The best part of Treats is that it makes you rethink the possibilities of this kind of music. It is possible for a former girl-group member and a former hardcore guitarist to get together to make an album that is more daring and more fun than anything you'll likely hear on Top 40 radio this year.

The addition of vocals may initially turn off some, but in time the new style melds with the old, much in the same way that what has come before sits comfortably next to what is yet to come throughout this forty-two minute album.

By investing a now-classic catalog with immediacy, freshness and a delicate, humbling charm, Sugar Mountain not only stands as the best argument for the Archives series and illumination it could provide, but as a classic live record in its own right.

The major criticism of Animal Collective has been the band's proclivity to bewilder listeners more than give them the pop songs they want. It's difficult to criticize Merriweather on those terms, but it applies a lot more to Fall Be Kind. What's worse, that bewilderment prevents Fall Be Kind from being what the best Animal Collective releases always are: fun.

Half of the album is rambunctious and full, driving and manic; the other half charms us with melancholic lullabies fueled by a single sip from the purple bottle. The result: With Feels, Animal Collective has created its first pop masterpiece.

They've found the blueprint to the instantly memorable rock song - and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga contains several - and continued to follow the instructions.

Eluvium has crafted an album that is at once immediate and accessible while deceptively complex.

The songs sound as modern and fresh as if they were recorded last year.

Most of The Crane Wife consists of rehashes of Decemberists staples and by-the-books, cookie-cutter indie pop that runs the gamut between pleasant enough ("O, Valencia!") and barely tolerable ("Summersong").

Not only have Brion’s strings been replaced by an indescribably awkward alt-rock guitar riff and a misplaced drum beat, but Apple’s vocals have lost all of their bite and passion. On Brion’s work, she seemed hungry, ready to get back into it all. Here she retains the emotion that such a talented singer can muster on a good day but none of the rawness that signifies her best work.

Those who stick around will be treated to a sort of musical security blanket, jam-packed with hooks and an overall sound that should appease to fans of both the lightly melodic and relentlessly heavy.

I think The Shepherd's Dog is probably Iron & Wine's best record to date (Beam has never once even made a mediocre album, so this says a lot).

Office Of Future Plans reveals itself as quite possibly one of the most brilliantly sequenced albums of 2011.

Tronic isn’t quite hip-hop’s "Smile," but Black Milk is certainly open to pushing similar boundaries of possibility.

Total immersion in the passion of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah reveals the true power of music as a means of artistic expression.

15 Again hits more than it misses, and its hits push all the right buttons, musically and emotionally.

The bulk of El Camino keeps that approach fresh by twisting their rock sound into a pop sensibility that may feel nostalgic, but here--in this concentrated, potent dose--reveals itself to be just as eager to move forward as it is to revel in the past.

Tha Carter III soars because of Wayne’s to-date under-appreciated ability to turn himself down.

The Body, The Blood, The Machine is the holy grail of anti-political/anti-religion records to come out in the last seven years.

Wake Up The Nation comes across as a lean, physical record with enough lucid zingers to make you hungry for more.

The Letting Go benefits as much from diversity as from Valgeir Sigurosson's recording.

As the name suggests, the tracks on Early Fragments are disjointed in terms of their release date and the band’s maturity. But this is to their credit, as the juxtapositioning only adds to the unpolished, lo-fi nature of their material.

Instead of spoon-feeding you how you’re supposed to react, they challenge you to understand them.

Carrion Crawler/The Dream captures the band in psychedelic bulldozer mode instead, delivering ten blistering cuts at a furious pace.

Taken as a whole the album is great slab of rock and roll music.

At ten tracks, Bright Ideas doesn’t have a lot of fat, but it ultimately feels like it could have been more successful on the EP format McCaughan is so fond of.

Celebration Rock is raw frenzy, tender love, and foolish cacophony.

The tuned-down Melvins-like squall from their earlier records is still present and accounted for, but Torche have managed to shove their guitar work into unexpected places that balance limber melodicism with punishing heft.