Reefer works best as a moment that’s fleeting.

Taken as a whole Shy Pursuit feels like a flat amalgamation of post-millennial indie-pop tropes clean-cut from the quirks and charms of their creators.

Hobo Rocket will fit nicely, next to the rest of the nostalgic but new psychedelic records of 2013. Even though it is certainly spontaneous and short, the feeling of joy is intensified, even if it is for a moment.

Divine Providence is the group's best album to date, but doesn't necessarily have its best songs to date.

Somehow, the final product turned out better than some bands' actual albums.

The Sister is Marissa Nadler looking down and realizing that she has recently written eight good songs.

Vile seems to find his best inspiration in the album's valleys rather than its peaks.

They've got an amazing musical connection between them and its evident on this tight, pulsating, thumping record.

Obsession with detail is one of the most appealing qualities of his work, but it's also one of the most frustrating. Echo Party bears this out in painstaking detail.

There is nothing awful here, but Loose never meets the dizzyingly high expectations it was saddled with.

The frequent presence of full-time collaborator Nancy Whang's voice on many of the songs adds an extra element of melody that largely sees the record's intention true to the end.

Texas Rose, The Thaw and The Beasts is the closest Raposa has come to a straight country record. But he doesn't come that close, as all these players steer him further out on tangents rather than towards the middle. And the record is all the better for it.

It jumps from light pop to disco funk to noise samples without ever sacrificing melody for the sake of overindulgence.

With News & Tributes, the band has matured to where the songs are initially gratifying but also grant further rewards with subsequent scrutiny.

Despite Chunk of Change's flaws, Angelakos shows real promise as an innovative electronic-song weaver.

For better or for worse, Stephens and Tyson Vogel have thrown in their lot with that angst, and thematically, The Bloom and the Blight is less of the departure it hopes to be.

Lopez sounds like the long lost bastard son of Guided by Voices' Bob Pollard; his songwriting showcases this kind of semi-illuminant pop that's infused with sugar-coated placidity.

Galactic Melt is a joyfully faded and distorted take on electro experientialism. Get sucked into its wormhole.

This compilation of songs from films and tributes becomes nothing less than an inadvertent tribute to Kozelek himself, a finely woven tapestry of pop music as refracted through his heartfelt filter of pastoral, troubled beauty.

The sleekness of the production--this is far gauzier than the straight-ahead brilliance of On--can get in the way sometimes.

Ultimately, BEAK> are only interested in that quasi-mysticism that endless jamming affords.

Though not a particularly groundbreaking or remarkable album among post-rock instrumental compositions, A Colores is solid and has a lot of movement, the rhythms and melodies rolling tempestuously between the speaker channels.

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.

There’s certainly something to be missed in this simpler direction, but not too much.

You won't catch every note, every shift--he's never that transparent. But there's a welcoming feel to this record that makes it resonate longer than any jarring shift could.

Show[s] only a hair's breadth of progress from previous albums. That's not entirely a ruinious outcome, but it's not always an enticing one.

Sure, Barton Hollow's love-swept core and well-worn conventions might make it a tad limited, but for what it sets outs to accomplish, it succeeds with pitch-perfect elegance.

Quasi's reappearance with their most consistent album in a decade feels appropriate.