Both Lights, for all its faults and successes, remains a worthy exploration.

The fact remains, however, that Cloak and Cipher is an impressive piece of work, and inevitably that idea of novelty up there is just a cultural standard, determined by every other album ever released. It's an interesting thing to consider if you're trying to articulate the context around a piece of work, but it's not too much more than that.

The Fratellis won't change your life or any of your top-five lists. What the band will do, however, is give you a few good tunes to throw onto a Saturday night playlist while you wait for the real thing to come along.

After all is said and done, the Meat Puppets have succeeded in making an album that maintains their iconoclastic reputation, but mostly just rocks.

They've all called Zonoscope less poppy and more meandering. That's not necessarily the entire case here, but don't doubt the band on this: there are fewer big singles here, and this one isn't likely to spawn multiple indie hits months after its release like the last album.

Sic Alps towers above the rest of the ample retro garage acts today, in both scope and measure.

The fact that it turned out quite well makes that fact that much more satisfying, and elevates the album above mere curiosity to a possible road sign pointing towards Fuck Buttons' future material.

What makes the Subways stand apart with their brand of angst-ridden, razor garage-rock guile is that they truly sound like teenagers.

What remains is a band conflicted about how to stretch and how far to stray from a winning formula, between living up to expectations and confounding them.

you've heard them before. But it's not enough to sustain interest. The dead spaces in between just feel flatter in comparison, and those same hooks end up feeling disposable. It's a sharp, quick-burn of an attraction.

"Epic” is the only way to describe the balance of Skeletal Lamping--Barnes isn’t afraid to throw everything on tape.

In both material and performance, From a Compound Eye quickly reveals itself to be classic Pollard.

At times, the band outdoes itself even by its own standards.

Eric Emm and Jess Cohen have produced an album is both substantially intelligent and undeniably fun in equal measure.

Some are sure to hate it, but unlike any Melvins album since "Houdini," Nude With Boots certainly demands your attention.

Hard Times… unfortunately spends most of its running time inadvertently showcasing the delicate difference between stylistic variation and tonal inconsistency.

Given the strength of the album’s beginning, the latter half lags quite a bit, but the occasional highlight arises.

Not quite poppy and not quite moody, there's just not enough feeling in any direction to really make it stick.

The songs are given more room to fully explore the emotions that fill the members' voices, and the music is fleshed out to portray portraits of moments in the married couple's life.

With Remind Me in 3 Days, they throw down a worthy challenge to hip-hop’s status quo.

Reefer works best as a moment that’s fleeting.

Taken as a whole Shy Pursuit feels like a flat amalgamation of post-millennial indie-pop tropes clean-cut from the quirks and charms of their creators.

Hobo Rocket will fit nicely, next to the rest of the nostalgic but new psychedelic records of 2013. Even though it is certainly spontaneous and short, the feeling of joy is intensified, even if it is for a moment.

Divine Providence is the group's best album to date, but doesn't necessarily have its best songs to date.

Somehow, the final product turned out better than some bands' actual albums.

The Sister is Marissa Nadler looking down and realizing that she has recently written eight good songs.

Vile seems to find his best inspiration in the album's valleys rather than its peaks.

They've got an amazing musical connection between them and its evident on this tight, pulsating, thumping record.

Obsession with detail is one of the most appealing qualities of his work, but it's also one of the most frustrating. Echo Party bears this out in painstaking detail.

There is nothing awful here, but Loose never meets the dizzyingly high expectations it was saddled with.

The frequent presence of full-time collaborator Nancy Whang's voice on many of the songs adds an extra element of melody that largely sees the record's intention true to the end.

Texas Rose, The Thaw and The Beasts is the closest Raposa has come to a straight country record. But he doesn't come that close, as all these players steer him further out on tangents rather than towards the middle. And the record is all the better for it.

It jumps from light pop to disco funk to noise samples without ever sacrificing melody for the sake of overindulgence.

With News & Tributes, the band has matured to where the songs are initially gratifying but also grant further rewards with subsequent scrutiny.

Despite Chunk of Change's flaws, Angelakos shows real promise as an innovative electronic-song weaver.

For better or for worse, Stephens and Tyson Vogel have thrown in their lot with that angst, and thematically, The Bloom and the Blight is less of the departure it hopes to be.

Lopez sounds like the long lost bastard son of Guided by Voices' Bob Pollard; his songwriting showcases this kind of semi-illuminant pop that's infused with sugar-coated placidity.

Galactic Melt is a joyfully faded and distorted take on electro experientialism. Get sucked into its wormhole.

This compilation of songs from films and tributes becomes nothing less than an inadvertent tribute to Kozelek himself, a finely woven tapestry of pop music as refracted through his heartfelt filter of pastoral, troubled beauty.

The sleekness of the production--this is far gauzier than the straight-ahead brilliance of On--can get in the way sometimes.

Ultimately, BEAK> are only interested in that quasi-mysticism that endless jamming affords.

Though not a particularly groundbreaking or remarkable album among post-rock instrumental compositions, A Colores is solid and has a lot of movement, the rhythms and melodies rolling tempestuously between the speaker channels.

Confrontational as Hello, Voyager is, it’s also a carefully constructed work by a group of players that know how to wrench compelling music out of dark places.

There’s certainly something to be missed in this simpler direction, but not too much.

You won't catch every note, every shift--he's never that transparent. But there's a welcoming feel to this record that makes it resonate longer than any jarring shift could.

Show[s] only a hair's breadth of progress from previous albums. That's not entirely a ruinious outcome, but it's not always an enticing one.

Sure, Barton Hollow's love-swept core and well-worn conventions might make it a tad limited, but for what it sets outs to accomplish, it succeeds with pitch-perfect elegance.

Quasi's reappearance with their most consistent album in a decade feels appropriate.

By all accounts, A Strange Arrangement is a potentially star-making turn from a completely unlikely source.

While the album has the signature Wavves sound, the songwriting and production is taking on a sophistication that only comes with a progressing level of musical maturity.

Together, which was recorded during a period of lengthy down time for all parties earlier this year, is the sound of five guys bro-ing down, drinking beers and recording an album. It’s not the deepest thing ever recorded, but it is a fun little record that bears no pretense of seriousness.

The cuts that utilize Batoh's brain-pulse method are nevertheless striking pieces of electronic minimalism -- stark and compelling.

This album is so ripe with hubristic self regard and musical monotony that most of its worth gets crossed out.

The record's general aesthetic stays the same, docile sounds, pitter-patter polyrhythms, and shimmering vocals, but the ear-tickling mutations along the way is the appeal.

While groping for a consistent aesthetic, Young Prisms provide moments of delightful ascent, only to seemingly let their worse angels drag them back into staid, self-inflicted sludge.

Most of Angles finds The Strokes trying as hard as possible not to sound like The Strokes. This is done, in part, by recycling the least palatable parts of their last LP, and interpolating them with weird, near-atonal choruses.

Unmap is the definition of a vanity project, except there’s not much vanity in doing an electronic record that is inferior to the original music either group has made on their own.

While the Evens' debut was a little rough around the edges at times, those imperfections have been buffed away for Get Evens.

Above all, One Second Of Love is a triumph of atmospherics and arrangements.

While The Bachelor is not a bad listen, it takes a little more energy to understand than seems fair for what it delivers.

Even with the highlights, there remains a feeling of paralysis on Synthetica that's reflected in the uneven tracklist.

Despite its basis in a genre with an expiration date, Causers of This is nonetheless an album worthy of consideration. While lacking in straight-ahead pop sensibility, it redeems itself by simply being interesting.

It is the most realized of their albums to date, and it showcases the group fully exploring the possibilities of the niche that they created for themselves two records ago.

Gaga has always been able to anchor her haughty conceptual undertakings with simple, catchy tunes, but with Born This Way, the persona and the message are starting to bleed into the songs. It's not a good look.

Champ might have its fair share of weak spots (basically the back third), yet it's another proficient album from one of the more (still) promising young bands around.

While Grandaddy may be no longer, Aqueduct appears confidently able to assume is place as a purveyor of lo-fi writ large.

These four new songs are impeccably recorded, and frontman Kip Berman's voice sounds so intimate and close it's as if he's whispering a secret into your ear.

No longer firmly fixing their gaze upon past, The Brunettes have begun to turn their lights toward the future with Paper Dolls; moreover, these bouncy little bedroom discos should be more than enough to ensure that the band’s present (and future) remain bright as well.

Is Growing Faith feels more like an actual lost psychedelic-era gem than a revivalist record.

Explosive, mysterious and refreshingly strange.

As a document to a breakup, it's all a bit middling and lifeless. Sadness is one thing, but it's spring for Noah and the Whale. Where's the color?

The album rewards those who listen with songs that are confessional but also insightful.

Dipping into heavier rock elements can make emotional lyrics seem misplaced at times - it almost seems like the band is intentionally aiming to present a man's record - but even the album's rare moments with jagged guitar are tastefully executed.

The tracks on Forth are long and often overproduced. It’s a tough blow to handle when a band you’ve loved for so long comes up so short.

For the most part this album is devoid of those special moments--no big choruses, no unexpected climaxes. Just 11 consistent tracks to perhaps one day rediscover, individually, while idly browsing your iPod's shuffle.

The Diver, in its poppiest moments or in its dingiest moments, can never quite get out of the house.

You can see every angle and every side of the shape they've made. And the unimpeachable logic of each song, added to their odd tunefulness of the songs, makes them exciting to listen to.

Moody Motorcycle is a deft reappropriation and re-imagining of the harmonic pop of the Everly Brothers, Simon and Garfunkel, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

The songs on this album all sound the same, and there are a lot of them.

While still mostly a success, Zoo marks the first time where Ceremony do not seem 100% sure of their own identity.

So eager are Klaxons to prove they're not one-trick "new ravers" that they fall into contemporary dance-rock conventions.

The other moments here retread instead of reform, so while the trio's stubborn vision for their music is abmirable, its limitations become glaringly clear as you get to the record's end.

On Disappearance, Lytle yet again hits that perfect balance of gentle storytelling and hard, dark emotion.

Metric fails to touch on anything profound.

Five American Portraits will not earn the band new fans, most likely, and may only inspire a spin or two from experienced fans. But this is a record that has its merits, mostly due to its odd, hypnotic concept and benign perversity.

Another Country, whether in rock or country mode, is an album built on the voice of its artist.

Mission Control is a collection of catchy, raucous tunes. There’s little innovation here, but that’s not what these guys are about.

In small doses, Animal Lover acts as the perfect antidote to a musical landscape often cluttered by acts too timid to truly challenge their audiences.

The problem is that the whole album ends up sounding like any other in the singing-songwriting surfer genre. The songs bleed into one another without much distinction musically.

The writing, arrangement, and pacing is deliberate enough to create a sensible package yet light enough to invite a listener in.

The album gains little from the effects heaped upon it, but Teenager is able to escape being totally buried under them.

With its out-of-this-world visions and lines like “Floating off the edge of the ocean/Out into the galaxy,” Dystopia gives listeners the urge to escape to distant lands.

Boston Spaceships is his most accomplished musical vehicle working right now, and Let it Beard is one of the finest releases in his endless discography. Period.

Under the Blacklight is at once more ethereal that anything Rilo Kiley has ever managed previously.

Adventures in Your Own Backyard is about as confirmatory of an artist's status quo as an album can be; it takes Watson's style in no new directions, preferring instead to bask in its own childlike exuberance and to demonstrate all the trappings of ambition but little in the way of earning it.

The EP feels more like a work in progress with aspirations of something greater than the ultimate collaborative effort that so many said this would be.

A disappointingly amateurish performance.

The second half of Good Evening picks up and runs right off, with the hooks hiding under all the reverb and fuzz starting to scratch at the surface with a fair amount of urgency.