By all accounts, A Strange Arrangement is a potentially star-making turn from a completely unlikely source.

Music that's built more around the image earnest and honesty than musicality can definitely be a powerful thing, but that's just the problem: It's either powerful or it's not. On Year in the Kindgom, J. Tillman is either a soothsaying troubdaour, or he's not.

What’s funny about the album is that despite all it hard-rocking aggression, it’s a collection of mostly love songs. And it works.

For all the talk that's been made recently of Bazan's own struggles with alcoholism and faith, it's telling that on Branches the strongest, most evocative tracks are those that, in the singer's beautifully worn and warm delivery, choose, in essence, melody over meaning.

The biggest problem with Red is that as obvious as Datarock's aesthetic is, it's still boring, and it doesn't stick to the tracks at all.

Wildbirds & Peacedrums make experimental music that really carves out its own sonic space, that intrigues and engages without ever really attempting to "challenge," because that's not what it cares about.

Whether you call the Arctic Monkeys' evolving sound Britpop or Britprog, it's clear the album shows remarkable progress for the band.

At the age of 76, the Texas native proves that there is still plenty of stardust left under his cowboy hat.

No More Stories… finishes Mew’s transition into the swirling, arena-rock monsters they’ve threatened to become all along, with reliably decent results, but it fails to top the blissful heights of "Glass Handed Kits" or the pop-theory class of "Frengers."

My Guilty Pleasure is more cohesive, its production more varied, its songwriting more effective.

A barnstorming, kiwi-pop-delicate album that is Reatard’s best album-length statement to date.

Although the album is undoubtedly a more polished production than is "Invitation Songs," the percussion is obfuscated by a watery and murky mix.

Hospice mixes the personal and fictional in a way that few indie albums outside releases from Arcade Fire and Neutral Milk Hotel tend to do. Granted, Antlers aren’t in that league yet, but Hospice positions them as one of the more exciting young bands in indie rock today.

That restlessness and aggression make King of Jeans a visceral, honest mess of a record. This is all ragged glory.

It's this combination of the simple and the intricate, the elegant and the forceful, that makes Luminous Night work so well.

The rest of Wind’s Poem plays out slow, shimmering, and really just classic Phil Elvrum, even if the album’s tone is darker, well produced and generally well executed. But once an experimentalist folk musician, always an experimentalist folk musician, and kudos to Elvrum for experimenting even further outside of the realm.

The album has its moments, like a nice surprise bridge toward the end of the title track and the slowly building, percussive arc of “Circles.” But You Can’t Take it With You just fails to make a strong case for itself.

There may only be two songs here, but Bejar does a lot with them. He gives us both the clever tricks we expect from him and a whole new sound in which for them to swirl around.

Behind all the artifice, behind the production and underwater effects, is some simple but solid songwriting. The catchy, cheerful melodies combine with the psychedelic production to create a trippy beach-music feel appropriate for their St. Petersburg roots.

This Is for the White in Your Eyes is a come-out-of-the-gate winner.

While The Bachelor is not a bad listen, it takes a little more energy to understand than seems fair for what it delivers.

Love and Curses is filled with great melodies that burrow deep into the skull without being cloying, and offers lyrical sentiments that tug at universal truths without pandering.

They choose to remain well within their comfort zone, rendering Slaughterhouse a largely unsatisfying experience.

Filled with bounce, bite and surprising cohesion, Post-Nothing is a deceptive little piece that is as much fun as it is subversive.

Immaculate production and carefully conceived themes are sure to make your nerd-tent a lot bigger, but is the space worth it if you push out even one well-penned ditty?

It's a member of a rock band that plays tightly controlled music stretching his compositional abilities to new instruments and more subtle arrangements. They're not all successes.

The album isn’t just undone by Blank’s well-worn playbook of sexualized shtick, however; the tiresome music is just an egregious.

The album's affinity for traditional hooks, mixed with Johnson's ability to depart from the traditional makes this album one of the Fruit Bats most listenable and enjoyable.