This is alt-country (or folk or whatever) at its finest, music that elides from well-worn and comfortable generic trope to bursts of originality, music that revels in the holy trifecta of lyricism, instrumentation and production.

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.

Believers is another step away from Bondy's noisy past, and he knows how to use his inside voice.

It's a confident debut, one that features two young musicians reveling in their abilities and perhaps discovering ones they didn't know they had.

Featuring a crunching call-and-response bass line, 'Hurricane' not only makes for a hell of a good time, but, much like the album Jim, also makes for one of Lidell’s tightest and most enjoyable to date.

At the age of 76, the Texas native proves that there is still plenty of stardust left under his cowboy hat.

Quazarz: Born on a Gangster Star is a curious new entry for the group. It expands the space-age palate of Lese Majesty, but slips in the unique tunefulness of Black Up. And yet it doesn’t quite sound like either, and--maybe unsurprisingly, at this point--it doesn’t sound like any other record you’ll hear this year.

Brevity is the buzzword throughout Skeleton. No track goes over four minutes, and five don’t even hit two minutes. But brilliance emerges within those constraints.

The poetry on To Be Still is sometimes a bit too delicate for my taste, but the songs show off much more than words alone. They display a quirky vocal talent and songwriting skill.

Living Thing isn’t easy listening, it functions best on headphones, and it doesn’t contain an obvious single. But music should be challenging.

The tensions on the second record take on new, fascinating layers as you go back to the perspective laid out on Born on a Gangster Star. The two also clash musically, sometimes echoing one another, sometimes conflicting. But both albums reward repeated listens.

This selection method lacks the cohesion of a proper album, but the uniformity of the raw emotion throughout offers some thrilling highpoints.

There’s an emotional heft here that wasn’t present before.

It’s Blitz is representative of Yeah Yeah Yeahs tightening as an unit and delivering their best album to date.

The album encapsulates summers of falling asleep on porches, cicadas chirping periodically among the trees, shaking slightly from a passing breeze.

The best song here, "Chinese Braille," isn't going to top anyone's song of the year list, but when Candy Salad is on, it seems like the only music you'll ever need. And that counts for something.

Because of his relatively privileged upbringing (he's from a wealthy part of Toronto), Thank Me Later is less about chronicling and rising up out of his environment (like basically every rap debut since Illmatic) and more about how Drake is uncomfortable being famous.

Don't consider Saigon's The Greatest Story Never Told his debut, but his farewell. It is a goodbye to the discarded first chapter of his career. The half-decade-in-the-making effort needed to be released in order for the rapper to move on.

Keeping the music simultaneously lush and light is a good choice for songs that prominently feature people moving too fast and making weighty decisions that would seem reckless if they weren't so endearingly passionate.

Male Bonding have stayed on course, but their sound remains as virile as it was.

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

It's an uneven and at times painfully intimate record, but one that confirms the talent of a songwriter obsessed with illuminating his interior truth.

For the most part, the album succeeds insofar as it either builds upon Malkmus's perennial themes or allows itself to indulge in experimentation.

Here's to Taking It Easy is a fine debut of sorts for Phosphorescent as a band. To Willie was the preamble to this, the band's new direction. And good as Houck was as a singer-songwriter, "band leader" is a role that suits him just as well.

Nupping proved it, and Natural History amplifies the point that Dope Body are a completely unimpeachable unit from a musical standpoint: able to fit in with contemporaries while still sounding undoubtedly like themselves, carrying on the proud outsider-rock tradition of their hometown.

Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I'd Hoped is about as ambitious as 35 minutes of music can get, and Krug gets an awful lot out of one instrument here.

There is a tension inherent in the contrast between such well-known artists that makes for interesting possibilities. Moderat do well here by playing off of this tension while creating highly listenable songs.

Born Again Revisited is brimming with catchy choruses, expert song craft, and a few honest-to-goodness fist-pumping anthems. And this time around, your eardrums remain intact.

He's here to entertain, and to interpret the memories of his childhood. As such, the music is a gentle stroll, like an idyll walk through the Rothaargebirge, the deep green mountain range adjacent to his hometown for which the Ferndorf is named.

The growth on display here outweighs the band’s now reliable--and easily addressable--shortcomings.

It's easy to see Smoke Ring being remembered as the stepping stone to a transcendent piece of work in Vile's discography.

Aloe Blacc's Good Things is a mature, well-crafted, and distinctive take on the basic blueprint of the neo-soul sound, the quasi-revival movement that embraced classic soul and funk tropes that had been abandoned by much of the R&B establishment.

Why?’s ability to write so prolifically, that holds Eskimo Snow together. It keeps us looking forward to what the collective will present us with next, even if the quality of Yoni Wolf's vocals are up for debate.

It can be a bleak listen at times, but for every scuffed-up shadow and turn to negative space, there’s a song like “No Tree No Branch” or the frenetic “Coins in My Caged Fist” to pull you out.

While the songs may seem borderline psychotic at moments, the bright zeal of their delivery and the band's careful crafting imply some moving on.

Without sacrificing any of his detailed, anecdotal lyricism or thoughtful keyboard arrangements, Advanced Base managed to construct a record you can play over and over again without feeling so sorry for yourself.

Swan Lake has the literariness of the Decemberist's Colin Meloy, but its members are the kids with the intentional nerd glasses in the poetry workshop -- not the fiction one.

Even with him covering just about every lyric here, this album never stagnates.

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.

Through its happy welding of superb vocals and tactical percussion, Gold Leaves achieves a timeless quality, with a bright future on the horizon.

Sunday at Devil Dirt, for all the dark imagery and surgically perfect string arrangements, works best when Lanegan and Campbell involve themselves with simpler sentiments.

Words And Music expertly explores the intoxicated love of music and the sheer joy of being a music fan: feelings so universal that they will never be confined to particular eras.

What We All Come to Need is a largely successful display of Pelican’s well-defined sound with the invigoration of guest star peers and promising glimmers of growth.

At best, this would spark an awakening that provides the catharsis for yourself. At worst, WIXIW is an impressive statement by a band that regularly seems several steps ahead of their peers.

Black Moth Super Rainbow’s improved fourth album, Eating Us, bears all the touches of a follow-up to a critically lauded work: larger sounds, a big name producer (Dave Fridmann) and a honed sense of purpose that forms the band’s best effort to date.

It's the kind of release that will keep longtime fans happy, and acts as a welcoming primer to new ears, inviting them to join El-P on his side of the line before exposing them to his harsher, more eye-opening material.

A certain amount of reassurance in the power of The Flaming Lips comes with each of the band's album releases, and this one is no different.

While there's no outright showstopper like "Make the Road By Walking," The Crossing manages to phrasally reference the lightning-strike horn crescendoes that gave that single its timeless resonance.

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

This ability to remain reverent to its influences without compromising its personal vision or sounding like a dull tribute act is White Hills' greatest strength, and it's on display throughout the album.

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

Look, if you’re seeking out the latest flavor of the month or are looking to see where this chillwave shit is going, Love Comes Close is probably not high on your list. But spin this thing once and it’s hard not to become engulfed in the aesthetic gloominess and seedy milieus Cold Cave are delivering here.

His mixtapes still might be better (especially Midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik), but Str8 Killa is the first step toward Gibbs regaining the label contract that is so rightfully his.

There’s something deeply captivating about Wood’s songs, and they’re brought to an appropriate close with a tightly wound sequel (of sorts) to the album’s opener, 'Water II.'

Banhart clearly gets bogged down in that freedom, as the amount of sheer hokiness on some of his albums can attest to. But with What Will We Be, Banhart gets back to earning that right for total creative freedom.

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

This new direction doesn't feel like a 180-degree response to the noodly fusion sounds of It's All Around You so much as a natural desire to light out for new territory.

Conservative, instead, describes Shields: Veckatimest authorized it to be far bolder. You yearn for what could've been.

It's encouraging to watch a band shift and grow and manage to stay essentially true to form-such is the case here, as is for the album in entirety.

This buckshot spray of quick pop tunes is another wild success in his constantly twisting variations on a theme.

Still, for all the sophisticated, melodic pleasure to be found on Here and Now, a comfy old shoe of an album, one could be forgiven for occasionally wondering whether things might achieve just a touch more frisson if Holsapple and Stamey surrendered just a little to the temptations of that sharp-edged sound of yore.

Instead of it being just another Earth 2.0 album though, the completed Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light is a successful experiment in sounding absolutely huge while doing so little, and the confirming masterstroke of Carlson's new direction.

Besides a cyclical feeling that veers the album into the direction of repetition at several points, Bend Beyond is a solid listen.

This is the best mix of various recordings Moore has done since A Thousand Leaves.

While it would have been easy for Feel It Break to fall into new wave hero worship, it succeeds thanks to the singularity of Stelmanis' vision. Feel It Break announces her as a force to be reckoned with.

It's speculative fiction in album form, gleefully out of step with most sounds of today, demanding attention, but more importantly, keeping it.

What is here, a mixture of jagged dance-punk numbers with pretty sound sketches (of the type Underworld has employed for recent soundtrack work), all succeeds.

Traces of other San Diego bands like Pinback and LaValle's own Tristeza and the Black Heart Procession are distinctly here, culminating in mellow harmonies, relaxed bass lines and subtle ambient effects.

It comes down to what you're expecting here. Do you earnestly yearn for another album full of beautifully arranged, meticulously pored over harmonic acoustic folk? Then this is probably your album of the year to beat.

You will not hear another album as straight-forward, unburdened by emotional distance and downright open as this one this year. And that's Major.

Although the album does lag a bit toward the end--not due to a lack of quality but to the inability to match the album's earlier dazzling heights--it's a very respectable addition to the Swedish canon.

Stronger, more contemplative feelings are at work here; gone are the sugary la-la-la's and superficial lyrics inserted on cue.

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

It is simple, it is pure, it is predictable, it is Another High on Fire Album.

With In Love & War, Amerie has adopted to trying times with spunk and style, grace and flair. And, yes, swag.

In spite of the album's potential obesity at 18 tracks of wildly different musical ideas, the three [Monae and her production partners, Charles "Chuck Lightning" Joseph II and Nathaniel "Nate 'Rocket' Wonder'" Irvin III.] keep the weight off by welcoming coherence and by evenly spreading out their interests.

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

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

Even amidst amazing production by her friends Christoffer Berg and Van Rivers & the Subliminal Kid, the minimally arranged Fever Ray is best swallowed when Andersson distorts her vocal effects.

The mixture of pop and mystery is enticing.

It's all spare and often dark, but Breaks in the Armor is a surprisingly comforting album in its cloudy way.

Like many within Iceland's post-rock movement, these musicians have not quite mastered the ability to rein in some of their more excessive tendencies. But Kurr exceeds both the promise of Amiina's distinct instrumental premise and the musical and physical landscape from which the band originates.

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.

The result was as smart and refreshing as any rap release of the last two years. Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez, despite its droll title, is similarly serious minded.

The fundamental difference between The Monitor and the group's debut, The Airing of Grievances, and the reason why the former shines less bright than the latter, is in the attitude.

Robyn could've put together a single album filled with all-knockout jams, but it's better than she got to exercise her brain trying to fit in everything she wanted.

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's difficult to generalize about an album like Manifest!. For every flat moment or forgettable song there soars an incredibly high peak, the kind of song you keep on repeat for a solid hour. And even this binary critical formula fails; some songs succeed and stumble at the same time.

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.

While the album, at times, feels a bit monochromatic, it maintains its intrigue and never loses its vision.

At its weary, lovely close, it becomes clear that Live belongs not to the listener but to the artist who created it. And that makes this album one of the most vital and electric he's made in years.

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

For most of I Am Not a Human Being, it seems like Wayne has forgotten how to write a verse. He's all about couplets now.

Provincial is an immensely enjoyable album, to be sure, but the suspicion lingers that it could've been pushed into "career highlight" territory with just an extra little push.

Immaculate production and carefully conceived themes are sure to make your nerd-tent a lot bigger, but is the space worth it if you push out even one well-penned ditty?

It is an album based very clearly on a concept, an overall construct. Within that, Fucked Up once again morph themselves, moving further away from anything you could call hardcore (save Damian Abraham's voice).

If nothing else, The Good, the Bad & the Queen is a clear demonstration of Albarn's maturation.

Everything’s a little less condensed here than previous entries into the Newman catalogue, and the compositions even get to hang loose at times. That does lead to some delayed gratification, but it’s still exciting to see Newman let his hair down a bit--in an understated manner, of course.