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.