Set Free is a triumph, full of tunes that affect well beyond their modest means.

Made of equal parts detached beauty and inspired disintegration, it is a transmission from another place -- no matter where you live.

Hardcore 97’s fans may be disappointed by a few omissions (only two cuts from Wreck Your Life?), but Alive & Wired is a pretty complete package.

A curiously good time from beginning to end.

Cripple Crow is demanding because of its length - after twenty-two tracks on a single disc, nearly any artist would be difficult to tolerate. But the album is beautifully executed.

The lack of musical coherence here is jarring and irritating.

Your enjoyment of this album will depend on how open you are to cats meowing, telephone rings, and French spoken-word passages weaving in and out of the songs.

A solid set of tunes with some interesting musical elements not typically present in Beam's dynamic.

The band’s energy works alongside unusual arrangements and crisply recorded instruments.

Parish is having fun on this album, and the musicians he’s bonded with enjoy the ride as well.

What could have easily ended up as a boring, stale record -- the sound of a band getting ready for 401(k) land -- is instead the peaceful sound of a goofy band being a little less silly.

On Loose in the Air, the Double has attenuated the noise and cranked up the once-obscured songs. This may be bad news for the purists, but it’s a blessing for everyone waiting for a great record from this Brooklyn band.

The main problem here is the theme -- the weight would have been a gift had there been some.

Plat du Jour is never dull, and if you went your whole life not knowing what it was about you could enjoy it on a basic scale. But as a project, the record is somewhat of a disappointment.

Gold and Green holds some wonderful sounds -- and others that just seem strange for the sake of being strange.

We're Animals may not be as mind-boggling as Numbers' 2004 release, In My Mind All the Time, but it merges elements of the precursors to the new wave/post-punk movements with a psychedelic ambiance.

Weak and vanilla.

Broken Ear Record... seems to embrace a certain sense of pop influence, albeit far beneath the manic din of sonic exploration for which the band is known.

Although the band hasn’t really strayed from its cutesy indie-pop formula, the qualities that made Death Cab stand out aren’t present this time around.

The record succeeds because of the instrumentals.

By the time the country twang of “Ain’t No Easy Way” hits with a massive drum-and-harmonica stomp, thoughts of Howl being a “Hey, let’s try this” album vanish, and the music becomes the entrancing jaunt of a band not necessarily finding itself, per se, but at least writing the best songs of its career.

Invisible Ones stands steadily as an encouraging signpost in Fink's career.

What's really preventing Minus the Bear from making a breakthrough with El Oso is the band's unwillingness to head in new directions.

The slickly produced Twin Cinema tweaks the formula to include subdued moments, climactic codas and fully unified vocals, elevating the band’s ideas to complete cohesion and transcending its previous output.

At ten tracks, Bright Ideas doesn’t have a lot of fat, but it ultimately feels like it could have been more successful on the EP format McCaughan is so fond of.

This irresistible combination of intelligent production combined with a simple four-four tempo guarantees that this music isn’t just for spiky-haired kids with their fingernails painted black.

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.

Pixel Revolt simply and beautifully reminds us that no matter how great a rock producer is, songwriting talent is as essential as it’s always been.

Between his willingness to experiment and a bountiful arsenal at his disposal, a spectacular range of dreamlike moods and sounds are created across Infiniheart's sixty-five minutes.

Veirs hasn’t given us anything strikingly original with Year Of Meteors, but there’s something to be said for working within the confines of a given genre and excelling at what that entails.

Idlewild has become predictable and boring.

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.

Less Than Human lives up to the [DFA]’s reputation for making quality dance records, but it also explores enough outside territory so as not to feel like the next album out on the conveyor belt.

Edwards’s newly minted disco folktronica, as easily aligned with Sufjan Stevens as Aphex Twin, is a little bit very crazy.

The album showcases Bethel and Paterson as solid songwriters who can willingly carry you into places no god-fearing man would dare travel.

Songs that range from energetic, immature guitar hacking (“Dispenser”) to tedious slow-churners (“Icebreakers”) to just plain awfulness (“I Thought There’d Be More Than This,” “The Knowledgeable Hasbeens”).

Unstoppable.

Mellow and breezy, Spelled in Bones has “summer record” written all over it, with its warm, gentle pop melodies that would make Paul McCartney proud.

Even though not everything Mould tries on Body of Song works, there are enough gems to make the album a worthwhile destination.

Clor has a number of entertaining and inviting songs in the final tracks, but nothing that quite lives up to first four tracks.

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

The album relies less on hooks and more on a sparse energy, but the listening is engaging enough to keep the listener around to the end, focusing more on cohesion rather than theatrics.

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.

Spirals downstream into dreary non-sequiturs faster than the glue addict who lives four blocks from me.

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.

Vast in scope and breathtaking in its beauty, Illinois may very well be the album that heralds Sufjan Stevens as one of this young century’s most talented artists.

Wilderness is one of those albums where if you like one song, you like the whole lot, and vice versa.

Free the Bees shows a group of skilled musicians who are comfortable in their style and songwriting, and it plays like it was unearthed in a warehouse basement, where it was hidden for the last forty years.

Total immersion in the passion of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah reveals the true power of music as a means of artistic expression.

Sleepy, sporadic and inconsistent.

She seems to be lost among her new surroundings, pulling in old styles and dated arrangements to seemingly express her dissatisfaction and confusion with where music is going.

Dressy Bessy is a one-trick pony, and twelve songs of the same fuzzed-out retro-rock riffs are too much for one person to take at once.

The rock was catchy, but it’s the slow stuff that flips you on your axis with its depth.

It is a cinematic work, a work of focus and intensity, and a work that demands attention.

Although these songs of attempted triumph comprise the band’s strongest material yet, they still lack the originality that will shed them of the “underrated” label they’ve worn for the last decade.

As much as the album may be a breath of fresh air, it still resembles what the Britney’s on our side of the Atlantic are putting out, closer than many would like to admit.

People will fall in love to this music, and Coldplay knows it.

At worst, McEntire renders the songs on Man-Made a tad monochromatic. Most of the time, the production and songs come together seamlessly.

Instead of copying the aesthetic of 1970s rock ‘n’ roll, they’ve copied some of last year’s more popular indie records. The result, though at times satisfying, mostly feels contrived.

Nearly everything on Minimum-Maximum sounds astoundingly fresh.

Turin Brakes’ expansive and more daring previous work held an encouraging arc that promised risks and excitement, but JackInABox, while a pleasant listen, fails to cash in on that potential, and is unfortunately a step back for the talented duo.

In a genre that’s desperate for new ideas, Allien’s lack of advancement on Thrills makes for a little less enjoyment.

The songs could have been chosen more wisely, especially because some significant fan favorites are absent.

Oasis has given us another album chock-full of jangley Brit-pop numbers and stadium-rockers, and the result is a formulaic rock record.

It lacks the mind-blowing qualities that made Rounds the essential album in his catalogue, but Everything Ecstatic is another must-own from Four Tet, the most reliable of producers.

But even at its toe-tapping best, this quintet from Newcastle can’t convey a sense of passion.

As you listen to it more and more, the music begins to make sense, the hooks come into focus and everything appears in sharp resolution, manifesting itself in a giant pop animal created for your indulgence.

Not only does The Woods jumpstart a moribund genre, it also serves as a wake-up call for the zeitgeist.

Gone are the spotty moments that marred his previous solo work. Most important, Malkmus seems to be having fun again.

The album is an extremely satisfying listen, but if Common is to lead the revolution, he has to make more of a statement than a great bass line and some tight rhymes.

If you’re only going to buy one Belle & Sebastian album (and shame on you if you are), make it this one.

There’s no filler here; there’s barely space for a spare breath. But amidst the bombast, there are a few moments of clarity, and though fleeting, they’re certainly worth the wait.

[A] ham-fisted attempt at being exactly like everything else.

Axes... has three distinct sections. The first is quite inspired, the second is mostly interminable, and the third is just inventive enough to rescue the whole venture.

It's the schizophrenic sound of a band starting over a decade later.

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.

Although the venue doesn’t spark an unqualified masterpiece for the grand dame of alt.country, a musky reverence seems to seep into the record, and the best moments here are among the best she’s committed to tape.

Explosive, mysterious and refreshingly strange.

If Sea Drum/ House of Sun was the debut album from some little-known psych act, I’d be hailing it as one of the year’s best records.... But from the Boredoms, Seadrum/House of Sun is nothing special.

Sincerity is one of the hardest things to pull off in music, so it’s to Bouchard’s credit that he does so effectively.

The members of 13 & God have created a genuinely rewarding record that is better than the sum of its parts.

Although Cold Roses can get messy in the way of a quickly made album, it marks a notable improvement on Adams's most recent LP.

Enough bending guitar licks to satisfy the yuppiest of thirtysomething businessmen and enough mellow ballads to satisfy your Dixie Chicks-loving mom.

The Wedding is certainly one of the best records this band has released and, more important, one of the better rock records released this year.

The perfect antique Cadillac album.

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

Cruising through a quieter set of cornfields than its predecessor, Celebration Castle never fully grasps the energy of Laced with Romance, but its songwriting and guitar work are equally as strong.

Brimming with the enthusiasm of a true lover of music -- jazz, in particular -- The Further Adventures of Lord Quas will appeal to listeners who don’t bring any preconceived notions of what a hip-hop record should sound like. But even for the biggest fans, the second Quasimoto record can feel uneven.

Paper Tigers proves the Caesars are capable of releasing more than one memorable track.

An exquisitely produced magnum opus.

Refreshingly, Love as Laughter doesn’t take itself too seriously: this is smart rock completely devoid of pretentiousness.

She's ditched the medieval allusions to dragons and fairies and most of the courtly, classical sound that marked so much of the later Helium material and her early solo material. But what results in many ways sounds like a rehash of her previous work.

The up-tempo songs don’t show much variation or excitement, but the real fire comes when the band slows it way down or steps out of the garage.

The free-for-all collective sound can lend the music a cutesy air, but the intensity of the songs rescues the album from juvenility.

For all its delectable dance tracks, infused with Barnes’ latest influences of Afrobeat, disco and electronic music, The Sunlandic Twins still offers thoughtful lyrics and emotionally heady songs.

The addition of vocals may initially turn off some, but in time the new style melds with the old, much in the same way that what has come before sits comfortably next to what is yet to come throughout this forty-two minute album.

Odyssey is a little late and a touch weaker than its previous counterpart.