Theirs is music brimming over with passion first explored, then exploded.

Flower Boy is a fascinating, singular effort from Tyler, The Creator. He’s crafted a record that finally measures up to a promise that has always been there.

The bass can get lost in the mix as well beneath all the moving parts. With the kinds of rhythms The Budos Band lay down, you need the bass up front and center. These qualms are minor compared with the overall delight the album conveys.

Paint the Fence Invisible couples sparseness and creative vibrancy, with every untreated strum and vocal crack complimented by a subtle twist in the expected arrangement.

In spite of this second half lag, Daedelus continues to exhibit a tremendous capacity for distilling disparate ideas into something personable.

Sure, he can hide his identity, but there's no denying his sudden emergence as one of dance music's notable producers, very well steeped in his own layered aesthetic, yet open enough to welcome other musical influences into the fold.

The Submarines are at their best when toying with charmed synth-pop.

Sparsely lit lover's folk is by no means a fresh development, but The Rural Alberta Advantage continue to take the sound in new, interesting ways.

Applaud Reznor for attempting something that doesn't read like school graffiti; shake your little fist at him for doing it anyway.

This may not have any of the hard-hitting jabs his best Smog records had, but I Wish We Were An Eagle is a subtler, more bittersweet heartbreak.

Sic Alps towers above the rest of the ample retro garage acts today, in both scope and measure.

The album's about being depressed, smoking weed, having fun, not understanding girls. You know, the moments that define any summer.

The songs are too determinedly distinctive to gainsay. But that mental sonic world that the music creates would be less intense, less encompassing, and listening would be less a transportive experience in the Tom Fec Dimension. Thankfully, this is Tobacco's world, and you can't trust your brain to determine mystery from madness.

More than their previous efforts, this album exhibits the depth and experience that they have gained from such collaborations.

It's worth listening to with the hope of getting lost in some strange other world where children spew ether ghosts and spirits tap out love in Morse code.

Death Grips might not match Exmilitary for style points, but the indelible image of them playing this for label bigwigs is one for the ages.

Once you get the lay of the land of Alopecia -- with its ethereal production, endlessly analyzable wordplay, and moments of supreme pop clarity -- it’s a captivating realm to explore.

The Indigo Girls prove themselves, again, to be artists whose metaphoric turns of phrases evoke a hard-up world and invoke a more meaningful existence.

Wilderness Heart is tight but never overly controlled, and it varies in all the ways you could possibly want it to. It's a Black Mountain record through and through, that's for sure.

Hallelujah the Hills steps out on their own turf with a new record label and a refined sound, they've also gone ahead and made their best record.

Though this record's pace does not change much during its 43 minutes of playtime, each track is a slow-burning confession from Summers and Weikel's subconscious, a genuine feat that has taken them 16 years to convey.

While The BQE might not put Stevens in the running as the most groundbreaking voice in contemporary classical music, it's certainly a damn sight better than the orchestral efforts squeezed out over the last several years by the likes of Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, et al.

On one hand, the enormity of said soundtrack can be appreciated by those with a palate for the peculiar, while others might yearn for a more streamlined recording.

Though there are some uneven points, particularly when Thornton tries to project straight pathos or regret, The Boxmasters prove once again that they are much more than a celebrity vanity project.

Young and Old may not be of the moment, it may not be sophisticated, it may not be ground-breaking, but it's a record that's hard to turn off once you put it on, and sometimes that's all it takes.

It’s Frightening builds upon White Rabbits’ established aesthetic and at the same time sharpens the band’s shambling attack.

Confrontational as Hello, Voyager is, it’s also a carefully constructed work by a group of players that know how to wrench compelling music out of dark places.

Not that every track here needs to be radio-ready, it's just that with the themes being so dense, another morsel to take with you would have been welcome.