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

Stephen Wilkinson has taken the field recordings and organic experiments of his previous albums and filtered them through a stylistic prism, resulting in a kaleidoscopic but nearly uniformly accomplished set of songs.

It showcases an artistic range that had been up to this point unexplored.

It's a brief, delightful little thing, with a handful of knockout singles.

[A] great debut.

Its dreamy interludes, leading into those electroclash tangents provide a welcome bit of inventiveness that help to remind that, while relatable at their best, Little Dragon are hardly conventional.

These songs are so direct that they lack the depth and texture that more sonic detail would deliver.

The album is another solid (if somewhat too long) set by a band firmly in control of where it is at and what it’s doing.

Under Great White Northern Lights is a perfect explanation of the band's significance to doubters, now and in the future.

Constant Future is another fine rock record from a band that gets harder to ignore with each release, even when the album's titular problem is exactly what keeps them flying under the radar.

With Family of Love, Dom hasn't fizzled out--it's flowered in five different directions.

He uses his angelic croon to beckon us to listen to him, sounding so damn desperate. Combine that with the rest of the band's driving, yet ambient build-ups and we have one of our most lovely and earnest records of 2011.

The songwriting is simply the biggest flaw of We Are Him, and in an album so reliant upon the vocal performance, it's a flaw that's too hard to ignore.

If More Fish isn't as good as Fishscale -- and there's just as good a chance that it is as good -- it's the tapestry method that doesn't make for a cohesive listen.

Although the reinvention teased before release never materializes, Lust for Life is still a return to form which should cement Del Rey’s status as the queen of femme fatale pop.

Modern Guilt doesn’t quite make it to that flashpoint, but it certainly points the way to a musical future brighter than the endless, mirrored hall of 'Devils Haircut' rewrites that songs like 'E-Pro' suggested was coming. And that is a sea change worth waiting for.

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.

The group's bleak, sinister quality has always been one of its best assets, and in humanizing themselves, even in the record's shinier latter half, the musicians take on a slightly stronger shadow.

A powerfully uncomplicated rock album.

He never panders to them; instead, Plastic Beach's guest vocals are anchored by Albarn's own melodic flair. His falsettoed ennui shines through, and the songs are loaded with Albarn's pet sounds.

Each track stands on its own; there is no filler, and it highlights each musician's strengths.

Mark Kozelek is surely a distinct voice, and a dynamic guitar player, but there's a difference between playing solo and playing to yourself. And he stumbles over that line just enough to hold this album back from greatness.

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.

In between the dead-horse beatings, the Mael brothers pull off some brilliant one-liners and explore uncharted thematic territory, which suggests that Hello Young Lovers could have been truly great if the Maels wanted it to be.

Although Steeple is not entirely groundbreaking, it's not entirely safe either, as its fidgety temperament is remarkable enough to make anyone feel at home.

Chunks of Temporal will be inessential at best for casual fans, meant to appease only the diehards.

Ultimately, Trees Outside the Academy will most likely be remembered as Moore's most personal solo album, not because he sang with anymore emotion than anything he did with Sonic Youth, but because within its twelve songs he tackled many facets of music that interest him.