Write About Love also feels monumentally comfortable in its own skin. For a band that made its bones meticulously documenting awkwardness, that's a particularly impressive change.

When [Ethan Miller] bellows, "Lord, have mercy on my soul," the result is hokey, irresistible fun.

The man could turn a Sesame Street sing-along into a deathbed confessional. "With piranha teeth / I've been dreaming of you," he moans here with typical cheeriness on opener "The Gravedigger's Song," a throbbing, reverb-heavy swirl that... feels like the sort of love song someone might write just before pushing their lover in front of a train.

What's interesting about Saint Heron is that it trips giddily over the line between relatively conventional approaches (Aiko, Solange, Shawn) and more heavily processed, speculative stuff (Sampha, Iman Omari, BC Kingdom), but takes no pains to make an overarching statement.

His 15th album--counting those as Smog--is a spare, rambling mix of country, blues, and '70s rock, but it detonates with lines so direct they barely sound written.

Acid Tongue is glossed up at the expense of Lewis' charming flaws.

Sucker is just an exceptionally good pop album.

The most rewarding Florence and the Machine full-length yet.

For all its iconoclastic ambition, Sea Lion is a low-key charmer. [Apr 2008, p.102]

While his whispery vocals work well amid the woozy atmospherics of 'Strong Animal' and 'Three Months Paid,' it's a shame someone else can't sing Raposa's dour, sketchy tunes. [Dec 2007, p.112]

The seven-, eight- and nine-minute lengths grow as wearing as the man’s past releases always threatened to, without actually losing momentum.

Mica Levi leads her trio through this 28-minute cockeyed burst, each song a bizarre little post-punk contraption that sounds like it’s ready to fly apart and wreak havoc. Yet her debut is also insanely disorienting fun.

Like Confessions on a Dance Floor, Fundamental uses squelchy electro-disco grooves that smuggle sly pop-culture commentary. [Aug 2006, p.83]

While his 2010 solo debut Mshini Wam (translated as Bring Me My Machine Gun) was promising in a guided-by-M.I.A. kind of way, Father Creeper is downright epic.

Interstellar succeeds in expertly appropriating its forebears instead of regurgitating them.

The second duo record by the former Talking Heads frontman and his experimental producing partner is a thoughtful singer-songwriter exercise. [Oct 2008, p.104]

Slay-Z is a very good mini-mixtape, and more than half of it sustains in any formation.

The rhythm sections and synths have been crafted with a newfound appreciation for sound, but with unexpected, childlike curiosity. The lyrics retain a relatable amount of simplicity, yet they also portray an intimate exploration of self-worth and image.

This is a deceptively pretty album in which all of the experiments succeed.

The result is spare and somber--just that windy Americana tenor against a squeaky acoustic guitar.

The band sounds better than ever, too, mounting a muscular four-way attack that captures the immediacy of their frenetic synchronicity better than any non-live album of theirs to date.

Sloan returns with this more digestible 13-song opus, but their essential blandness remains unchanged. [July 2008, p.104]

The Cribs' songs hold up even when slowed down, and they're able to paint outside old lines with the added shadings, nodding to Sonic Youth ("City of Bugs") and the Smiths again ("Save Your Secrets"), while still delivering plenty of their typical Britrock momentum.

Infinity on High reveals a group that has grown so confident with success that the members are willing to give in to their every musical whim. [Feb 2007, p.83]

Venus on Earth feels impulsive and rich, rippling with surf psychedelia and exultant brass swing.

With Strong Arm Steady's MC trio of Krondon, Phil Da Agony, and Mitchy Slick (plus extended fam like Planet Asia, Phonte, and Fashawn) dropping lyrical barbs ("Telegram") and creatively reheated thug-isms ("Needle in the Haystack"), Madlib chops up loops bubbling with quirky humor and analog soul.

The melodramatic tunes masterfully push up against the antihero's downward narrative spiral, making Defamation the rare contemporary album that insists on being heard in full, in sequence, until the story ends.

Recommended for anyone who finds Beth Orton too raucous. [Nov 2007, p.125]

Like Paul McCartney, Crowded House leader Neil Finn possesses a massive melodic gift, but no longer seems interested in writing anthems (à la "Don't Dream It's Over"). That's okay when the results feel as intimate as they do here.

Some songs feel unfinished, especially on disc one. Much of the production on both halves is terribly derivative and some great samples get mangled.

What does one call eight songs in 25 minutes? An EP? A mini-LP? Just don't call it a placeholder--there are too many bulldozer riffs here, even in the under-a-minute sketches.

There are pleasures to be found on SremmLife 2 once you adjust your expectations and realize that it’s not a “No Flex Zone” sequel. Instead, it charts a different but still familiar path: Every youth explosion is eventually tempered by the grind and hard-won rewards of grown-man work.

Ian Parton's picked up Young Guv’s gauntlet and made the power-pop album of the year.

Though the content--our hero purging his heart, a la Marvin Gaye's "Here, My Dear"--ordinarily would be the focus of discussion for a platinum rapper, the musical structure overshadows his attempts at introspection.

The result is minor Mary--strong by many standards, a bit tepid by hers.

No Coast is the work of a proud scene divorcée declaring his allegiance to nothing but verse and chorus. And that's a beautiful thing that too few punks understand.

She’s never more at home than when BJ the Chicago Kid accepts an offer of her “chocolate covered honey” on the closing “Beautiful Love.”

Opener 'Ashes in the Snow' and 'The Battle to Heaven' invoke the CinemaScope bombast of Ennio Morricone, but even their added orchestral heft barely nudges Mono out of a windy, instrumental morass.

Flockaveli's flaw is not Waka's coarseness, but his generosity--25 guest verses from anonymous Brick Squad cronies suck up air instead of letting Waka breathe without mentor Gucci Mane's oxygen tank.

An album so urgent and pressing that it often foregoes language for feeling, explanations for executions.

Its lyrics, though often hard to discern in the mumbles, start to get to the core of what Mess is all about--trying to find some sort of peace in this anxiety-breeding world.

Rome has the undeniably high-end vibe of an A-lister's lark. After all, what kind of no-name can book the recording studio once employed by Ennio Morricone?

After closing the door on her Electra Heart era, Marina Diamandis knew she needed to reinvent her persona. Froot achieves just that, adeptly flirting with chart sugar on the title track and “Better Than That” but more often than not, digging her heels into raw, nail-biting reality.

These songs are both sturdier and more complex. [Mar 2005, p.92]

When consumed passively, as ambient music, his conceptual flaws recede into the fuzz of his production, a raw mush of sound that provides an appropriate and occasionally great backdrop for refreshing your Tumblr dashboard, at least until it delivers a more engaging artist to look at.

The Majesticons highlight commercial hip-hop's yawning credibility gap by amping up the bourgeois posturing to the point of absurdity. [Jun 2003, p.105]

She reinvents herself as a salacious digital temptress, crooning through soulful slow rollers. [Mar 2002, p.129]

If The Cure feels like a recapitulation of the band's career, it's because they've recorded songs very much like these before. [Aug 2004, p.103]

It successfully excavates old and gorgeous Garbage: digs it up, dusts it off, reassembles it, and lovingly crafts replacements, piece by vivid piece, for the strange little sounds that have rotted away.

The album itself feels improvisational, but not loose; recorded live, it features very few edits or overdubs.

Their smoky, atmospheric ballads are too languid by half, but Telefon Tel Aviv's bright melodic palette keeps Immolate Yourself from descending into a dull fog.

are a few new wrinkles--the manic push-pull of "Meeting of the Minds" could almost pass for System of a Down--but it's generally overdrive-guitar heaven.

God's Father is, in that sense, the most fulfilling Lil B release yet.

Kissing goodbye to the obsolete racial and gender roles that pop, hip-hop, or indie rock still demand, Youngblood and pals throw a thrillingly subversive victory party to lift the country out of eight years of anguish.

The trio offers copious catchy bits, more tonal variation than the usual guitar-plus-beats norm and an appealingly pleading frontman in Ed Macfarlane. [Nov 2008, p.91]

These songs have strong, familiar features, but they build off of one another; every one of them is full of hyperactive, bats**t detail that makes it immediately attributable to this band alone.

The cool sound of hot days, fragrant smoke, and FM radio at ear-splitting volume. [Jun 2006, p.77]

Melodically, Jakob could've dug a little deeper here, even if he was consciously avoiding radio-ready 'One Headlight' territory. But Seeing Things does manage a few unexpected moments of timeless grace.

While the hooks and harmonies rarely disappoint, the presence of multiple lead vocalists on each record has, over 20 years, led to a niggling colorlessness, which may account for the band's cult status in these lower 48.

Romance, their third album in 24 months, is more slickly assured -- and far less twee -- than its predecessors.

Occasionally, Boeckner and Perry replicate the 
lo-fi bustle of city life too well, achieving only a dense, dirty muddle

These tracks don’t bear the outward signs of mourning of Rashad’s release, but at their heart there’s a sort of solitude that only occasionally makes its way onto the dance floor.

There's a grandeur and purity of intent to the whole doofy concept that prove hard to resist. For Kavinsky, B-grade electronic '80s gunk is rocket fuel, and it makes Outrun soar.

Many of the tracks conclude with two- or three-minute outros, but that's where The 20/20 Experience is often at its best.

Since the release of Fractured Orgasm, this duo’s 2011 cassette debut, they’ve proven themselves adept at subtly but profoundly shifting the mood of whatever studios or venues they happen to be exorcising. What The Switch demonstrates is that Gordon and Nace have gotten better at being overt.

Each song boasts a memorable harmonic shift or guitar filigree or hook, but successive listens reveal an overstuffed package whose melodic involutions aren't complex and/or simple enough to sustain more than an hour's worth of music.

Humor and mirth best define this voracious multicultural outfit, no matter how many tunes are set in minor keys.

All-Amerikkkan Bada$$ manages to find a balance between necessary gravity and inviting wistfulness. The message can be preachy, but the pace is conversational.

With double-time beats, Trent Reznor-level distortion, lost-in-the-matrix digital doodles, and the occasional gunshot, megamixxx3 works like a headbanger companion to El's 2007 album, I'll Sleep When You're Dead-soaring, paranoid, and ghoulish.

[A] potentially polarizing mash note.

Her street-smart squeak and plastic-fantastic perspective are undimmed, now buoyed by a heartfelt bene-ficence.

The erstwhile pixies preacher takes compliant care of Art Brut's ludicrous good name--rock-fanboy allusions and cheeky declaratives are well repped.

Torrini's much more engaging, though, when cooing Me and Armini's less flamboyant folk pop. [Nov 2008, p.102]

A gentle, finely-wrought memory of an album, The Negatives won't change lives, but it will charm and occasionally haunt them.

Harper's a master of no genre. [May 2003, p.111]

The component parts are limited and austere as always (though this time he’s added on a Roland bass synth to his instrumental palette), which makes it all the more impressive that he’s able to conjure such brilliance out of them.

Keren Ann's languid orchestral pop is suffused with equal parts Parisian lounge, Golden Age of Hollywood, and polished folk song.

When Fish Ride Bicycles may pay homage to Chicago summers, but this duo rarely break a sweat, rhyming in dulcet tones about designer sneaks and tricked-out GMCs.

There is almost always an underlying inorganic sound that’s either ominous, nauseous or both, and it’s the only thing that guarantees that none of the slower tracks will unknowingly be embraced in dentists’ waiting rooms next to classic soft rock. The faster songs are highly danceable, especially with these queasy keys.

Slivers of banjo, rattles, kalimba, and what sounds like a coffee percolator swirl across winsome exotica minitures. [Nov 2008, p.93]

Producer Karlberg also has expanded his reach and grip, snatching sounds from all over and re-purposing them to serve Mwamwaya's immaculate, coruscating voice.

Lindstrom is becoming increasingly diverse; but his style is immediately recognizable--probably as good a proof of artistic development as there is. Cheap and dirty, he still shines.

The Way and Color is a gem in its own devastating way, but don't be surprised if TEEN occupy a completely different space next time.

The new tracks feel particularly crisp and cohesive, easily her most captivating and keenly focused record yet.

The result, which is gentler and more eclectic than the Bastards' earlier releases, is also Wennerstrom's most glorious, a collection of salty, rousing rock'n'roll that'll leave you aching for a roadhouse, a sticky bar stool, and a chipped glass of bourbon.

While the sextet refine their surf-rockin' exotica, Nimol's wonderful Khmer-language covers are missed.

They've stepped up their ballad game, and the grooves, smartly percussive and Kanye-slick, are deeper than ever.

A lot of a listener’s acceptance of Care depends on their acceptance for nervous candor; for purposeful titles like “Lost Youth / Lost You,” for earnest existential wonderings of what “care” means, for transcribed 3 a.m. chats about how everyone looks at their phones and how warm skin is awesome.

He's put together a record that's as full of unforgettably kaleidoscopic melodies as it is surreal shoutouts to Dolly Parton and Kurt Cobain--pom pom is just about as beautiful of a mess as Pink himself.

Green Naugahyde is all rubbery, aggro Bootsy, picking up where 1999's nü-metal-chasing Antipop left off.

The Gathering should be a hoot, at the very least, but this Baltimore clan's fourth release is more of a slog, shackled by monochromatic guitar churn and a slack pulse.

If only this Baltimore art-rap exhibitionist were as consistently funny as his album titles. [Jan 2004, p.100]

The production, supplied by stellar guests ranging from Jay Dee and Rockwilder to the Plugs themselves, is clean and airy, with the boys floating on bubbles of flatulent bass and high-stepping over chirping guitar chords.... But if anything foils Art Official Intelligence, it's the wrath of the math: 11 of the album's 17 tracks feature guest appearances.

Clatter arises from songs and songs from clatter, and it's maddening how so many of them seem to randomly end before committing to actual endings.

On Shangri-La, YACHT add sinewy live instrumentation to their previously chilly electro, and when frontwoman Claire Evans, possessed of Kim
 Gordon's cool authority and Annie's playfulness, 
espouses her utopian "belief system," the 
bubblegum beats make it easy to buy into the philosophizing.

Throughout, Randolph's playing is joyously flashy, yet never glib or predictable.

The problem is that Bada$$ seems to have missed their lessons on levity. His style--often-poetic lyrics rapped in a blunted monotone over moody production--is skilled, but never very fun.

Fleshed out with sinister synths and laid-back drums, the Swedish folkie's songs breathe and groove like never before.