Psapp are certainly getting closer to achieving a perfect balance in their sound, and The Camel's Back is certainly lounge jazz of a higher proof than most, but save perhaps 'I Want That,' 'Screws' is the one number here that'd make you put down your drink.

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.

Too much of Long Live the Angels just feels turgid.

In a Mood is a referential album, but what ultimately ties it together is Okely’s lyrical simplicity and willingness to let his songs breath.

Threads makes an admirable case for the continued survival of “L.A” as synecdoche and pension plan. The remakes comprise the album’s least compelling section.

1982 is their best album since 1986’s Force. ... Attractive in its distillation of received pleasures, 1982 functions as a history lesson about a fecund era, and, boy, they own the warts too.

Revolution Radio otherwise rarely escapes the Green Day archetype, an established language that, here, feels inelastic and calcified.

Frying on This Rock mostly finds White Hills with their freak flags hoisted well above half mast, with any and all overtures toward coherence obscured by billowing clouds of feedback.

It's a beautiful, heavily textured, highly sensual record, heady sugar on the tongue.

White Bird Release, while not as conceptual as For Waiting, For Chasing, almost by default flows as a sort of suite, with each track named after a fragment of this quotation.

We do get to glimpse novel facets of Iron & Wine, like “Milkweed,” whose melody seems to dissipate even as the words leave Beam’s mouth. On the other hand, we also get songs like “Last of Your Rock ‘n’ Roll Heroes,” whose folk-funk groove is an ungainly as its flippancy toward its titular subject.

The Giveon of Take Time experimented with melody and challenged himself vocally; Give or Take stunts that growth in favor of secluding himself in his comfort zone.

While Williams generally sticks to her strengths and suppresses most of her more unsavory musical habits, she maintains her curious reliance on tacky AABB rhyme schemes and lyrical clichés.

Port of Morrow doesn't sound like it belongs to any particular decade or style, instead hopping around like some fully loaded AM radio dial that cranks out gem after gem.

Set Free is ultimately just another American Analog Set album-- and probably the least essential at that.

The result is a sparkling debut for her and one of his most interesting collaborations.

As such, it's perhaps a little less satisfying and immediate than IV, which is still the band's finest album, but it seems to set them up to do anything they want on their next record. And it's also likely to help build their audience outward a bit.

There are moments on Gold and Stone when it seems like these songs long to wander off, to further explore some of these textures and moods, but not a single track extends past the four-minute mark, almost as if out of fear of throwing the album off its tight schedule.

Vermont have figured out how to make these comparatively short, sketch-like pieces work for them. They stretch out just long enough to draw you in and wrap you up in their atmospheres, but they never wear out their welcome.

The shimmering, rapturous hook of the title track, for example, packs a euphoric punch, though the song slightly overworks the objects-as-organs imagery. She has a lighter lyrical touch on opening track “Good Intentions,” a would-be John Hughes movie outro, and the pulsating “Every Ounce of Me,” an I-don't-want-to-fall-in-love banger with synths brighter than the sun. After the opening flush of these songs, the record’s remainder doesn’t quite reach the same highs.

Boeckner most excels when he works alongside someone who provides a stronger contrast. In Wolf Parade, Spencer Krug helps provide that balance; without Boeckner's typical foil, the results remain impressive, if not quite as compelling.

She is deft and adaptive, at once inspiring dancing and melancholy reflection: La Havas is always in motion.

But even as he’s singing his most accessible songs to date, Johnson’s voice remains a highly impressionistic instrument, his words wafting through like smoke rings, disappearing just as they seem to be acquiring definition.

Jason Collett isn't going to blow you away with his imagery, and his voice--while sturdy and appealing-- doesn't stand out from the alt-troubadour pack. What Collett does know, however, is craftsmanship.

Alternately inspired and frustrating, it addresses themes of lost love (and lost chicness) with Queen-size 70s-rock pomp, neoclassical interludes, and one ukulele-based chamber-pop song.

Down with Wilco shouldn't be purchased simply on the desire to hear new Wilco material, but would almost certainly appeal to fans of the Summerteeth era.

The lyrics to Mascis’ songs no longer resonate.

Whiskey Tango Ghosts stays satisfied, to the point of sounding undifferentiated.