There’s plenty of sublime to go with the ridiculous, as well.

It's a winning rethink, salvaging the best bits of a musical style that's too easily missed. [Apr 2008, p.100]

His neoclassical melodies feel warm and full of blood, his keyboards weep where others bleep, and he puts so much skillful passion into female vocal showcasing that the tracks on his solo debut are consumed by a yearning for companionship that's only shaken momentarily.

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

Romweber is still ruler of his own bossa nova rockabilly kingdom, skipping from surf-guitar rave-ups to spacey instrumentals to sepulchral balladry, with the occasional Xavier Cugat cover tossed in.

The contrast between his interiority and the sturdiness of his compositions is striking. So, too, is the contrast between this album and Heartbreaker, his lauded solo debut. Ranking breakup records is a ghoul’s errand; suffice to say that loss was Heartbreaker’s fuel. Here, it’s turned to fumes.

With his unassuming voice--like a more agreeable Lou Reed--and spare folk-rock tunes, he's got a gift for importing cosmic subjects like mortality ('Demon Days') and transcendence ('If It Rains') into vivid everyday vignettes, minus any cheesy melodrama.

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.

No longer ghosts, with this strong, same-as-it-ever-was album, Veruca Salt are now full-on zombies, the riffing dead. They don’t wanna go.

For all her grandiosity, though, McCarthy's meditations on domestic toil ("Housekeeper") and seasonal change ("Hibernation Tales") feel intimately heartfelt, while the wailing "O Mary" blends natural imagery and Christian allusions in stirring fashion.

Fantasy Empire equally splits its time between the physical and metaphysical. It belongs as much in a musty basement as it does in an art gallery.

There’s next to no tempo to speak of, and they assiduously cultivate a studied monotony, but one can’t escape the sense that this slab is, secretly, the ultimate grower.

He’s both looking back and moving forward, attempting, successfully, to capture the nervous optimism of youth.

So, backed by melancholic, electronic-tinged production from Dnae Beats, Gab fashions inspired stories out of loquacious speed-raps, ruminating over humanity's foibles. It may not be transporting, but it's still impressively empathetic.

Unlike Beck during his purple-paisley "Midnite Vultures" phase, Damian Kulash employs a soul-freak falsetto that's sincerely accurate, and with the help of Lips producer David Fridmann, he and his power-pop pals master the Okie pranksters' baroque whirls.

Here is another deeply considered collection of top-shelf beats and uncompromising-though-still-pop-enough raps that justifies the fairly awful personalities driving it, which, depending on your tolerance for wounded narcissism and a complete lack of insight, is either fascinating or frustrating.

Holy Ghost is something of a wash... Winter Women, though, boasts some of [his] best material. [Sep 2006, p.111]

The musical ideas here will be readily familiar to anyone who has heard Pantha du Prince's work before.

Even at the EP’s most florid moments--say at the 11-minute mark, where they zone out for a minute of cobweb-like arpeggios--it remains music of immense impact and gravity.

The songs that collapse under their own weight find the band struggling to feel epic, but Wolf's Law still soars when the band struggles instead with epic feelings.

Trading in easy recognition/gratification, the barrage grows as dizzyingly nostalgic as Oz's tornado. [Sep 2008, p.116]

On his third full-length, Weber keeps the beats crisp but more varied, conjuring steamy pipes (on "The Splendour," featuring !!!'s Tyler Pope), wind chimes (the twinkling "Bohemian Forest"), and a bullet train ("Welt Am Draht").

Whiteman recombines mambo, Americana, and mesmerizing BSS-style rock with infectiously rambling results. [Mar 2007, p.88]

His second album delivers fleeting moments of bliss, like a beach bum’s opiate dreams.

With Courtney Love the only original member involved, Hole's return is nominal, but Love's resurrection is very real....It's only when Love throws a pity party on a series of slow jams that sincerity eludes her.

Although they're purely instrumentalists, Matmos can too, with a charm that sets the laptop duo apart from lesser lights for whom chilly beats and icy synths are ends in themselves.

There’s something more filigreed at work: a thoughtfulness about the band’s mannered chaos as though they’ve come out on the far end of some mass realization.

For her second album, she flexes more ambition, and the results are rewarding. [June 2008, p.110]

Let's have a toast for the ladies who stick it to the douchebags.

Not everything works, and the second side maybe gets bathed in one too many foggy organ dirges, but I, Gemini is like the chorus subject in weirdo-pop single of the year “Eat Shiitake Mushrooms”: Never invincible, but never predictable.

Like its predecessor [Reputation], Lover shines when the bombast is stripped away and the songs are humble and discreet, even muffled.

Sure, there's hurt everywhere, but Carrabba sticks with the pain he knows. [Nov 2007, p.121]

They refresh all their tricks, with stripped-down, energetic guitar plus little electronics. [Apr 2008, p.92]

When the band wraps itself around singer Lizzie Bougatsos' singular shrieks, they ascend to vertiginous heights on 'Holy Communion' and 'Dust Storm,' creating something truly transformative.

Their major-label debut gets by on smarmy-smooth suburban- pop melodies, cheeky genre mash-ups, and good bad jokes.

Psychopomp is a 25-minute-long dream-pop album that feels like much more: a sharp-edged exploration of how loneliness and longing form into brittle personal shields.

Love Streams manages to break through the vaulted cathedral ceilings and peer above the clouds, largely eschewing the degraded, gothic textures Hecker has become so fond of in favor of more vivid, almost celestial palettes.

Heavy Rocks is a monolithic take on everything from trippy Funkadelic acid sludge to galloping Blue Öyster pöp to lightning-riding '80s thrash; yet it all billows fluffily from the same dreamy doom factory they constructed on 2005's Pink.

Storm is no Shaggy-style mall-reggae move; its beats and attitude are harder and more streetwise than Beenie's 2000 Art And Life. [Oct 2002, p.116]

An album that’s fundamentally modest, even as it stretches to be both looser and more technically ambitious.

Run Fast is certainly more benevolent and interesting than the myopic records most people make post-40 about their changing place in the world.

On her debut full-length, the 22-year-old songwriter (see Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U.S.A.") nails a variety of roles: crotch-grabbing punker, '70s soul diva, Kelly Clarkson–style bellower.

Regardless of which indie celeb is on the mic or which recreational drug best suits the beat, each track hints at hedonism without hangovers.

Even the raw stuff has the humanizing detail that keeps Ghost interesting years after we've grown accustomed to his imagesplaying Joycean flow.

Surprisingly subdued. [Mar 2007, p.86]

The effect is like a vaguely remembered, pleasantly low-key dream. [Mar 2008, p.97]

Even at just 42 minutes, Tonight is relentless, yet the comedown is exquisite.

A fond, funky farewell.

Compiled by Stones Throw's Peanut Butter Wolf, this set features singles, club mixes, and unreleased tracks, including the George Clinton-esque electro of "On the Floor," plus mid-'80s synth-dance tracks that recall Prince and DeBarge.

Business Casual's libidinous wit can't quite match 2007's Fancy Footwork, but this day at the office still features booty calls, romantic squabbles, and digitally syrupy declarations of devotion.

Unabashedly upbeat, MC Zumbi compares ghetto life to being a "caged bird," but even when he dismisses haters ("Burning incense, yeah, they tried to call us yoga"), he sounds optimistic.

His quietly unsettling aura perfectly suits these childlike love songs.

At home with a variety of tonal colors, Alpers is a basement Björk, stacking her multitracked voice until it hits the ceiling.

Wayward Fire swoons and grooves deliciously, but the lyrics have a distinctly processed flavor.

While Atlantis sacrifices some of Rebellion's gospel spirit, its collaborations push boundaries with eclectic nerve. [Feb 2007, p.84]

Shorn of its usual grime trappings, Manuva's deep, gruff lyricism sounds playfully inspired on catalog highlights like "Proper Tings Juggled."

They never let math get in the way of a good time. [Apr 2008, p.96]

Elson leans toward both bluegrass and chamber pop--the fiddle-laced "Cruel Summer" is worlds away from the twee, jewelry-box twinkle of "100 Years From Now." Her twangy, echoing soprano recalls Jenny Lewis and Loretta Lynn, aided craftily by husband/producer Jack White.

While the songs may lack the original’s wild-eyed narrative, they still contain some of his most rewind-worthy bars in years.

It's somewhere between the album we've been waiting for Eno to release since 'My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts' and the album we wish Phish would stop releasing altogether. [Apr 2001, p.154]

This record isn't as masterful as the last, partially because they're trying out new things, many of which -- horns, vocals, ska(!) -- are old things. [Jul 2001, p.134]

Bakesale was the catchy, coherent 1994 breakthrough--a missing link between Nick Drake and Sonic Youth.

Ruins mostly sticks to compelling, pretty surfaces and leaves the demons in the background.

A perfectly pleasant contribution to the mysterious forces driving indie pop these days.

Bernard Butler, hipster rock's Jerry Bruckheimer, produced this impressive debut, a tsunami of galloping rhythms, lightning-charged guitar lines, and choruses that immediately infect your brain.

The fifth album from this Portland, Oregon quartet (recently expanded from a married duo) is swathed in misty silver-and-blue atmospherics, but it's the songwriting, hooks, and escalating thrum of a capable rock band that pull listeners from each twinkling vista to the next.

Taken as an hourlong whole, though, Noctourniquet really does feel like the band's most accessible effort in years.

The change in emphasis is jarring at first, but embrace your inner goth and you'll realize that the band's signifiers--frontman Tom Smith's outsize baritone, a penchant for high drama--remain intact.

The debut by this Seattle indie-folk group suffers slightly from an abundance of niceness.

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.

Be the Cowboy largely dispenses with the distortion of Mitski’s guitar-oriented recent work, getting all the fuzz out with intro track “Geyser.” What’s left are short and thwarted pop songs. (Only two are longer than three minutes.)

Though we may never fully understand BUB’s highly advanced Space Speak comprised of rumbling mix of squeaks, chirps, and squrggles, listening to the ebullient Science & Magic would indicate BUB’s newfound ability to sneak out from under the proverbial bed and bask in a ray of sun.

John Agnello's knob-twiddling is spot-on. [Mar 2007, p.98]

Even when the concept stumbles, parts of Vide Noir are pretty enjoyable listening anyway, like the flecks of psychedelic guitar across the title track and the filigree detail and sensual current of “Moonbeam.”

Changes continues to find him doing what he does best--performing chicken-scratch rave-ups in a raw and unkempt emotional squall, and finding unexpected meaning in authoritative cover songs.

T-Bone Burnett's understated production suggests an aqueous atmosphere, with a few actual sea shanties.

The Golden Age is their most placid disc since 1989's "United Kingdom."

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

It's a jumble. But Albarn's love of "Waterloo Sunset" poignancy adds emotional weight.

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

Fashion Week is very different from any other Death Grips album just for being so linear, and while Stefan Burnett's guttural, performance art-ish MCing is missed, their astoundingly dark and imaginative sonic palette remains intact.

Despite subjecting himself to psychoanalysis and attempting to purge himself of ego, Ashin has created something emphatically empathetic out of his inner turmoil. He's going through it like everyone else, but the very personal Anxiety is remarkably messy, dramatic, poignant, and at times, beautiful.

Murdoch pipes up now and again, but he's mostly content to play puppet master in his own lush­pop cabaret and revel in the fact that he only has to write and produce these brilliantly classic­ sounding songs, and not warble them.

On their fourth album, this Scottish indie-pop band's fondness for woeful heartache and Phil Spector–esque production reaches a poignant peak.

The overall affect is a travelogue falling between chillwave's lo-fi explorations and the sophisticated melancholy of Lykke Li's Wounded Rhymes: tightly economic pop tunes that draw on aural largesse as much as claustrophobic bricolage.

Sunflower Bean have enough homegrown ability between them to draw up a series of immersing and original compositions.

This new EP with his New Romantic band finds even more ways to surprise.

On his third solo effort, the G-Unit rapper is a connoisseur of cars, women, and guns, spinning tight spider webs of syllables that are often so patterned that they obscure individual strands.

Joyously addictive mutual self-destruction is what Do It Again is all about.

None of Collapse’s derailments are permanent, and this one only lasts a few seconds before the music puts itself back on track. If the EP leaves you wanting anything, it’s more malfunction, more frenzy, more extended deviations from the Aphex Twin playbook.

An excellent collection of space folk and ramshackle Tropicalia that matches the wild-eyed absurdism... of his band's better output. [Apr 2007, p.94]

The best mood music transfixes; merely excellent, Jetlag is sometimes too easily relegated to the background.

Yoking fuzz-stoked guitars (credit Television vet Richard Lloyd) to gorgeous melodies derived from the Beatles and Big Star, Sweet serves up his best tunes since "Altered Beast."

There’s not much artifice to be found in U.K. trio GoGo Penguin’s sophomore album, as even though the LP is a construction of jazz, classical, electronica, and trip-hop building blocks, it flows together naturally.

These eight tracks--only one of which stretches past the eight-minute mark!--actually make up the Mars Volta's most consistently compelling slab since 2005's salsafied "Frances the Mute."

[Aesop Rock's voice] Paired with the Long Island rapper's abstract, self-aware lyrics, it makes None Shall Pass a challenging, rewarding head trip. [Sep 2007, p.122]

Vedder's incantatory vocals and campfire instrumentation evoke the eerie beauty of untouched lands. [Nov 2007, p.126]

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's first album in 14 years--and first in 24 to feature the lineup that recorded the bulk of their hits--meticulously returns to the ostensibly perky sound and pensive sensibility of the Merseyside quartet's early-to-mid-'80s heyday.