As Black Is shifts through different moods, it never loses focus.

An enveloping, mysterious record that marries the idealism of "the future of tomorrow today" to the stark reality of the post-millennial present and finds beauty and fascination in the tussle between melody and rhythm.

These songs sound full and finished even in their austerity.

Clocking in at 76 minutes, The Colour in Anything is Blake’s wonderfully messy dive into maximalism.

Her storytelling is masterful, filled with earnest lyricism and a knack for arresting imagery.

Underneath these filmy and seductive layers is not a band in limbo. This may be Wild Beasts' first album, but they've got a fully developed aesthetic, one that is thematically and vocally alien, but sonically, pop and conventional.

Luck in the Valley is so vibrant, engaging, and alive, it's hard to overestimate it.

Despite the sparser arrangements and increased focus on direct lyricism, it's every bit as aurally hypnotic as his previous work. It seems like he realized there was someone he really did want to sing to.

The album finally makes good on the post-punk and metal influences that have forever lingered at the edges of Wovenhand’s output.

The songs on Hadreas' full-length debut are eviscerating and naked, with heartbreaking sentiments and bruised characterizations delivered in a voice that ranges from an ethereal croon to a slightly cracked warble.

Vince is at ease here, intertwining his personality into his somber celebration of Long Beach like never before. He’s rapping his ass off, and hooks are mostly an afterthought. He dips in and out of inventive flows.

Electronic Dream is pretty, but it's pretty like the morning sun twinkling off of a dangling machete blade--you don't want to fuck with it.

From the first shudder of the keyboard and crack of drums to that last, celebratory walk through the village of the virgins, Iyer, Crump and Gilmore keep things spellbinding.

The record feels wholly substantial and satisfying in its own right, and even those with no prior knowledge of YT//ST's history and elaborate intentions can just enjoy it for what it is: volcanic prog-rock colored with equal parts post-punk urgency, stoner-metal heft, and psychedelic pop whimsy.

Hit Parade is the kind of highly original pop assemblage that the Irish singer has seemingly always wanted to make, a record of peerless highs whose best and worst quality is how alienating it just so happens to be.

Alternately atmospheric and gut-punching, Demilitarize embodies these contradictions for a record even more searing—but also touching—than its civil war-inspired predecessor.

A flawed, overlong, hypocritical, egotistical, and altogether terrific album.

Instead of reclaiming the past, they've pooled their resources to create a new present.

Hidden is a strikingly inventive and original rock record. Granted, nothing is ever completely new in pop music, but the album freshly synthesizes older ideas (post-rock textures, no-wave skronk, Steve Reich-influenced phasing) and current trends (dubstep's delay, chart pop's stentorian synth lines, global beats).

If Right was about the evil that men do, Intellect goes one bigger and asks why they do it. The answer, again and again, is rooted in hurt, pain, neglect, and disappointment. Intellect draws its energy from the panic of mortality.

Rather than protest the state of the world, Staples is toasting human endurance-- hers as well as ours.

If you aren't already in the know, though, let this serve as some sort of wakeup call to the Oakland band's best collection to date.

The soul of Shabazz Palaces is pairing next-gen sounds with classic brass-tacks show-and-prove emceeing, and Lese Majesty tugs those extremes as far as they've ever been pulled; that it never shows signs of wear speaks to the strength of the bond.

While Mudboy is a strong and holistic statement from an upstart rapper, with the early-album run from “Live Sheck Wes” through “Chippi Chippi” being particularly stunning, these songs feel like underscores for the colossal “Mo Bamba.”

New Moon follows through on that promise but inevitably discovers that, when you do open your heart, blood gets spilled.

Through the Green can scan as simple or nostalgic, but either misses the point (and neither is the album a "modern take" on disco). It's an album of execution, of Tiger & Woods sharing sounds that aren't elusive and chasing feelings that are.

Echoboy slakes our thirst for accessible but quirky pop.

Spirit If… offers jams that don't really jam, acoustic ballads about fights and lies, and lushly orchestrated songs that come together effortlessly while cracking up hopelessly.