It's nasty and explosive and full of bile, a hard rockin' bare-knuckle blow to the temple that'll lay you flat out. In other words, How to Stop Your Brain in an Accident is just the thing for the modern man, those confused and angrily impotent brutes.

There is less to dig into on it's a big world. To be fair, there are two bona-fide new Kurt Vile songs on it's a big world out there.

John Talabot's DJ-Kicks entry isn't the flashiest mix you'll encounter this year, and there's plenty of room for debate as to whether it ranks in the upper echelon of the series' many installments.

Shulamith, in this way, demonstrates again Poliça’s greatest strength: making music that’s both an easy and a torturous listen.

They worked on about 20 demos there, but none made the record. Shields: Expanded collects the best of these previously unheard Marfa tracks, which amount to captivating sketches, rather than scraps.

Purgatory/Paradise really is unlike anything I’ve heard this year.

Most of Mug Museum is bare and direct, quaint and unassuming, but Le Bon makes a rather grand occasion out of it--she's a master curator and consummate immortalizer.

Whether this breakthrough portends a change in course remains to be seen, but, at this point in their consistent-to-a-fault career, it's encouraging to hear Wooden Shjips draw the emotion out of their motion.

If there’s a way in which UZU falls short of the band’s debut, it’s in the recording itself, which is a bit hazier this time out and consequently robs the music of some of the direct, visceral power it had on Yamantaka // Sonic Titan. That said, the songs and performances are good enough that it nearly doesn’t matter.

Pre-Human Ideas is a step toward breaking the barrier between disparate environments--mountains and websites--all by creating something using a simple computer program. Meditate on that during the organ prologue and epilogue here, and better know Phil Elverum.

Julia's impressive discipline rarely gets in the way of its ability to affect; it's all so deeply felt, it's impossible not to feel it, too.

In the absence of a rare-cuts windfall, Vol. 2’s most novel attraction is a series of one-on-one interviews conducted with each individual band member over the course of 1965-66, a good year removed from their most breakneck period.

Across the album, Hynes sings, writes, produces, and plays guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, synths. But this is hardly a solo act. In fact, one of the record's greatest strengths lies in its pitch-perfect deployment of guests.

A few awkward moments aside, Fool is at its best when Temple sounds the least like the Here We Go Magic guy; its buoyant, unfussy front half, out of character though it is, is up there with Temple's best work.

The word "caramel" is most readily embodied by this music's sensual, flirtatious leanings. Unfortunately, sometimes it seems to just mean "slow", i.e. the pace of swimming through caramel.

It feels like a very French-pop-star gesture, extravagant and essentially useless, and perversely enjoyable for exactly those reasons.

It's just a return to very familiar territory without the urgency and mystery of Luscious Jackson's 90s-era music--the Lollapalooza Nation equivalent of, say, a new Winger or Y&T album. For the most part, it even sounds like it was fun to make; if only it were as much fun to hear.

Dessner's mordant vision is uniquely his; these are real, meaty works, troubling and beautiful.

NYC, Hell 3:00 AM isn’t going to be your thing if you’re on the hunt for the next edgy crooner about to blow up--you’re only going to hear it in DJ sets if the DJ is extremely brave or suicidal or both. But if what you’re looking for is an experience, one that can offer something extremely rare and powerful, if not exactly fun, then this is it.

Widowspeak seem to have found a home in the swamps, and now they're inviting us in to set awhile.

Eminem’s too talented a rapper with too good a Rolodex for this to flop, but damned if Marshall Mathers LP 2 doesn’t give it a go.

Matangi is a disappointing record because of how listlessly over and "beyond" everything it is--to the point that it often feels uncharacteristically weary and out of touch.

The Regal Years does a thorough job of not just compiling the Beta Band's recorded legacy, but underscoring the real reason why they're missed--it’s not just for the music they left behind, but for the infinite possibilities within it that had yet to be explored.

Surfing takes the disenchanted bits of Swearin' and blows them out into 34 minutes of honed unrest—it's a self-aware, deliberate, and ultimately truthful sophomore slump.

Antiphon is still a likeable, pleasant listen that will always wait for you by the hearth after a long day. But for a “forget everything you know about Midlake!” album, it's almost exactly how you remember them.

Free Your Mind manages to be Cut Copy's most homogenous and it's most "message-based" record yet, and in doing little other than turning on, tuning in and dropping out, there’s precious little separating it from the vapid electro-pop to which Cut Copy used to be an alternative.

Brain Holiday sounds like that kind of safe space, but it’s also a testament to what can be accomplished when you’re a little distracted.

L-event isn’t a world away from the Exai material. It's not passive listening.