Things improve considerably when the pair abandons the preening street-cred game; Moffat and Middleton seem finally to realize that if they're going to make a love record they might as well not half-ass it.

As great as these songs are, how much you love them will rest on how long a leash you're willing to give Young and Lanois with the all ringing, sometimes overbearing, noise they wrap them in.

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.

The older songs blend well with the more recent numbers; Helm and his menagerie of backing musicians use bluegrass instrumentation throughout the album and ably blur the lines between traditional pieces and modern songs by the likes of Steve Earle and Paul Kennerley.

The irony is Black Sun is better-suited for the club. The album's sounds and ideas are large enough to fill a dark, echoing room.

I think we should all be thanking our respective Higher Power right now that [Lekman's] hiatus was brief, because the album he would eventually make, the stunning Night Falls over Kortedala, is among the best of the year.

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

Mystery, a four-song warning shot of an EP, completes the cycle of hype. Duck and cover, y’all: Something wicked this way comes.

Unfortunately, despite White Wires' earnestness, likability, and knack for hooks, WWII is an album that is threatened to be overshadowed not just by albums from all over the musical spectrum, but also by other albums on Dirtnap itself.

It is a better album than its predecessor in almost every regard, but it hardly shows Condon taking risks.

That he was able to keep as much of himself in the transition from the underground to the mainstream is what is admirable.

As an album The Lady Killer achieves everything it purports to be. Its music is familiar enough to attract broad attention.

This is Spoon at its most Spoony.

Over the course of one great LP (2004’s "Underachievers Please Try Harder"), one pretty great one (2006’s "Let’s Get Out of This Country"), and now My Maudlin Career, Camera Obscura have arrived at a sound centered on Campbell’s self-reflective loneliness and their lifting of all the best of ‘60s music--a sound they own by themselves.

Wildbirds & Peacedrums make experimental music that really carves out its own sonic space, that intrigues and engages without ever really attempting to "challenge," because that's not what it cares about.

Not necessarily a mix for ages, but a mix that's pretty easy to come back to, be it road-trips, background music, or a personal headphones-odyssey.

There's a true songwriter's ear buried beneath all the fist-pumping, and it relies on a well-honed melodic sensibility that borrows on classic power-pop tropes but introduces impressive key and tempo shifts.

Nobody is putting out music like Pop Levi's right now.

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.

Begin to Hope has its highs and lows, but it is a journey worth taking.

Out in the Storm is a deeply impressive record, one that finds Crutchfield honing the strengths we knew she had, discovering new ones, and adding another strong record a rare sort of catalog--one that is consistent but unafraid to push for something new.

Just a hair less than 40 minutes of energetic music. Which is a welcome change by today's standards -- to simply appreciate some music by itself.

There is so, so much content, so beautifully and flawlessly presented that it can be baffling at times. The Suburbs, to many, was decade-defining music. Reflektor, I feel, through both content and design, will be artist-defining.

Here Low are, still going strong, still this consistent, still delivering vital albums like C'mon.

Many of these new forms shift her into the role of a band leader - a role that, maybe, could solidify her as the "voice of a generation" that overzealous press releases have claimed her to be.

This album will still take away the breath you aren't holding: It's at once bleak, aching, and insidiously beautiful.

It is in this tension--the struggle to find hope and comfort quickly and the realization that you can't--that Mr. M exists and shines.

In their desire to avoid repetition, however, they’ve indeed strayed somewhere they’ve never been before: the middle of the road.