The result is an album that never sounds settled or still, defined not by one or another place but by the tumultuous spaces in between.

Serpentine Path is an unapologetically straightforward statement, one that's either going to sound awesomely monolithic or numbingly monotonous depending on the listener's appetite for extreme doom. But on its own terms, the album is highly successful.

Halstead's performing reinvents no wheels but never is anything less than well-done regardless, and the full performances can often find their own impact.

Mostly, Field Report sounds a lot like his old band.

By aiming for so many different styles, settling for subpar-at-best lyrics, and trying to pay the bills with rock'n'roll, they never find a sound that's fully captivating or convincing.

on Tempest, his latest album, Bob Dylan mostly sounds insane. That volatility can yield tremendous rewards-- on the ferocious "Pay in Blood", it clarifies his nihilism, his cruelty-- but it can also be distractingly unruly, inching toward self-mockery, all wild undulation and hairball-retch. Which would be okay-- embraced, even!-- if the rest of Tempest didn't feel so rote.

A song or two here and there might falter a bit, but taken as a whole, Mary's Voice is a minor triumph.

You'll find something to latch onto in every song, but you won't always walk away from Negotiations with its choruses in your head; it's a more consistent record than its predecessor, but more orderly, too, and the highs just aren't quite as high.

If the sheer enormity of Thee Oh Sees' dense discography has proven too forbidding for you to delve into, Putrifiers II is a convenient summary/gateway, opening with a killer shot of the band's patented echo-drenched fuzz-punk delirium ("Wax Face") and closing with a baroque, string-swept lullaby ("Wicked Park"), while traversing all points in between.

It's hard to shake the feeling that the album sounds too comfortable, too familiar: It's so deeply entrenched in their comfort zone that it sounds too easy-- not effortless, but automatic and rote.

As ever, Ragon's lyrics are highly evocative if not outright provocative.

In retrospect, it seems Giant will function less as a career highpoint for either artist, and more as a historical marker of the career trajectories of each participant.

It's a placeholder album from a man who has already written 20 songs that are better than the ones here.

Too many of the other songs feel starved of that love, though.

Too mushy and indistinguishable to wallop you in the gut and too cheesy to be taken seriously, the album feels, at its worst, like a series of power ballads with the choruses ripped out.

[Come of Age] is even more of a dystopian nightmare than Kid A or an El-P record: The Vaccines draw us into a universe that revolves entirely around Young, and if he's got nothing to say, his only possible conclusion is that nobody does.

The most appealing thing about this record is that this band, having created a brilliant and moving sound, returns to it again for another 38 minutes.

This album peaks when it finds room to tilt at larger topics and tinier ones within a few short seconds of one another.

One of the many great things about Liquid Swords is that while it's an unimpeachable work of lyrical mastery, of fierce intellect and sound morals, it's in no way a record for prudes.

Weiss and Takahashi lay out their visions in purely instrumental terms, and the production is sumptuous and beautifully tactile. This is what Teengirl Fantasy do best: They craft immaculate headphones music, full of enveloping small details.

All that is loveable or lamentable in Mungolian Jet Set's music is right here.

Even when he focuses his unflagging talents within fixed bounds, Lekman's still one of the most distinct and observant writers in indie rock today.

The songs are dense and trebly, swirling and mutating but rarely growing, and too often staying way past their welcome. There are plenty of worthwhile ideas, but a seasoned producer could strategically shave 20 minutes off the album while losing little.

As a showcase of a seasoned master in his element, Silver Age's bounty of direct, distorto-pop hits measures up to Mould's gold standard.

Most of the time, they do a pretty good job.

Rather than embalming past glories or forcing a big statement, the Orb sound like they're having fun on these jams, recorded quickly in Berlin, with pioneer Lee "Scratch" Perry.

un doesn't reach the heights (or more accurately, wallow in the depths) of Moon Pix, but more than anything else she's made, it feels like a companion piece to that record, a conversation with an older and wiser voice.

With Centipede Hz, Animal Collective have delivered a cluttered, abrasive album that confirms their naysayers' exaggerated perceptions of the band. But even a patchy Animal Collective album yields several exceptional songs.