The main thing preventing Big Echo from being a very good (or even a great) album is that the bulk of it is clearly and undeniably influenced by the quieter moments from Grizzly Bear’s oeuvre.

While maintaining a slick vibe embodying the sultry lowlights of an unsuspecting loft party, Foals' Tapes are nothing particularly groundbreaking--but sure as hell an intoxicating listen.

Skipping from dizzying keyboards to bluesy guitar, this is one of Coomes's finest musical hours, capturing his muddled musings into tight and coherent disarray and focusing in on the dynamic between these two exceptionally talented divorcees.

The lilt of the melodies, the consistent surprises of the production, and of course the poetry of the lyrics are all more than enough in and of themselves to keep listeners fully engaged.

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.

Though heavy-handed lyrics and ominous proclamations can be tiresome and often too taxing on the arms of music that bears them, the sheer artistry of SMZ makes the band’s messages endurable.

What Portastatic is able to achieve on Who Loves the Sun? without using vocal melodies is impressive.

In the hands of a lesser band, Six could be depressive and trudging. But Jenkins and Nathaniel build this hellish world only to fill it with sweat-soaked fight songs against all those demons and devils. And in the end, they sound like they just might have survived.

Some of the artist's best work to date.

Thematically and structurally, this record is Linkous comfortably being Linkous.

Throughout the course of Quicken the Heart, Maximo Park prove they still haven’t rectified their quivering post-punk with the anthems they are concurrently and desperately trying to craft. But despite that conflict, they can still occasionally pull it together long enough to bang out some good ones.

Sonically, the album picks up exactly where the Lips left off with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots: heavy on the pop psychedelics, occasionally odd without being inaccessible.

The urgency and bone-deep brutality of The Sunset Tree may be missing here, but Get Lonely is a gentle, lucid and honest reality that works as a testament to Darnielle's keen instincts for situational observation.

There’s not much here that will surprise longtime fans of Krug and Boeckner’s work, although they have slowly turned the wheel and moved the Wolf Parade sound on from "Apologies to the Queen Mary."

The danger with The Errant Charm is pretty much the same as any other Vetiver album -- so many mid-tempo, strummy songs can create a sluggish effect.

Something to Tell You is so impossibly infectious that they can just about get away with more of the same this time around.

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.

If you're over alt-rock, then Brazen Bull is going to do little to bring you around. But if you need a new guitar rock record, one that you can headbang to without irony, then the Cribs have delivered.

Castlemania indicates that like the most accomplished psychedelia, Thee Oh Sees are thoroughly capable of adding dimensionality to "odd"--and oddness to "pop."

What makes Fort Nightly rise above the dance-rock pack is an ear for writing immediately catchy songs.

Keys and effects -- including layered samples from the bands early recordings -- sound like the foundation to the songs, creating a fuzzy expanse that the players worm their way into.

While this does fall in with a pretty crowded lo-fi movement going on, Happy Birthday is also an unabashed pop record unafraid to wear its grainy heart on its sleeve.

Their change between 2007 and now may be incremental, but it's enough to qualify as a definite improvement on their debut.

Their chemistry undeniable, this debut could serve as a watershed for both members’ future creative outputs.

A bewildering kaleidoscopic whirlwind that retains edginess and remains splendid all at once.

That their kitchen-sink approach yielded as many wins as it did on Strapped bodes very well for The Soft Pack, oddly enough presenting a band that has proven it's more than its record collection, and possesses a heretofore unseen amount of creative restlessness.

A blistering triumph of a record.

They've all called Zonoscope less poppy and more meandering. That's not necessarily the entire case here, but don't doubt the band on this: there are fewer big singles here, and this one isn't likely to spawn multiple indie hits months after its release like the last album.