For a lo-fi project, Celebration is a particularly imaginative, lengthy work full of vivid character portraits, using additional instrumentation and computer-generated distortion to expand far beyond the boundaries of more straightforward guitar-driven indie acts.

Though Drake’s globetrotting is seeping into American pop (hi, Katy) More Life still stands apart. Its closest recent antecedent is probably Drake’s own Take Care, itself a kaleidoscopic masterpiece that pulled horizontally and vertically from across music.

From yellowed headlines, nature-magazine clippings, marker scribblings, torn paper, even Kurt Cobain's visage, Antony extracts a poignancy that beautifully matches his music.

Compared to the spontaneous hodgepodges of 2009’s Psychic Chasms or 2011’s Era Extraña, VEGA INTL. Night School is a far more intricately assembled product.

Songs are still suite-sized, but this is the toughest and catchiest Isis record since their 1999 debut full-length, "Celestial."

Scales are Middle Eastern, obviously; tempos range from up to mid-plus; the programmed drums generate rhythms that few American tub-thumpers could map, much less replicate. There's far more variety in what Sa'id plays than in what Souleyman sings--flute sounds, an orchestra once. But Souleyman's intensity nails it.

Terje can make an aging gigolo's commentary on the folly of his misspent youth the centerpiece of his otherwise invigorating dance album because he's the rare crowd-pleasing DJ whose musical skills trump his proven ability to move butts.

Gang of Losers leaves behind the preciousness of 2003's delicate No Cities Left. [Oct 2006, p.105]

The joyous problem: All the repitition, all the sunshine, all the sound can get tiring. But the same goes for anything that releases endorphins this ecstatically. [Oct 2008, p.122]

Their second album will speak to fans of Built to Spill's squall, Superchunk's chug, and Modest Mouse's string-bending strangeness.

Even the production on Beyond sounds plucked from the trio's Bug heyday. [May 2007, p.85]

Japandroids fans will be happy to know that Near to the Wild Heart of Life is a Japandroids album, pushed to 11 even in the quiet moments: towering riffs played on maxed-out amps, drums hit with due diligence, big whoa-oh harmonies, passionate, evocative rock n’ roll songwriting about girls and alcohol.

These Brits--featuring two members of Mclusky, a great band that died in 2005--spit fiery, trebly guitar­rock venom with such lusty glee that following them to hell actually sounds inviting.

Hval continues to cleverly connect, and explicitly comment on, matters of sex and politics on her third album.

With his SAT-acing vocabulary, Bird still rocks some of the best rhymes in the game, cobbling together his own foreign language from arcane terms.

Confirms [Molina] as one of underground pop's most beautifully odd voices. [Jun 2006, p.83]

Reversing their gradual progression toward gentler, grander grooves, the Pornographers' sixth album is both their liveliest since their first and their most immediate.

A supremely dainty-assed achievement that jerks real tears. [Oct 2002, p.111]

Mix[es] xylophones, spaghetti-Western trumpets, and quirky trick guitars to sweeping effect. [Jun 2003, p.109]

While the novelty factor alone makes it worth the download time, it works as a cohesive album long after the initial shock wears off. [Apr 2004, p.91]

'Houseclouds' is dance pop of hit-worthy catchiness and the taut, pounding 'Freak Out' puts to shame most contemporary psych outfits. [Sep 2007, p.133]

On Chromatica, she seems too afraid or to removed from the Koons-loving side of herself to get too bizarre or to let the production dominate, two of Artpop’s best qualities. ... Chromatica functions as both stopgap escapism and yet another portrait of someone among us who’s trying to patch together her identity again.

We’re supposed to admire the fact that 30 years after their debut album, they haven’t moved an inch closer to definability.

The results are simultaneously raw and symphonic, always ascending higher while on the verge of total collapse.

Call it the happy aftermath of a midlife crisis. U2 is relaxing, reasserting some beliefs critics love to shove back in their face--most importantly, that uplifing art is not necessarily dumb. [12/2000, p.233]

This reunion packs no shortage of vintage wank--knotty, largely instrumental songs that surge together and drift apart with a proggy, loose-limbed precision.

Greenspan turns the pathos of 2004's Last Exit into nearly intolerable bathos, with the beats now noticeably dragging. [Oct 2006, p.98]

My Dinosaur Life, on which the band strikes a radio-ready balance between mayhem and melody, may well trigger their long-awaited breakthrough.

Testimony brings rap's raw nerve detail to the sturdy slow jam, nullifying the need for nods to R&B of the "rap and bullshit" variety.

Red Mile is thus far Crack Cloud’s ultimate rock odyssey—a combination of epic poem-leaning lyrics with spacious, anthemic compositions that recall everyone from Gary Numan and early ‘80s David Bowie to Broken Social Scene. .... A disarmingly earnest exercise in philosophizing, its dense meta-ness more outlined with every listen.

Its sense of self-awareness, internal editing and transitional sonic wanderlust remains as compelling as ever.

Project is prime second-tier Polly, opening melodic and textural doors unlike much else you’ll hear in 2016, and it amounts to a lean, compulsively listenable 41 minutes that makes a conscientious effort to do something larger with her gifts.

It takes a minute for the standouts here to stand out, but it's an enjoyable wait.

Forward, it’s enticing--but in reverse, it’s sublime.

This isn’t quite your weird uncle’s Wolf Eyes, capable of clearing a den and ending the party in 30 seconds flat--but it’s a Wolf Eyes that’s still capable of scaring off half the guests. The other half will find a lot to love here.

His best in more than 30 years, he teams up with members of Ladybug Transistor, Teenage Fanclub, and others for songs heavy on rememberance but energized with chin-up horns and strings that'll sound fresh to fans of the Decemberists and Arcade Fire. [Apr 2008, p.92]

They deepen their sound past lo-fi into something redolent of actual studio polish.

The album represents an impressive development upon what is already one of the most compelling sounds in rap.

Three Futures is a slow burn, but Torres doesn’t require speed, not when she can hold our attention with something more akin to intense eye contact.

Gorky's make the leap from ramshackle prog pop to meticulously crafted folk-symphonics. [Nov 2001, p.130]

Both intoxicating and deliciously unmemorable. [Oct 2003, p.113]

Roni Size and Reprazent come back so fast and furious on In the Mode that their record sounds less like a jungle reinvention than a call to arms. [Nov. 2000, p.207]

The third album from New Jersey's Steel Train is a textbook example of how to use splashy arrangements and high-octane performances to enhance tepid material.

Lyrically, he's back to his old tricks--shitting on haters, shouting out himself, somehow rhyming "orange" and having "diamonds like kablooie."

While he played the easygoing, likeable mope that rattled through life on Never Hungover Again, Cody is more daring and complex document, bled through with cynicism and exhaustion.

What makes this music special is what Smith does with all that stylized sparseness, transforming it into something alive and dynamic instead of merely sleepy.

Lotta Sea Lice is strange, occasionally awkward, and easy to love. Like a good buddy movie, it’s a little sentimental, and possessed of a deeper wisdom than its goofy premise initially lets on.

The songs on this album may well become standards for fans at a certain place in life, but they definitely raise the standards for Into It. Over It.--as well as for anyone who actually still thinks emo needs help being revived.

Pressure Machine is, in totality, a commendable and genuinely surprising big swing, which mostly connects. It’s a project that proves The Killers won’t yet settle for festival-headlining rock legacy status.

On Frog Boiling in Water, DIIV have once again shrewdly adapted, pivoting away from the chonky riffs of Deceiver and delivering the most tense, subtle, and cerebral music of their whole career.

Warm, soulful, occasionally political, Wright was a private-press gem who deserved more.

A subtle hallucinatory pastiche. [Jun 2007, p.92]

Much of 4 feels like beautifully baroque soundtrack music desperately seeking a movie about a rainy afternoon.

With Father, Son, Holy Ghost's exquisite, beyond-indie melodies, arrangements, and musicianship (the playful "Magic," the elegant "Just a Song," the fiery "Die"), he [Christopher Owens] and bassist-producer JR White flirt with perfection.

It’s hard to say if Homme and Pop are better served by the nine-track length or not. Post Pop Depression doesn’t feel particularly tight or focused, but neither dude is conceptual enough to really justify a larger sprawl.

Tucker and Tividad have discovered their indie-pop Neverland, and a fanciful, free-flowing sound to suit it.

Alright's sparkly high-life beats... all gleam with upmarket panache. But strong medicine always requires a little sugar. [Feb 2007, p.82]

Banhart brings the peace and love, but not the understanding. [Sep 2005, p.104]

Smart, left-field parodies such as 'Hardcore Gentlemen,' which sends up early-'90s horrorcore, prove that Tanya Morgan may go hard in pursuit of rap dreams, but they haven't lost their infectious sense of humor.

Frightened Rabbit's best material rivals brothers-in-brood the National and Arcade Fire, and even their B-level stuff is better than that of most acts working in this vein. But unlike those leading lights, these guys don't have the pop instincts to throw in the occasional punk scrappers, chamber-folk interludes, or disco rave-up to keep things from getting monotonous.

Functioning adults that they are, Dillinger Escape Plan have realized that tightly wound precision left to its own devices is about as much fun as orgasm denial. Welcoming the pleasures of melody's slow release, they've retained their desire to rage and contort.

For the first time in years, Pearl Jam are seizing the moment rather than wallowing in it.

With songs this hooky, it's impossible not to enjoy Cut Copy's lush new-wave revival. [June 2008, p.106]

Spell-casting pop and Twitter branding this is not; the excellent force of this album is how it taps into the sheer pain, anger, and sensuality of the idea of “the witch,” rather than its archetypal signifiers in pop culture.

This is not groovy indie finery; there’s a rock-as-high-art vision at work here.

There are expected blips of Fiery playfulness -- pinballing "bop bop" vocals, backward-masked beats -- but this is as straightforwardly evocative as abstract pop gets, with the hazy beauty and fractured narratives of a vintage Polaroid slide show.

[Corgan's] the closest thing our generation has to John Fogerty--a control freak who actually knows what the fuck he's doing. [March 2003, p.118]

Silkworm's songs aim for a groove and grace almost completely foreign to their genre. They don't always get there, but when they do, the results are breathtaking. [July 2002, p.110]

Ultimately, the album succeeds despite the extra fuss, not because of it.

Some classic records have been made in this mold; plenty of dull ones, too. So Much Fun is somewhere in the middle, with a handful of legitimately great songs, only a couple you may end up skipping, and none that sound like someone forgot to send them to the mastering engineer.

Torche's sound is touched by many of these bands, but not beholden to any of them: In fact, the band sounds more singular than ever on Restarter, becoming less sonically limited as their aesthetic grows more defined.

On the surface, it's big, dumb, and fun; just beneath, there's an improbably complicated band at work, showing its hand only on repeated listens.

After ranting against Christian extremism on their last outing, they're back to mindless fun, and with new drummer Westin Glass, they've resurrected the savage, speed-strummed fervor that once made Kill Rock Stars matter.

Quickly working 11 tracks into 40 minutes, the album is visceral and unrefined, two qualities not often associated with Hebden.

He sounds comfortable with his new band, a pristinely recorded quartet that frames his lyrics with music just interesting enough to not overwhelm them.

Swedish electronic dance producer Axel Willner consistently finds the sweet spot between breathlessness and breathing too hard on his follow-up to 2007's acclaimed "From Here We Go Sublime."

Led by effects-pedal guru Oliver Ackermann (the Edge is a customer), this Brooklyn trio further their rep for insane volume on their first proper studio album.

Throughout, drummers Carl McGinley and Eric Hernandez play tight, tribal beats. The heat subsides at times, but it never breaks.

Wordy but somnambulant. [Sep 2006, p.112]

On their sixth, the band's sound finally matches their romantic ambitions.

Things appear quieter for Kozelek this year, and the magic of Universal Themes is in the telling.

This loud and proud psych-folk trio want some old-fashioned joy on their fifth album -- and they want it now.

Middle Cyclone carries case's unique vision one step further: here, she truly embraces the beast within.

The group... get more expansive--and more pop--on their second album. [Sep 2006, p.102]

Blessed feels more like a country-blues toast to the pissed-off side of interpersonal relations, set to coproducer Don Was' sturdy barroom roots rock. And Williams calls 'em like she feels 'em.

The results are the most pleasant kind of rambling imaginable.

The Kings are probably sick of the "redneck Stones" tag already, but the signs are all there. [Aug 2003, p.111]

aybe listeners trapped in the depths of mourning or an exceedingly bad breakup might find hypnotic comfort here; others will likely admire the pretty vocals, fingerpicked guitar, and spectral atmosphere--then crave songs just a little more eventful.

Age of Transparency is his best album yet.

By setting its course in the equal and opposite direction of Life Without Sound, it becomes its evil twin, a still-incomplete picture of Cloud Nothings. ... Yet Last Building Burning feels like a triumphant return because there isn’t as much pressure on it to do or say anything beyond its purely utilitarian aims. It slaps, shreds, and whips ass in whatever way you see fit.

While We Wait has more features than the nearly all-Kehlani SweetSexySavage, but the guests acquit themselves best when they’re subsumed into the mood, like neo-soul throwback Musiq Soulchild and a relatively chill Ty Dolla $ign. Where the ballads on SweetSexySavage were very period-accurate--in that they were often filler--on While We Wait they’re the standouts.

Rancid doesn’t venture too far outside of its sonic comfort zone on Tomorrow Never Comes and 30 seconds into each song, it’s not difficult to guess their structure and how they’ll likely resolve. Rather than being a weakness, this is one of the album’s strengths.

A steely affair that finds Drake and longtime producer Noah "40" Shebib pulling their sound and worldview further inward to increasingly murky results.

Over the course of 24 tracks, we get taut grooves set on Al Green cruise control, lots of havin'-fun-in-the-studio byplay, and the occasional spritz of rude fuzz-box gutiar to give all the gold-leaf detailing some shape. [combined review of both discs; Mar 2004, p.97]

Guitars and synths, both shimmering and scouring (depending on the volume level), can’t quite override the sweet harmonies at the heart of 'Die Slow,' nor can the toms stop them on 'Death+' or 'We Are Water.'

The duo's tinny new-wave pop is spot-on. [May 2008, p.104]

Kraut-rock drones run together into one long, thudding hum. [Mar 2006, p.95]

“Direct Address” fails to make sticking mantras of “Honesty is like a kiss on the lips” or “I don’t believe in first sight” or “I fall in love with everyone I see,” but there’s plenty of promise here that she’ll move past them, and it’s sometimes fulfilled.