Though it boasts a couple of heaters, A Thousand Heys butts up against the same problem faced by so many others working in this timeless but relatively basic template -- there are undoubtedly listeners who won't ever get enough of this stuff, but how can you distinguish yourself while still maintaining the spirit of your predecessors?

The Bangs seem to place every drum stutter, keyboard whirr, and Schafer howl on equal footing, a nice testament to the tightness and democracy of their musical unit, so pushing the songwriting further to the forefront could come at the risk of toppling the delicate balance the not-so-delicate Flux Outside achieves. May they never learn to sit still.

No matter the mood, this songwriter is always quick to add fine particulars that make his songs his songs.

Mr. Dream have mastered the tricks of alt-rock enough to play these sorts of formal games, but that isn't nearly as satisfying as when they push themselves outside of their wry, cynical comfort zone and hit upon something more nakedly emotional.

There are plenty of great tunes here, just not much character. Lollipop's as catchy as your average power-pop record, but still hardly as essential as the band's peaks.

While Wasting Light features a host of worthy set-openers, few prove to be as sticky or memorable as any number of their previous singles.

So Beautiful or So What can be stodgy in its emotions and a bit too devoted to its motifs, but there's something humanizing about the album's shortcomings.

There's enough stylistic extension here that Katy finds a way to transcend enough signifiers to call herself pop above anything else.

This EP sounds like more than the sum of its parts. Maybe it's the realization that Gnarls Barkley will never top "Crazy" or that the Shins may never re-form, but there's an intriguing sense of desperation on these songs, as though both Mercer and Burton are realizing that this band could indeed be their lives.

It's not often that padding out an already hefty album actually improves it, but in the Queens' case, the revised tracklist provides a more accurate portrait of how the band molded its mercurial Desert Sessions experiments into chiseled hard-rock monoliths.

If, like me, you're one of the admirers, then there's plenty to like here. If not, well, give it a shot anyway-- who knows, you might find something you like.

Much of Hyphenated-Man has that kind of blunt, unblinking tone. It sounds like Watt is using Bosch's figures to confront some hard truths, but he does so in a spry, often joyous way.

It's a welcome reminder of this band's current status, because one hopes that Do Whatever You Want All the Time isn't an end, but another new beginning.

A glut of midtempo dithering mostly takes up the second half, and while some of the songs situated there are decent on their own, together they congeal into an asymmetrical mess, exposing Reptilians' front-loaded wiring.

Callahan has nothing to add to the general conversation about music in 2011 but is making the best albums of his career.

While the instrumentation of When Life Gives You Lemons signaled a wealth of potential new directions for Atmosphere's production, The Family Sign runs almost entirely on gloomy ballads heavy on maudlin piano chords and keening guitar riffs.

As long as the Low Anthem discount the idea that this music was once meant to stir the blood, rile the soul, and actually be exciting, it's always going to be historically inaccurate in a way no amount of sepia-toned ambience can overcome.

C'mon feels more like a collection drawn from throughout the last decade than a completely cohesive album.

Nine Types of Light is unquestionably TV on the Radio's most patient, positive recording to date, taking its cues as much from Dear Science's serene ballads as its brassy workouts.

Here, the Feelies simply dig up The Good Earth's pastoral, post-Velvets power-pop -- a sound that ruled college radio airwaves in the mid-80s but which boasts few notable contemporary adherents -- and blissfully strum away as if they were performing in hammocks.

This self-titled album gives the impression that they're constantly aware of holding back. Such restraint is ultimately unwarranted: Diane is a strong enough presence as a singer and as a songwriter that she can more than hold her own.

That sense of focus on making emotionally redolent material, and keeping the overall thrust of the project in view despite having many hands on the tiller, are ultimately what makes Harbors solidify into a satisfyingly cohesive whole.

Even when Helioscope offers a more traditionally post-rock track, such as "The Trap", Vessels' way with arrangements and sonics produces something refreshingly out of the ordinary.

Although he's now logged as much time as a solo artist as he did with his former band, Isbell sounds he's still finding his voice.

As it is, it feels like dead patches make up almost half of Chopped & Screwed. Shelve it next to the Knife's Tomorrow, in a Year as an effort that hearteningly shows an inspired artist staking out bold terrain, but one that only fitfully delivers the impact of the artist's previous, pop-focused work.

Maritime's musical development has become a compelling narrative of its own, each subsequent record in many ways both improving upon and elucidating the last.

At its best, One Nation sounds like a beat tape left to crackle for a decade in somebody's garage, a kind of post-Chronic spin on one of those far-out late 70s dub-inflected collaborative krautrock LPs. But other times it feels like a series of conceptual curios that seems to think holding the listener at arm's length might even be too close.

It's easy to see Share the Joy's place in the Vivian Girls discography, but their place in indie rock as a whole is becoming less clear.