With Spooky Action at a Distance, Pundt proves he can walk the tightrope between listener-friendly anthems and cerebral digressions into edgier terrain with aplomb.

Far too often [Karin's] voice is put through a vocoder, multi-tracked, and treated by various other electronic procedures. The result is that one of the group's main talents is stifled and limited.

There isn't a bad song on the record, but neither is there a particularly good one.

This clash of the sincere and the facetious that makes Beware such a disconcerting album.

Perkins has proven himself to be a versatile, surprising and compelling songwriter. On Elvis Perkins In Dearland, he walks the thin line between charming entertainer and confessional songwriter beautifully.

The dreamy-but-tuneful approach that Bats lovers have come to expect still reigns, but The Guilty Office also shows a willingness to expand things a bit.

The album is more polished and accessible than the band's previous work and other childlike plinky pop like Danielson.

Parastrophics is a capable release that can soundtrack a Bacchanalian night in the city.

The disc is packed with tightly crafted modern pop, and seamlessly melds the artist’s myriad influences.

On her second album, Sees the Light, Goodman has tweaked the La Sera formula slightly to create an engaging record that plays to her strengths as a pop craftsman.

The perfect antique Cadillac album.

Heretic Pride lifts those shadows--it's the most optimistic Mountain Goats record yet. It’s uplifting and soulful, genuine and sophisticated--full of tender moments enhanced by remarkably pretty melodies and arrangements.

From the first notes of Everybody, the band is trying to recapture the fire of its early albums. But the band has been moving away from that style since its inception; it's not surprising that the transition back may not be as smooth as they had hoped.

Truthfully, after the first four songs, there's nothing about Challengers that isn't an evolutionary step forward for the band, making the sequencing even more nonsensical.

But what this offering lacks in mirth, it more than makes up for in transcendence as well as dissonance.

You could never truly expect a truly cohesive album from Santigold, and she's met expectations.

Transcendence has yet to occur, but they have taken the required step in acquiring a broader range of exposure.

This collection of rarities is a window into the mind of a restless but inspired talent. She isn't for everyone, but she is a break from safe.

The masks only serve to augment a record whose textural complexities and depths sink in further, quietly addictive, play after play.

Strikes with a magnificent urgency.

The more conventional tracks prevent the album from reaching a true fever pitch, but even they are elevated by Maria's primal wail.

Wild Young Hearts shows a young band still unsure of what to do with itself (Brit-pop, Motown, electroclash, something else?) but sure that its lead singer is pretty great. And for now, that’s working well enough.

The fun is gone. On The Invisible Deck, the Rogers Sisters sound like just another band.

While collaborator conductor Aldo Sisillo's orchestrations deserve a healthy dollop of credit for the overall sonic success of the album, Patton's voice is clearly the centerpiece.

It's these odd melanges that clench together into perfect hooks that make Ministry of Love as promising as it is.

Just Like the Fambly Cat sounds like a Grandaddy album, but only in that it rehashes everything the band has already done.

On Real Close Ones, the M’s sound like a slightly older version of the band that made their first album. Sure they’re really good, but they're too pensive to make the step up to the big leagues.

Rabbit Habits struck me most where it rescues the jazziness that's sorely missing from 2006's "Six Demon Bag." At the same time, though, the band continues to develop some productive tendencies from that sophomore outing.

Beautiful front to back, it's still an album that never quite asserts itself.

B continues to acquit himself admirably on purely technical terms, wrapping a slow, slithering tongue around the quick stabs of his guitar.

They're a tight fit: Ant likes to experiment, and Ali's nimble enough to keep up and make it work.

On what has been for the most part an impeccably executed commercial rap album, TI again reminds us what he’s really capable of.

He'll probably still be relegated to afternoon festival slots and in hard to find reaches of your local record store, but Pop Negro is another delightful record that pushes the boundaries between music and countries.

Even if they are more refined, they may still sound very much like what Blackshaw has given us before.

The third album of the formula, the lovely-titled Heart On, shows that the Eagles of Death Metal have reached their limits, but not without a noble effort to keep on rockin’.

As a group of former heartthrobs with something to prove, Duran Duran are both a product of its time and a band with its eye on the future -- and they've finally managed to capture the titular sense of Now.

In and Out of Control is still hindered by what has sunk every Raveonettes album from being great; there’s a sinking feeling upon multiple listens that you’re just listening to one long song.

The album may have its bumps, but the unassuming charm these guys have always brought to their records comes through more often than not.

With no clear-cut standout like "Nice Train" or "Dolphin Center," the record fights to find its footing on slacker-rock ground and never quite gets there.

The Dears left Arts & Crafts and cut their least entertaining album yet, Missiles, deciding to release it through the more populist confines of Dangerbird.

Impeach My Bush is Peaches' best effort yet.

It essentially exposes Doherty’s biggest weaknesses: his trite lyrics, his less than perfect voice, and his inability to sound interested in anything he’s doing not under the title "Libertines."

It's deeply dreamy pop, not unlike Beach House (with whom Lanterns share a UK label in Bella Union) or Mazzy Star, though their songwriting isn't quite up to snuff with either of those.

Dear God, I Hate Myself packs enough of a wallop that it is worth sitting through some dross to get at the choice bits, which, as is the case with any of the best work by Xiu Xiu, are uncomfortable, uncompromising, and easily hummable.

Because the songs refuse to make their musical strictures ends unto themselves, because a good sense of melody can make a bunch of analog synthesizers feel as familiar as your mom’s meatloaf, because Bazan’s lyrics celebrate the commonplace so convincingly, the Headphones manage to sound as real -- in fact, as ordinary -- as any ol’ rock band.

Svanangen has a wholly human presence on Loney, Noir, easy to invest in and equally easy to reap rewards from.

No matter what band he's playing with, Froberg has always had a great ear for guitar tones, and here, he and second guitarist/vocalist Sohrab Habibion whittle down their instruments into scythes, dialing down their more surfy tendencies in favor of guitars that lurk during the verses and slice only at the most opportune moments for maximum impact.

They have that kind of hypnotic quality, a combination of strength and texture that sounds calm at every turn, which is what makes it so surprisingly volatile in its effect.

Sometimes it's hard to take seriously a band that bases its identity on a shtick -- but it doesn't seem like the members of the Dresden Dolls are much interested in being taken seriously.

A handful of these delicious earworms deserve to be on the radio. The mismanaged sequencing of Konkylie robs its melodic impact, but the ability to write a great tune is definitely with these Saints.

Passively waiting to be noticed, Holopaw’s second album, Quit +/or Fight, is like the kid who never raises his hand in class but whom everyone knows is the smartest in the room.

The album is full of Hersh's characteristically strong songwriting and the emotional uppercuts that make her best work so gutsy.

Mostly Lee Ranaldo has created a mid-crisis record that sounds more powerful than frustrated, more strong in its beauty than reactionary in its power.

If that score at the top of this review seems unfriendly, it's not because they've grown boring or predictable; it's just another step in an ongoing process.

Albatross is a slow bloom of an album, as likely to frustrate those looking for immediacy as it is to reward those looking for substance in repeated listens.

It's almost impossible to pick favorites off an album that doesn't have a weak track.

The album flows seamlessly from song to song, but the overall feel is sedated.

Despite the absence of Timbo, Elliott continues to do what she does best: cross-fertilizing genres, geographies and temporalities and continuing to transform her musical identity without sacrificing any authenticity.

As all over the map as A Certain Feeling is, it’s much more concise than the band’s 13-track debut, "Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink." There’s not much extraneous fluff here.

For Wilco fans, the songs here won’t surprise. But the effectiveness of these performances, the intimacy of the quiet, and the small, new lights they shed on tunes they’ve long known all makes this a worthwhile record. It’s a record of execution over ambition.

Two forgettable bonus tracks tacked on to Sub Pop’s U.S. edition of Antidotes don’t help on that score. We don’t need any more of what’s already here.

Without the threat of squalls of feedback (like on Palo Alto) or serious climaxes (like on Rook), most of Golden Archipelago ends up as beautiful as the cover of the album, but with as little context.

He's smart enough to know what's to be done, sincere enough to do it free of distraction, and nice enough not to impose his will on you. Ted Leo has literally seen his success as an artist become a life or death experience, and he's here to tell you how to treat it like a grown-up.

The Rapture has made a safe record.

I Feel Cream is a force of positive motion that addresses criticism with the sonic equivalent of a bitch slap.

It seems to me that this album has already been made countless times by countless bands.

Skipping from dizzying keyboards to bluesy guitar, this is one of Coomes's finest musical hours, capturing his muddled musings into tight and coherent disarray and focusing in on the dynamic between these two exceptionally talented divorcees.

This is a rich, complex and conflicted soundtrack for the best comic book movie never made.

We get to peer deep into McCombs's mind, but with the benefit of coming up for air once the record ends.

If Jungles presented the formula, Ideal Lives gives us the answer.

Aesop Rock's None Shall Pass is filled with precise lyrical detail and head-nodding production, and the result is his most accessible record of his career to date.

At its best, Recording a Tape still sounds like little more than the product of a few precocious marching-band dropouts, an empty warehouse, and good intentions.

A Sunday-nap headphone-record that successfully conveys emotion.

End of Daze sounds like a short segment of Dum Dum Girls' future greatest hits collection.

A subtle, intricate album that simply gets better with every listen. A bittersweet pleasure from beginning to end.

Veirs' delicate, informed touch makes the album a worthwhile listen for anyone interested in taking the first step toward delving into America's back catalogue.

Rarely are stopgaps so magisterial, tender, and wistful. But, again, I hope that’s the point.

You won’t get the same thing twice on Kids Aflame, and Goldstein keeps the surprises coming with subtle changes to his vocals, adding layers of horns in unexpected places and by simply choosing not to be safe.

51 is a damn fine mixtape... one of this young year's best.

In addition to great production and invigorated rhymes, the album also sees four guest spots from the likes of Damon Albarn of Gorillaz/Blur, Beth Gibbons of Portishead, Goodie Mob's Khujo Goodie and Boston Fielder.

It is worth repeating that Far takes everything Regina Spektor has done in the near ten-year span of her career and mashes it up to perfection.

Don't expect any club bangers or hot remixes. But the exciting part is that, in Silver, it's starting to look like we might have a true composer on our hands.

It feels like a resurfacing, like a promise, and it's a grand closer for this classically GBV (collection) album.

At 15 tracks clocking in at 57 minutes, it shouldn’t feel as lengthy as it does. But certain cuts tend to drag, be it because of the inconsistent production, Moye’s sometimes phoned-in rapping, or both.

Unlike previous releases, when we were taken on several rides within a solitary track, the thrills and tempo changes have been stretched out to album length, making this offering essentially a forty-three-minute song, with each track becoming a spike or dip along the way.

As False Priest beds down in its second half, the album still has a sonic charge, but the frenetic sense of discovery from the first half drifts away.

Mux Mool has managed to produce another album as solid as it is thwarted by its limitations.

Knowing the story behind Piramida's recording process does not ruin the horror movie or give away the ending. It does, however, adds a plotline to the wordless emotions the tracks evoke.

It’s Frightening builds upon White Rabbits’ established aesthetic and at the same time sharpens the band’s shambling attack.

It's got some purely great pop songs on it, enough that in spots it rises out of that fan-only ghetto, even if other moments find it falling back in.

The project finds strength in synergy, working off each member's best qualities; they balance a dry vocal tone here with a melodramatic keyboard sigh there.

Fuckbook is the best joke fake lo-fi cover album since Pussy Galore’s Exile, except with the added irony of the roasters becoming the roastees.

Simply, Menomena are a band that sounds completely familiar but totally different.

Cults is mostly just an album of girl-group signifier piled on top of girl group-signifier.

The Sound the Speed the Light pushes the same boundaries that Mission of Burma has always pushed, and no doubt it will lose points for not pushing any new boundaries.

The album's lyrical shortcomings are easy to overlook, especially when most of its best parts occur when the words drop away entirely and the crisp handclaps come in. It's that sort of giddy, emotional, inarticulate pop that Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin does best, and Walla does his part in bringing that side of them out.

On My Way to Absence could have been such a moving album, had Jurado employed some quality control.

We Have Sound is one of those albums that rarely has a down moment, and it’s all thanks to Vek’s ability to bring his diverse tracks together.