While he might elicit the specific from his listeners, his music--especially here--is general. This is his gift and the gift of effective storytellers: to build toward the general by using the specific.

The end result is easily the best Built to Spill album of the decade--an improbable late-career reawakening and heartening evidence that becoming dependable doesn't mean having to settle for being predictable.

When things do begin to feel a little too familiar, Control manages to pull clever punches that keep interests piqued.

Goodnight Unknown feels comfortable and, to a point, casual, too, but it bears the kind of exploratory vigor that "Emoh" lacked.

The back half picks up where the debut left off, full of inspired pieces of paranoia-inducing industrial guitar noise and moribund pop textures--it too often seems like a misguided attempt to connect dots for the listener.

It would've been easy to let The Sound cruise from there, filling it with solid also-rans. But the energy level and commitment continue unabated.

What makes Losing Feeling so solid is how it begins and ends.

The Clientele aren't vain or foolish enough to try rocking out for a whole album. And even the ersatz shit sounds lush as hell.

On their debut LP, Mind Chaos, Hockey seem to be having a little fun with it, keeping things casual, cracking jokes at their own expense. You'd be surprised how well it works.

Vile certainly has the talent and ability to churn out tunes, and with a little focus and editing his best batch is most likely ahead of him.

This is an album that suffers in the context of Fink's career. She is an obviously talented artist working well below the standards she's set for herself as both one half of Azure Ray and a solo artist, and if that makes for a disappointing album.

So yes, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers is just another Califone album, but it's also a reminder of just what a special thing that is.

While the album as a whole doesn't wallop the way "She's the Dutchess" does, its more spacious, ambiguous, and, yes, adult songs are intriguing and affecting.

So many ways for it to go wrong, but instead it's a unique, catchy and lovably weird record, with highlights that could hold their own with the best indie singles of the year.

Faced with a child star's dilemma of symbolizing infinite irresponsibility, Pearl dips into adulthood admirably on Break It Up.

While, the Black Heart Procession does an excellent job of musically embodying October's primary mood, they'd do well to remember that it's a month made more bearable by the occasional flash of Indian summer.

It's a true global-pop album, and a hopeful template for things to come.

So Wildlife isn't exactly bursting at the seams with earworms, but it's a worthy achievement for taking a poignant, powerful emotional state and carrying its thread for 42 minutes.

Johnston devotees will get a kick out of it, for sure--out of the successful merging of Johnston and a rich, full-band aesthetic, and just out of the sound of Johnston doing well and writing well, finally rocking out on the wide screen he's usually had to imagine.

If the teaser EP Splitting the Atom is any indication, that Burial remix joint will probably make a better and more convincing Massive Attack album than the next actual Massive Attack album.

The band has pretty much stayed the course, adding some orchestral flourishes to a few songs on new LP Threadbare, but generally hewing to its acoustic guitar/secular spiritual awakening formula.

It's hard to know what Sufjan fanatics, who have been waiting four years now for a proper full-length follow-up to Illinois, will make of this one-off, but Run Rabbit Run serves as a welcome reminder that his curious, try-anything spirit is part of what got our attention in the first place.

Admittedly, if you own MGM's three 12"s, then there is nothing new for you here. And sure, there is something about Expressions that feels akin to listening to karoke--but with a voice like Meredith Metcalf's singing the sort of addicting, tangy melodies that her briny soprano was made for, even karaoke can be thrilling.

The already apparent holes in some of the Brakes' tunes, which at their worst can seem little more than a stutter from Hamilton and a steady scrape from the band, do pop up occasionally; then again, they rarely overstay their welcome, as Dodelijk sneaks 20 tunes into just shy of 45 minutes, and in a way even help the good stuff kick harder in contrast.

It's a promising sign La Roux might actually develop some range as this pilfer-pop duo continues to mature.

There's a lot of remarkable music on Celebration--the work of an artist who's spent a quarter-century in a passionate body-lock with the question of what exactly makes pop music popular. She deserves a retrospective more interesting than this haphazard piece of contract-filling product.

Okay, it's not really very good at all.

It's not that there's no room for such studio nuance in the Avetts' music, but it gives I and Love and You a quotidian sheen, making their signature sincerity seem sappy and much less special.