The Sister ultimately comes across as, at best, a retread done well and, at worst, a retreat into previously approved territory by an artist who has noticeably improved as a tactician.

Historical importance aside, they're a band built on unreliability and inconsistency, and This Is PiL maintains that reputation.

The problem isn't that Valtari aspires to beauty, even if it's a commonplace, celestial understanding of it. Sigur Ros have proven they can make indelible music that's pretty and unpredictable, pretty and melodic, pretty and unnerving, pretty and inspiring. Valtari wants to be pretty and that's it.

A good deal of this album sounds like it could've been recorded by a lone foot-stomping folksinger, carrying over the intimate, around-the-kitchen-table ambience of Ebert's 2011 solo release, Alexander.

He manages to satiate his obsession for thousand-detail soundscaping while creating pieces that walk the line of sensory overload, never overwhelming but always blurring the edges.

True to its titular subject, Diver constitutes a daring leap for Lemonade, one that, at times, appears destined to result in a belly-flop, but recovers nicely in the end.

Dense and darkly lovely music.

Though it rarely makes good on the promise of her earlier songs, Cheap Seats is polarizing, and by now most listeners will have already decided whether or not they can stomach Spektor's peculiar kind of verite, glass-half-full optimism.

What at first seems rather silly actually proves to be quite purposeful.

Most rewardingly and remarkably, Nudes, Singles & Backsides manages to present a fairly detailed portrait of an artist who found himself suddenly back on the pop music margins.

While it is certainly admirable that the Scissor Sisters' creative vision is strong enough that they sound very much like themselves no matter who they work with, they really could have used a strong push from their collaborators this time around.

The duo taps into a power greater than itself to address impossibly vast and elemental topics-- friendship, lust, revenge, art, self-actualization-- with songs every bit as big.

King Tuff feels like the couch surfer friend you invite to your house party, the one who's often charming and fun but will not leave until every last drop of beer is gone.

There's still a sense of discovery, now paired with playfulness.

With Heaven, they've turned out a record that finds a thousand affecting variations on contented hum.

Ram is a domestic-bliss album, one of the weirdest, earthiest, and most honest ever made.

Despite attempts at lyrical heft detailing a too-vague sexual awakening ("Sebastian") and an encomium for a friend ("Ghost Bike"), Ulicny undermines himself on a second-by-second basis by finding no lyric that can't be subjected to at least six different forms of contortion regardless of its content.

More than a cash-in or credibility play, Passage simply pulls several familiar objects into one detailed picture, a predictably good look from a pair whose script seems every bit as written as much as lived.

The songs on Internal Logic are like triple-exposed photographs, their nebulous, hazy qualities occasionally belying the acute skill with which they've been composed.

They may have changed up their game, but Dope Body still nail the sweet spot between savagery and self-awareness.

Saint Etienne's best LP since 1994 masterpiece Tiger Bay.

Warmth and color fill most of the deluxe edition's (admittedly bloated) 60 minutes, an assortment of bubbly beats forming in gleeful, block party-ready disarray.

Unfortunately, more than mediocre tracks or throaty sexual goofs, what does in Majenta is its scattershot nature. There's no flow to the way the album's sequenced, to the point where it seems purely arbitrary. Furthermore, Edgar seems so concerned about skipping between genres that he neglects to refine any one specific sound; even the strongest cuts rarely rise above "nice try."

They've finally happened on a formula that goes down smoothly for the length of a whole album, [yet] you may still find yourself missing the slick tricks and rough edges, all that dance-as-rock oomph and crap rapping, that once made them so endearing.

Choir of Young Believers have created a singular sonic world all their own.

Cancer 4 Cure's closest analogue may be Portishead's Third: the textures and tones are distinctly different from past releases, but it's unimaginable that it could be made by anyone else.

What elevates I Predict a Graceful Expulsion above pure comfort food, however, is how it subtly tugs against the big, major-network-drama payoff for which it feels custom-built. There's a naggingly elusive quality to the songs that troubles as much as it soothes.

Moments of Ufabulum, particularly the middle stretch, are all but impossible for me to remember after a dozen plays.