Player Piano finds Hawk more concentrated and economical than ever. Unfortunately, it comes off more like complacency than conviction, that Hawk's either holding back on us, misreading his true strengths, not recognizing the need to rise to the occasion, or possibly all three.

The record pits some emotive and occasionally downcast singing against arrangements that throb nicely, and there's a good sense of balance and variety throughout.

Bakesale add-ons will mostly be of value to those who loved Sebadoh's first few years of all-over-the-place wildness, but it's not as if their second-disc inclusion can dull the parent album's punch.

Ultimately, Sean's a likable character.

Unlike Beach Fossils' compartmentalized distance, though, Brown Recluse sound bright and direct throughout Evening Tapestry, like light shining through their sleepy fog. Sort of like a dream? No-- better.

It's still a potentially alienating album: unnerving when you're not on its aggro wavelength, inviting when you are, and transfixing either way, thanks to the aggregate work of Death Grips' core.

Dyrdahl never received enough credit for the excellent sound design of his work, and while Sagara seems nothing more than an interesting detour, his careful ear and sense of structure are here in spades.

As extroverted as these songs sound, you really never get a full sense of Hooray For Earth's personality.

This might not be the most inviting sound world to contemplate, but Johannsson's confident touch with it is powerful, and The Miners' Hymns creeps into your consciousness like a musty attic draft.

The point where minimalist becomes ephemeral is a dangerously easy one to cross, and it's hard to think of a better line-straddling example than the Carbonated EP.

Shangri-La offers more than enough frantic beats, fidgety bass lines, spiky guitar leads, soaring piano riffs, delirious vocal harmonies, and, yes, cowbells to fit in on any house-party playlist.

We Are the Champions might disappoint some diehard fans, but it's also proof positive that JEFF the Brotherhood can play with the big boys.

As an album-length wallow in bad feelings, it's an impressive thing indeed. But I prefer Jesu when their music is about connection rather than isolation.

It might be hasty to applaud a return to form for an artist who's spent the past few years coming to terms with what that form's supposed to even mean. But it's still great to hear what Wiley can do when left to his own devices.

Patient, generous, and smart, the song proves that while Kenny does well to maintain the Wooden Birds' solitary core, he does well to expand it occasionally, too.

Despite White Hills' plentiful output, pacing remains a problem for the group. Live, as they run marathons around a riff, that's less of an issue; you're surrounded in the moment, lost in the feeling. On H–p1, though, it means you spend half of your time waiting to reach the crest.

Dominated by shuffling drums, slow southern rock guitar licks, and pedal steel, the music on Mount Moriah is unobtrusive and reserved--at times almost too much so--but there are some fine flourishes in these songs, which feature members of Megafaun, St. Vincent, and Bowerbirds

Combined with an expert use of space rare for such a lo-fi record, UMO manages a unique immersive and psychedelic quality without relying on the usual array of bong-ripping effects.

This guy is still on a very serious roll, and it doesn't seem to be anywhere near over.

Blanck Mass is all about Power excavating new domains while still working within that great glut of voluminous space he's already mapped out.

All these lurches and groans and crashes and bangs and stutters and roars come together to form one consistently rousing, emotionally immediate whole. From them to you.

White Denim's inherent restlessness means that all the band's releases feel transitional to a degree, but D's measured restraint points toward the best possible direction for them.

Everything about this song -- and this entire album, for that matter -- suggests this heart's still got a lot left to burn.

Greenwood and co.'s impulses have grown disappointingly easy to dissect. The result is music that, by any definition, remains experimental and difficult, but the invigorating internal tension between the ordained simplicity of American musics and the free-will noise jams has evaporated.

Even if Diamond Rings' rapidly evolving aesthetic has already moved beyond Special Affections' bedsit R&B, the album still stands as an exemplary model of how one can live out blinged-out fantasies on a cubic zirconia budget.

Pl3dge is constructed simply as a sturdy platform for one of rap's fiercest and most incisive voices, and it achieves that goal completely.

The lion's share of the album--along with its excellent deluxe tracks--has one of the world's biggest stars exploring her talent in ways few could've predicted, which is always exciting.

In this more restrained setting, Bodies of Water aren't quite as commanding or charming, but they compensate with more confident, nuanced songs that incorporate elements of showtunes, disco, and folk, plus mariachi fanfares and hallelujah choruses.