Summertime '06 is breathtakingly focused, a marathon that feels like a sprint.

As with any piece of music that ebbs and flows this forcefully, you should listen to it loudly, and try to get swept away by it.

Koze finds home for these misfit songs, and by doing so gets you thinking about possibilities, what else that might be out there waiting to be rediscovered.

The songs here are airy, and often provisional-feeling, while Thundercat's lyrics reliably invoke death, mourning, and vulnerability.

While Get to Heaven's ceaseless terror and heavy arrangements can be overwhelming, more power to Everything Everything for attempting to offer a nuanced understanding of a broken world at a time when a lot of their significantly less imaginative British indie rock peers say worse than nothing.

The Victoria OST marshals more instruments than his solo piano works, but not many more--each new sound, whether it's a husky-throated cello on "Our Own Roof" or the subcutaneous hum of organ keys on "The Bank", tiptoes in carefully and gingerly.

It's unclear from this album what they came back to accomplish.

Feels Like doesn’t reference any specific dates or weather, but it feels like a summer coming-of-age album.

Musically, Pale Horses functions as a kind of career summary, compressing their musical digressions into a coherent whole.

One clunker on an album full of gems doesn't drag everything else down, though, and Thompson deserves all our respect--he's been through the major-label wringer, found his place where he can be celebrated as he deserves among his independent fans, and is still making complicated, thoughtful, intricate, resonant music on his own terms many decades deep into his career.

It's a strange and forgiving album, less toothsome than the ones that preceded it, but Musgraves' resistance makes this album important, even when it's imperfect.

While he obviously has good intentions, at times, Bridges can't help but come off as an imitator.

It shows how Ruess might succeed on his own as a good-hearted Midwestern boy--not quite a star, but someone capable of appreciating their light.

Son Lux’s avant-pop has always leaned more heavily on avant than pop, and Bones is probably too skittery for a breakout commercial hit (though “Change is Everything” could be a dark horse).

Morrissey has often talked about exaggerating her feelings in song to make up for her youthful lack of experience, but within the lavish Tomorrow Will Be Beautiful is a songwriter whose knack for subtle self-assertion needs bringing to the fore, not dressing up in quirk.

Kalevi speaks softly but moves boldly, and Jaakko Eino Kalevi feels like a refinement of his own unique spirit.

Payola is fast and furious, but carefully engineered for maximum, straight-ahead velocity.

They were called the World's Greatest Rock'n'Roll Band for entirely too long, but if that designation ever applied it was here.

Baird's voice sounds as potent and icy-clear as ever.

The big news is that The Epic actually makes good on its titular promise without bothering to make even a faint-hearted stab in the direction of fulfilling its pre-release hype.

It's a no-frills record that recedes into the background without much fuss, which works for and against the album's overall impact.

For the most part, Déjà Vu is rickety and wholly unnecessary.

This is pop music made with synthesizers, but it's not what you'd call normally synth-pop--even when Diamonds builds his minimalist beats into proper grooves, the songs are tense and twitchy.

On an album of 13 tracks, it would have been nice to have a few that don't follow the same template. Still, there's no doubting Kölsch's mastery of his chosen style.

While Year of the Hare offers nice sounds and concepts, it essentially works best as background music.

You’re Going to Make It makes life sound like one big bouncy castle of fun, and that unquestioned contentment renders Mates of State musically anonymous.

There's a feeling that nothing on the album is accidental.

For the most part, they remain a powerful trio with perfect chemistry, capable of embedding great hooks and marvels of rhythm section athleticism within riff-worshipping hits.