What Avalanche may lack in immediacy, it makes up for with the gloss and professionalism that coats each of its songs like a gossamer gown. The quality of Hannibal’s handiwork and the sheer passion of Coco’s vocals speak for themselves.

...Like Clockwork is a droning, incoherent endeavor, and it simply doesn’t reward the attention it’s asking for.

As a whole, Lesser Evil can be a lot to take in: it’s hyperactive, unstable, and disoriented. Most of the time it feels like all three at once. Yet Doldrums’ ability to hop genres with ease, write catchy melodies, and--above all--sound like he’s having fun doing it renders his place unique in an overcrowded genre, and his debut a promising one.

Ultimately Cold Spring Fault Less Youth is a fascinating record, a series of varied and elaborate soundscapes that find the right balance of mood and melody.

The eleven tracks on the album, while almost uniformly unpleasant, all share an underlying moroseness sewn together by Bianca Casady’s unnerving vocals.

As an entity, Obsidian is neither more nor less accessible than Cerulean. Ultimately, your mood as a listener--and perhaps the weather--will dictate how often you’ll return to Obsidian‘s bleak and beautiful world.

It is an album that needs to be experienced in its entirety, but in the age of remixes, the blogosphere, and Adderall, who will have the time or patience to dig into Impersonator? Those who do will find parts of it beautiful and rewarding, if they can stomach the emotional drain.

It took exuberance, painstaking detail, and wide-eyed nostalgia for Daft Punk to create Random Access Memories, their best.

A collection of remarkable songs by a group of musicians that compliment one another as well as any group over the last decade.

Flawless transitions are endemic to the record, and necessary in order to cram this many ideas into an attention-deficit 32 minutes.

As an album set out to reappropriate pop rock, MCII succeeds.

It does not always work, but in short, orchestral bursts, MS MR demonstrate that they can transcend the confines of goth synth-pop, and produce one of the most memorable debuts of the year.

Nothing feels out-of-place or out-of-sync, everything clicks together in flourishes of simple brilliance.

Savages’ smart reorganization and shuffling of punk, post-punk, krautrock, and noise music into something brutal, jarringly confrontational, and completely singular is a breath of fresh air and an unignorable statement of power and resistance.

Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward continue to prove She & Him is more than mere novelty. Now we just need some richness and depth.

Little Boots knows how to write a hook.

It is not a return to form, because how could we expect or want it to be? It is a return to the contextually avant-garde, and for Deerhunter in 2013 that means rock n’ roll.

THR!!!ER is a remarkably fluid album, transitioning seamlessly between songs and only rarely getting mired in moments of subpar music.

As a whole, the transitions are a bit choppy and sudden, digging away at the coherence of the album.

A game-changer Bigfoot is not, but it’s a very solid debut album full of eight consistently catchy, easygoing tunes ready-made for summer beach trips, pool parties, and barbecues.

Bankrupt! doesn’t inspire the covetousness of their early material, but rather it takes its natural place as an album to be consumed en masse by Phoenix’s hefty fan base.

What truly makes Ultramarine penetrate beyond the passé realm of feel-good electropop, are the subliminal hints of evanescent existence scattered amidst the stardust.

Twelve Reasons to Die is a straightforward concept album, and it’s very well done.

Beam along with producer Brian Deck and a host of musicians including members from Dylan’s band, The Tin Hat Trio and Antony and Johnsons, Iron and Wine continues this evolution by crafting a lush album of AM radio pop—complete with funk and jazz grooves.

True Romance may not match Aitchison’s high ambitions for her debut, but it’s a hell of a start.

They have crafted a sound that is new for them and unique in its context, but that falls neatly into what we have come to expect from a trio whose power and creativity runs consistently unchecked.

With Wakin On A Pretty Daze, Vile has added another seemingly effortless 70 minutes’ worth of straightforward, easygoing golden tones to his consistent discography.

Overgrown is not the enigma that was his debut, but rather it is a first-rate album from a musician that isn’t all that interested in being enigmatic.

Judicious use of the skip button to find the tracks on which Andersson’s transfixing voice is front and center, results in a much more rewarding, immediate experience.

The generalized lyrics shrouded in reverb protect Richie by rendering anything he sings as essentially useless.

The music isn’t as good as it was, sure, but what’s truly maddening is his apparent indifference to his own decline.

The elements are still there, but they aren’t fused in a way consistent with the hopes of those who foresaw The Strokes being the best rock band of our tim

What makes Cerulean Salt so enjoyable and so endlessly relistenable is that some of her snapshots likely resemble ones from your own lost photo albums.

The nonchalant attitude Wavves approaches music-making with provides a cap to the height it can reach in terms of producing something truly excellent or groundbreaking. However, that’s kind of the whole point.

20/20 is a total blast. You have to hand it to Justin Timberlake. Few pop artists have the skill and bravery to make such a stunning mess.

Fans of Marnie’s music are fully aware of what an album of hers going to bring, and on The Chronicles of Marnia, she brings it.

An album where the reminiscence of rock is revitalized by The Men’s gift of genre hybridization.

The vast majority of The Next Day is vibrant, even delirious, roaring with Bowie’s heaviest rockers and teeming with guitar hooks that just beg to be lovingly re-appropriated by James Murphy.

On Naomi, the Cave Singers don’t really fail at anything; however, save for a couple of moments, they don’t offer up anything all that memorable either.

It is intensely personal, tangled in the sentiments that privately plague each of us. Untogether is meant for those cold, murky nights in which we feel completely and utterly alone.

Youth Lagoon’s sophomore record stands tall and sure-footed.

Woman works because it balances restraint and candor, presenting love in neither a chaste nor debauched light. Milosh, through his gossamer vocals, delivers a message of stunning clarity: despite the risk, love is beautiful.

Torres is an album that is pulsating with life.

It grows beyond its deeply emotional roots, to become whatever you want it to be.

AMOK is a surprisingly unassuming album in that way; each song has worthwhile hooks and accessibility is favored over abstract experiments.

The vocals on You’re Nothing, however, are much more emotive and indicative of a newfound acknowledgement of the singer’s vulnerability as a frontman. The result is anything but sappy.

Beach Fossils have delivered an album of shimmering guitars and an ebulliently bouncy rhythm that is simply a beautiful listen.

It builds on the promise of his mixtape, extends itself into new territory, and in the process reveals some of the shortcomings of Rocky’s craft.

Until Ex Cops stumble upon a niche and make it their own, their career is going to be eclipsed by listeners hearing influence over innovation in their music.

FIDLAR will make you want to pound a case of the cheapest beer you can find with these guys, it’ll make you want to crank it up as loud as it will go in whichever of your friends’ cars.

It’s bizarre, and at times beautiful, but overall it leaves a longing for some direction, some movement in this exploration of the abyss.

The brew of Anything In Return is strong enough that its overly sugary moments don’t ruin the experience of the album, and it’s certainly strong enough to merit many, many plays.

For an album that embraces the theme of technology, Beta Love sounds stuck in the past, belonging to an era in which the novelty of overusing the synthesizer has not yet worn off.

With We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic, Foxygen is a breath of fresh air, reviving a vintage style of songwriting in a new and creative fashion.

While Wolf’s Law has a few lulls, such as the syrupy, “The Turnaround,” and some of the prog moments like “The Leopard and the Lung,” run too long, the best moments shine.

It is this cycle of futility and human effort that makes Hummingbird so compelling, and so much more rewarding the second time around

Under the wing of producer Kevin McMahon, the duo was able to flesh out arrangements and let their music mature.

Its songwriting, production, and delivery harbor no risks, and therefore the album safely passes by its listeners without leaving anything but a want for something a little more lively.

With II, UMO remains humble in composition and production, creating an honest album that comforts in the strangest ways.