can't help but wonder how much more memorable they'd be if they applied as broad a sense of dynamics to their albums as their labelmates.

It's both epilogue and prologue, yet these songs retain their own specific flavor, as R.E.M. map the borders between small clubs and large venues, between underground and mainstream, between rhythm and melody, between outrage and hope. That in-between quality still sounds invigorating so many years later.

Wayward Fire continually misses a sweet spot between being lean and dirty enough to aerodynamically groove and being maximalist to the point where it opts out of that mode completely. And as a result, there's always that one last addition to the mix that sticks in your craw.

So while I'm Gay isn't a definitive statement, it is an especially compelling point on a bizarre trajectory, one that feels worth keeping around.

Rainforest feels like an artist confidently finding his niche.

While Van Pelt has crafted an album that's sharper in most ways than his debut, it could do with a bit more of these tracks' personality and sense of melodic wonder.

Though they'd probably be better off rehashing Bring It On's supplicant roots-rock in the current climate, Whatever's on Your Mind begins with a fumbled acoustic strum, and after exactly three seconds of human touch, you get all the elbow grease, brow sweat, and rock'n'roll heart of a dubstep record Cut Gomez and they bleed Purell.

From an artist whose mind and appetites have always ranged so freely, such a cohesive, uncluttered document is doubly revealing.

Some might lament the fact that so many tracks feel like teasers pointing toward something longer and more developed, with most of these two- or three-minute ideas fading out as soon as they get a good, eerie groove going. If so, you can take comfort that he's given himself so many possibilities for album number three.

It just feels like empty tribute, lip service for someone who really does deserve something more: the dignity of being left alone.

Pure X may not be breaking new ground, but as far as deadbeat summer vibes done right go, Pleasure is one killer drag.

Particularly hoisted onto such dense production, the hooks are so big, blunt, and persistent that even my four-year-old niece counts Foster the People as her favorite band. But on Torches that plays as a crutch as well as a strength.

Within and Without is an excellent demonstration of what happens when, even after the buzz-band cycle has faded, you continue to investigate a sound on your own hushed, ambitious terms.

In addition to being a strong return to form, Two-Way Mirror gives Crystal Antlers some much needed momentum after an unfortunate run of bad timing and bad luck.

If the ambiguous quality of their sound sometimes makes it hard to become emotionally invested in Gardens & Villa, in Lynch, they're blessed with a singer who has remarkable presence and poise.

Maus has a full set of songs whose architecture is just as sophisticated and riveting in actuality as it is in theory.

At least OX 2010 doesn't feel entirely like one MC stranded in his own malaise. The beats are serviceable, with some unostentatious boom-bap from the likes of Kount Fif, Harry Fraud, and Ayatollah. And the guest verses range from complementary mediocrity (Cappadonna treading water on "I Don't Care") to complete upstagings (Guilty Simpson going berserk on "The Verdict").

Don't get me wrong: with its staccato, bonus level synth stabs, keening psychedelia and 1980s-drenched drum sounds, Melt is still very identifiably Truise. But with the exception of the banging double whammy of "VHS Sex" and "Cathode Girls", there's nothing much here to suggest that Truise has upped his game in any meaningful way.