It's easy to imagine Go Tell Fire to the Mountain giving disaffected listeners the promise of an entry to something beyond themselves in a way that James Blake or Bon Iver can't. Maybe you've grown past that sort of thing, but what about a record of exhilarating expanse and passion that sounds like indie rock and yet feels way bigger? Well, Go Tell Fire to the Mountain is that too.

Newbury conceived them specifically as a trilogy examining his own romantic past as well as the country's contentious history, and 40 years later, they sound just as imaginative, evocative, and emotional as ever.

Blueprint can be so effective when he's down to earth, it's a shame he feels the need to step up on a soapbox.

DeCicca's delivery, alternately grim and genial, sometimes averages out into nonchalance, and some of the black humor in these lyrics is a bit funnier on paper than on the record itself. But he's always been sort of a tricky read as a singer, allowing Sayre's ever-present violin to hammer home the emotional content, and Don't Blame the Stars finds the two neatly complementing one another.

Thankfully that mixture of modesty and reticence didn't endure, because Zayna Jumma is a densely layered piece of cultural cross-pollination that consistently spills over into outright joy.

Goodbye Bread is filled with such rich, breathtaking moments, and Segall, who plays every instrument here, sounds as though he's savoring every part of process.

Ways of Meaning is drone music with a light touch and the gravity turned off.

It's a rare thing for an album to have such a strong sense of what it wants to be. Bon Iver is about flow, from one scene and arrangement and song and memory and word into the next-- each distinct but connected-- all leading to "Beth/Rest".

With the help of producer Brian McTear, the songs fit together naturally; whether above synthesizers or acoustic guitar, Nadler never sounds forced.

A Treasure is the first entry to put the spotlight on a less celebrated stretch of his career. As such, this choppy compilation of Harvesters tour highlights allows us to reassess some of Young's 80s output outside its contentious context.

If Wale, Meek, and Pill could find a way to focus on their own strengths, maybe they'd sound more comfortable alongside their new boss. Instead, they all sound like they're trying to become mini-Rosses, and it doesn't work for them.

These guys may not be back in their ambition-heavy fighting form on Are You Gonna Eat That?, but they're back to rapping just for the fuck of it, and that can be a beautiful thing to hear. And hearing the album, it's immediately apparent that Aesop is still a major talent, someone who can do whatever the hell he wants and get away with it.

Clutching Stems is a patient, exquisitely produced indie-pop record that never quite makes eye contact.

The Errant Charm doesn't entirely succeed in that regard, but it remains a pleasant listen, perhaps just a bit too subliminally so for its own good.

All in all, Castlemania is a fairly loose and scattered record.

Not surprisingly, Art Department are at their lachrymose best not when trying to uncover house's absences, but when redrawing ever more finely what was always already there.

Thank Your Parents will take an equivalent span of time to reveal its secrets, especially as this final part is likely to be met with a large degree of bafflement on first listen. But taken as a concluding piece of a larger body of work, as this is intended to be heard, it's a fiercely individual statement to end this chapter in Oneida's unique history.

Walls is still a likeable and engaging album on the whole, but it's hard not to be a tad worried that An Horse's debut album began with a song where Cooper fiercely and endearingly sang, "And like that good Hole album/I can live through this," while its follow-up ends with a song where she mewls, "Ian Curtis said it would tear us apart."

Arabia Mountain may be poised to push this band further over-ground, but they're not going up without a fight.

Lange is clearly in the mood to experiment, letting more traditional instruments take a backseat while he fiddles with electronic equipment, peppering nearly every track with whirs, burrs, clicks, and clacks. He occasionally takes time to build distinct grooves from all these little pieces ("Cenar en La Manana"), but more often than not, his fiddling is distracting.

Greenspan's singing is the best it's ever been on It's All True, proving the band's mixing desk skills aren't the only thing that's matured over the past eight years.

While such transformations are pleasant, if not exactly commanding, they do manage to slyly deconstruct the "real" songs into the most basic building blocks, which are very specific to this setting.

The Coathangers' latest finds a notorious must-see live band finally capturing some of the energy of its shows on record.

EAR PWR were once a band that refused to tie a tie or recite the silly rule--it could be annoying, but at least they were being themselves. Here, they prove how hard growing up can be.

Despite their ultra-slack style and prodigious output, nothing about them says "half-assed," so it's another year, another fine Woods album.

Loud Planes documents not the dissolution but the redefinition of their relationship; it's a staying-together album, which not only makes it much more interesting but provides a persuasive argument for their musical compatibility.

The record itself brims with endlessly replayable details, some goofy and some poignant, both in frontman Alex Turner's always keenly observed lyrics and in the band's ever-proficient music, the latter of which ranges here from muscular glam-rock to chiming indie pop balladry.

He has the ideas: ISAM's pieces keep wandering into unmarked industrial zones, evoking broken things and blight. But this is heavy, foreboding music; Tobin hasn't yet learned how to balance his robust sound-art impulses with footholds for his listeners.