Ultimately, it comes down to the vagaries of taste, but measured against their previous output and current contenders, The Hungry Saw is a sleeper of a bar-chapped, morosely drunk record.

Screaming Females are too talented for Castle Talk to be anything but a solid album. But "solid" is a word I never wanted to use for Screaming Females.

It is tugs and pulls like these [going from raw, minimal stutter to a serenade of a "foreign-language female vocalist"], that take you to the edge and then let you down quickly but softly, that showcase the heart of what is most appealing about footwork and the genius of Mind of Traxman.

The Dum Dum Girls’ debut, I Will Be, plays like a veritable best-of of current trends in lo-fi rock ‘n' pop. In fact, the disc’s (admittedly exhilarating) fidelity to the budding-but-already-overdone genre nearly weighs it down.

The thing One Life Stand has going for it though is its thematic cohesion. This is an album about demanding commitment (from your bros, partially, but mostly from your lovers) or at the very least hoping for it.

Wincing the Night Away suffers from a fair deal of uncharacteristic filler.

Red Gone Wild serves its purpose, reminding us that Redman can still be a lyrical beast at times.

Smilers proves Aimee Mann still has plenty to offer doing the same thing she's already been doing for the last fifteen years.

With music this uniformly entertaining, it’s best just to quiet down and let the former Stephen Patrick Morrissey do the talking. That's what Years of Refusal confirms as his greatest strength, anyway.

The balance of Conatus comes off a bit too formulaic and familiar; after a while, you realize it's sort of one-trick, with Danilova pairing her--admittedly stunning-voice and platitude-heavy lyrics with stomping electro beats.

West's writing and delivery has improved since "The College Dropout," though they're still marked by both a cleverness and a clumsiness.

A wonderfully crafted album built on songwriting that is witty and potent.

It's in that strange tug and pull from which struggle springs passion and beauty that these men seemed to effortlessly thrive. And it is there with both a genuine, relatable sadness and an unwavering resolve so rooted in the broken concrete Bradley walks upon, that No Time For Dreaming also comfortably sits.

This tribute has a back-to-the-future quality, a sad wave at a sensibility that has slipped out of our reach: lost, indeed.

The Horror's assault is quite capable of speaking for itself, and that's what makes it so memorable.

In Our Heads boasts at least eight festival crowd decimators, and finally strikes the right balance between Hot Chip's two sides.

Rare is the album that's able to expand an established band's fan base while completely satisfying the cult of early flag planters, but Strawberry Jam has that chance.

Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters is full of thoroughly enjoyable tunes and melodies if you're willing to give it time.

Popular Songs finds the band crafting solid indie rock that is more by-the-numbers than Yo La Tengo has been in the past.

Underneath the Pine, like Causers before it, is slightly padded, with ambient passages helping bump this past the 35-minute mark.

Black Mountain seems to have perpetrated some legitimate time travel, creating a record that could have sprung from an era of muscle cars, muscle tees, and moustaches.

Pilot Talk II is brilliant because it builds on its excellent predecessor, but finds just a touch more focus.

Everything is more complex, more daring, and simply more produced than anything else they've done. In that sense, it's the best kind of EP, existing because of a discernable creative spark, not as a clearinghouse for also-ran songs or a victory lap following a knockout year.

This is a brief, refreshing escape from the trend-channeling that seems to have replaced genuineness.

Factory Floor achieves something that many albums don't--it serves up as a impressive album with no expectation.

Tim Hecker’s beautiful meditations are inviting but still retain the edge of a seeker that isn’t quite finished with the trip.

Let's Wrestle may, in all their zeal, cram a couple songs too many onto this record, but it's a minor setback for a pop record that carries as much melody as it does personality.

Because of the Times is Kings of Leon's turn at maturity, without any of the pretentiousness that customarily surrounds that label.

Like all score-dominated soundtracks, Slumdog Millionaire, at times, sounds like a mishmash of random pieces that don’t have much to do with each other. But that’s due to the fact that these pieces were created with specific visuals in mind -- so only listening to the album, you’re only getting half of the story. But this half is still pretty incredible.

Cahoone has delivered another confident, solid record.

Despite its short shelf life, Real Estate, if it hits you at the right time, can be splendidly transcendent.

Though he's still in the spotlight, only time will tell if these more brutal, free-jazz brass tendencies will alienate Stetson from the melody-seeking set.

Calcination does not lack sincerity or focus, but that doesn't make it any easier to digest.

Of all the group's works, Pick a Bigger Weapon has a greater sense of inclusion and belonging.

Five Roses is far from mere homage. This is the work of a precocious and incredibly ambitious songwriter who is playfully navigating the history of pop music.

Black City is his thesis on how he's capable of delivering a dark, lustful album just as easy as he can mine more bubbly, melodic sounds. Beyond this, he's delivered one of the more cohesive and thematically sound albums of the year so far.

The Sun Awakens' sparseness has a deepness to it that requires spending time with the album in its entirety in order to truly understand it.

As a series of a mood pieces detailing the luxury lifestyle of hip-hop's one-percenters, Take Care is fairly captivating. As a portrait of the artist at the top of the mountain, however, it's pretty frustrating.

There’s not much here that will surprise longtime fans of Krug and Boeckner’s work, although they have slowly turned the wheel and moved the Wolf Parade sound on from "Apologies to the Queen Mary."

It's All True plays with its own honesty as perfectly as it does your expectations.

In short; it's new, interesting, and the inevitable remixes are going to be great.

Ballad of the Broken Seas is mysterious and theatrical and totally cool.

How can you talk about The Haunted Man without calling it "achingly beautiful"? This is a real problem, and it necessitates a thesaurus.

In taking a slower and more deliberate approach to his craft this time around, FaltyDL is responsible for one of the more purely enjoyable albums of the still-young year.

Seventh Tree ultimately may have club-happy "Supernature" devotees shaking their heads, but for those of us who cherish all things weird and wonderful in the land of Goldfrapp, it is a welcome (and much-needed) return to form.

The ideas it presents of consequence and scars, and the deep pathos with which they are conveyed, are often compelling, but the songs themselves work better here when they sand down the fangs a bit, a concession Stewart is rarely willing to make.

Demolished Thoughts is a consistent and strong record all the way through. In the same way Mascis turned his talents effectively to quieter tones, Moore gives us a new perspective on the talents we've seen from him for decades.

While the return to straighter Old West soundscapes is welcome after Garden Ruin, Carried to Dust is really just another solid album from a band that’s made a career out of mining the genres of the Southwest.

My central beef with Cease to Begin is not really its lack of variety, but the fact that if it just took a few more chances it could've been great.

For all the noise and bluster they kick up to start off the record, Toward the Low Sun is at its best when it's an unassuming return, when the beauty and power of the songs sneak up on us.

Cannibal Sea's saccharine pop flirts at times with levels likely to cause diabetic seizures in the biggest Cardigans and Komeda fans, but the band does a good job of maintaining the album's balance.

Much like that of the band's previous albums, the value of Ma Fleur is in its exploration of how to grip an emotion out of simplicity.

It's rare to find a band with such breadth of vision, and although indie kids might balk at Saint Dymphna's shameless embrace of the dance floor, the rest of us will be lost in its agitated reverie.

It's an often frustrating listen, but in the end the album is a triumph.

This album strain on the ears or on the brain, but when the last track plays out its last seconds, it leaves a feeling of satisfaction.

This application of the synthesizer’s capabilities across styles and time periods allows Matmos to explore their music through a more purely compositional aesthetic -- and, with any luck, they’ll be remembered for this just as much as for their experimental leanings.

If that presentation doesn't always hit the mark, the sentiment behind it often does, and the album never completely derails.

[Out of Boris' three albums released this year] New Album remains the victory lap, a cap to yet another year of successful experimentation.

Marshall still manages to wring pathos out of her work, if not to the same degree and not in the same way.

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

Sisterworld is their first album that fits in soundly with the work of other bands. Whether or not that’s a good thing for Liars is a matter of debate.

Heretofore lurches well beyond the confines of the breathtaking rustic songcraft they're known for, but every experiment is drenched in gorgeous melodies and inventive instrumentation. In short, it's Megafaun's most effortless, assured work to date.

No Better Time Than Now is close to a great album, but it's flawed in its existence to experiment, ultimately experimenting a little too far.

All in all, though, Total Life Forever is a slightly more assured record from Foals; this time out they sound like they've taken complete ownership of their music.

Clark never seems able to strip away all the orchestration to show true emotion on Marry Me.

They're onto something with the blistering, bluesy, punk direction, but the sound will never gel as long as the songs keep getting stretched beyond their logical breaking points. It's time to move on.

With Powder Burns he has surpassed all expectations brought on from his previous releases.

Despite all his sonic island-hopping over the years, Krug has an aesthetic noticeable as his, and unfortunately his backing band here doesn't quite have the same unique musical vision.

It’s rare for an album to transport you so fully onto its own terrain, and Witching Hour is a worthwhile retreat.

He offers soem new aspects, as well, most notably the refined production techniques, which give the album a warmer, more polished feel.

This album stands out because of its stadium-worthy aspirations.

Matthew Houck, better known as the voice of Phosphorescent, has given Willie Nelson (and the rest of us) a gorgeous, shimmering gift in To Willie.

Longtime fans might lament the loss of a second guitar and the balls-out thrashing that sometimes came with it, but on certain levels it may be a blessing in disguise. A leaner Deerhoof allows other facets of the band to shine, most notably Greg Saunier's drum work.

The most impressive part of this album is that, throughout its entire tuneless, dissonant thirty-three-minute duration, Human Animal is rarely boring; it's filled with cool sounds.

It's at times fragile, at times bolstering, at times bittersweet, at times even triumphant, but it's timeless all the same.

It's a neat trick that Love Is All has pulled off on this record, making the mundane and common just as urgent and real as the enormous and intangible.

Sitting through an album of catchy but ultimately vapid pop songs isn't made any more satisfying when there's a staggering track near the end.

Collett offers a playful and laidback approach on Here’s to Being Here that makes that other group of his seem sadly overblown by comparison.

Wedren is game, and the hooks are there, but it’s been proven many times that a person can never truly go home again. It’s how far away Live From Home ends up that provides its greatest interest.

Humor Risk proves that striking a balance doesn't necessarily imply stasis.

The album's affinity for traditional hooks, mixed with Johnson's ability to depart from the traditional makes this album one of the Fruit Bats most listenable and enjoyable.

Local Business may be missing the epic historical bent that lent The Monitor extra credence in a crowded field of garage rock contenders, but in place of the brazen Civil War narrative is a more subtle meditation on being poor and ambitious in America.

I'll keep conceding to Jenny Lewis's voice any day. It's amazing. It could bring the rafters of any church down. But the material it takes up on Rabbit Fur Coat is boring.

What makes Fort Nightly rise above the dance-rock pack is an ear for writing immediately catchy songs.

If "just trying to play with passion" is the ethos, then consider the band's sophomore album, Death Dreams, the perfection.

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

There's still plenty about the group to satisfy long-time fans, and there's a wealth of quality and innovation to win them some new ones.

Heems and Kool A.D. might be deconstructing rap for the purposes of delivering ingenious and challenging verses, but Relax is one of the best capital R rap albums out this year.

In short, I'm New Here is the perfect comeback album, deploying modern production in the service of timeless songcraft and personal vision.

With Calla’s song structures and melodies more concrete, though, Valle’s desolate imagery has begun to lose a bit of its mystery, and consequently, some of its appeal.

While managing to side-step both preciousness and predictability, The Broken String pulls together the long-anticipated and full-fledged follow-up that fans deserve, at the same time aptly defining where Bishop Allen is now: all over the map.

This semi-collective sound-making only adds to the expansiveness of the band’s gestures.

His self-producing the album allows for complete creative control and its pure sense of cohesion as one track flows seamlessly into the next.

Many musicians watermark every second of their albums with their signature, but not Caminiti, and that's what makes his album surprisingly individual.

She triumphantly succeeds in displaying what it means to not sugar-coat pop music in London.

Lullabies is ultimately a demanding, schizophrenic, lopsided album. At its best, it's an elaboration on what Queens have become known for -- distinct, droning, melodic, heavy guitar rock. At its worst it's futile, go-nowhere studio sludge.

For all the excitement and dramatic tension of the opening tracks, Condon himself seems unsurprised by his songs the rest of the way, and you might find yourself reacting the same way. Pleasantly surprised at first, then just pleasant.