It’s hard to remember he was once known primarily as a co-founder of chillwave once you’ve emerged dripping from the warm bath of What For?

Two dudes from bong rockers Witch, including Dinosaur Jr. ax god J. Mascis, and two more from middle-aged glam junksters Cobra Verde, including singer John Petkovic, make for a three-guitar, super-ish group that actually gets somewhere rather than just revving its engine (see Them Crooked Vultures).

Presided over by Molly Siegel--a fiery young Yoko Ono impersonator--the disc is precocious but never precious, combining a smart, Juno-esque appreciation of old-school punk that steers clear of mere revivalism.

Singer-guitarist Jeffrey Novak pulls off a neat stunt on the second Cheap Time album, bringing fresh life to the most timeworn garage-band conventions.

The Kid's voice has tarnished, but his wit-intensive, cross-genre revisionism still grooves like a multiculti Mensa disco party.

Last year's remarkably lewd "12 Play: Fourth Quarter" may go down (so to speak) as one of the great unreleased albums in pop history. Fortunately, several of its prime cuts, including the silky-smooth 'Go Low,' surface on Untitled, which contains no shortage of fresh raunch.

The songs on The Letting Go that flirt with familiar forms... feel completely devoid of his pretentious tendencies. [Oct 2006, p.94]

There's a coiled power here equal to Harvey's more muscular stuff. [Oct 2007, p.95]

Despair rules on this Liverpool threesome's crackling debut, wrapping loneliness in spiffy power pop.

The music doesn't always keep up with Bemis' self-absorbed lyrical jujitsu, but there's definite charm in the struggle.

The processed guitar-based tracks on Rug don't quite rollick or shimmer, but with Alanis it's the lyrics, not the music, that count. [Apr 2002, p.114]

It’s tense throughout, but it’s also endearingly frisky, and the poppiest moments have a tendency of landing at just the right time to stave off any potential noise-rock monotony.

The result is a patchwork approach to nostalgia, cherry-picking sounds from dance music's collective memory and rearranging them into something that's more than the sum of its parts.

Live instruments have replaced the samples that fueled their debut, resulting in a more fluid, if still absurdly amateurish, sound. [Oct 2007, p.104]

It's not perfect--it's too long by a third, David Lee Roth often sounds like a 2 A.M. drunk doing David Lee Roth at karaoke, and a Kinks cover wouldn't have killed them. But the album clearly aspires to both be part of the canon, and, if need be, serve as an entry point.

Ultimately, the curiosity of the song selection helps Best Troubador feel like a more thoughtful and earnest tribute. Sometimes the two men’s disparate sensibilities find an appealing point of overlap.

Written in Chalk sounds like a breakup record, with the Millers (and guests Patty Griffin, Emmylou Harris, and Robert Plant) picking through an emotional boneyard of broken promises, shattered hearts, and spiritual uncertainty.

The sad sacks who populate such bitterly funny songs as 'Already Gone' and 'R.I.P.' linger in the mind long after the toe-tapping grooves have faded.

While the similarly mystical/mewling Joanna Newsom seems adrift in fantasy, Tiny Vipers finds wonder in being rooted firmly to the terra.

Devonté Hynes pens an indie-rock passion play that picks up the tempo and spotlights his thespian skills

He can disavow his youthful rage all day, but Gabel is at his best when he's feisty.

As pure listening experience, Tourist's mazelike structure, full of echoes and switchbacks, best lends itself to listening on shuffle.

Disc two works better in theory than fact, compiling disparate song fragments into a single 33-minute mixtape-inspired track, but the group's radiant delight in pure sound is undimmed.

Though Fate's sepia sweetness and the band's ever-improving instrumental ingenuity (see 'em live!) can't mask a vaguely troubling lack of original ideas, Dr. Dog wears the vintage look amiably well.

None of this will make Devin a star anytime soon, but that's less his fault than it is everyone else's. [Nov 2008, p.90]

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

The songs often end up miles away from where they started, but the characters and melodies persist.

The Broken String pares down the track list and polishes the best of the EPs. [Sep 2007, p.123]

Amid such scene-upending sentiments, the band's all-too-Glaswegian moniker represents a clever case of bait and switch. [May 2008, p.98]

This Virginia duo's debut could double as a hypercompressed essay on post-punk's shift into indie.

The dusty, reverent feel of even the album's wildest rockers gives the sense that he's just a lone wanderer battling solitude with sound.

Though Blow Your Head leans hard on the Diplo cohort (Major Lazer, Rusko, Borgore), its colossus is James Blake, whose shower of warped arcade-game synths and butchered old gospel vocals is stunning--heaven for believers and headaches for everyone else.

In dialing down the pomp of Belong and the fuzz of their debut, the Pains discover something that transcends mere buzz: an ageless indie pop sound that could last them for years to come.

Processed guitars and keyboards, wordless 
vocals, and muted beats blend into a pastel wash of sound, as shifting patterns hint at familiar styles without assuming a clear shape.

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.

It reads like a book, its impassioned lyricism underscored by reverb, pedal steel guitar, and pattering, stick-clacking drums. The sound builds on the musical spaciousness of Ultimate Success, reflecting the environs of the Tornillo, Tx., ranch at which it was recorded. Indeed, the new album’s title offers a straightforward glimpse into its subject matter.

So is Recovery a classic album? No. But is it an essential one in shaping Eminem's future? Absolutely.

On her fourth album, Portland, Oregon singer/songwriter Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn expands her sound palette, somehow adapting a Carnival parade for the otherwise restrained "Country of the Future."

They turn to the next logical ladder rung of pretension: symphony. And they may have finally found the perfect category to fuse with their ever-swooping brand of rock.

Soundgarden made an album here, with all sorts of internal connections and deliberate emotional ebbs and flows.

Sometimes he veers too close to his source material and surrenders to sap... but mostly this U.K.-chart-topping magpie makes good with bountiful tunes and Broadway vocal dazzle that could slay even the High School Musical crowd. [May 2007, p.88]

'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]

The Felice Brothers aspire to the weird, woozy vibe of the Band's "The Basement Tapes," and often approach it. [Apr 2008, p.96]

LP3 is as wildly organic as instrumental electronica gets without becoming another genre (or five) altogether.

As with so much of Too True, it's more Flowers in the Attic than Flowers of Evil. But it's also part of a glorious art-goth tradition: bookish rockers chasing pop into the dark, deep within the Hong Kong gardens, where all cats are grey.

Patrick Stickles screams and moans amid the swirling, lo-fi racket, and although he sounds a helluva lot like Conor Oberst, this is no Bright Eyes knockoff. The Airing of Grievances is more inviting, fraternal, and widely referential.

Fantasies is a welcome return, but it's not without flaws.

Despite gestating for years, IV Play is an album that feels unattended to.

Sniper's voice still sags and drags, but Land and Fixed is remarkably feel-good, even when channeling the Cure via the Breakfast Club bounce of "Blurred Tonight" or Joy Division on cold-wave throbber "Collides."

They sound ready to take on Franz Ferdinand. [Aug 2006, p.76]

There's definitely something welcoming about Koi No Yokan's comparative purity, in the band's understanding of how little they need.

Layers of strings and piano (the droney "Old Statues") or ghostly backing voices (the haunting "As I Lay My Head Down") are usually enough to keep Tamer Animals from feeling too domesticated.

What's great about Atlas, the quintet's huge, intentional about-face of a third record, is that it most definitely didn't organically occur.

For years, Dillinger Escape Plan have been the metal standard-bearers of dizzying, time-signature torture, though they have occasionally eased up to construct NIN-damaged, alt-rock superhero fantasies. The band's fourth album gives these two personalities their most seamless marriage to date.

The added vocalists flesh out the simple bed of guitar and handclaps on the crestfallen "Mama Don't Like My Man," and play her pragmatic foils on "Money," barking, "Whatcha gonna do?" while she pleads in a Tina Turner rasp for the green stuff to stick around.

While their newfound alt-rock dalliances tend to blur together in the middle for some urgent-sounding tracks marked by temper-tantrum vocals ("What goes around, comes back around," promises "We're Taking This"), they finish strong, never quite denying their metal instincts

Where Craft Spells' previous release felt a bit lackadaisical, the more self-aware Nausea, with its themes of growth echoed in its synth crescendos, sports ambition.

Despite the invocation of those crusty legends [Guided by Voices], Business is no lo-fi throwback.

A cleverly plotted head trip disguised as a ramshackle mess, the debut full-length from this psychedelic Oakland quartet turns brain-scrambling confusion into a fine art.

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."

At times, the forlorn vibe can get oppressive--'Peacetime Resistance' goes one love-as-war metaphor too far--but overall, the album is a welcome return from these princes of the bummer.

Sincerely Yours, then, remains another sturdy addition to the discography of one of rap's more thrilling creatives.

This stunning Dane's synths-plus-strings slant on singer-songwriter lovesickness offers refinement over innovation, yet Nanna Øland Fabricius beguiles with a gently insistent presence.

The veteran group's dizzying flows remain flawless. [Jun 2007, p.90]

Dear infuses the snapping, beeping compositions of his second album with a sincere yearn, broadening the genre in the process. [Jul 2007, p.96]

Boasting enough sugary banjos, glockenspiels, and handclaps to give a Teletubby diabetes, The Boy Least Likely To animate their softly sung indie twang with nonstop hooks, bright production, and gently acknowledged adult anxieties. Beneath lyrics celebrating balloons and whiskers lie bittersweet longings.

The contrast between Purity Ring's two halves is special and compelling, but Shrines goes over best when Roddick's reverent sound and James' lustful fury synchronize and break you off properly, womb-stem-style.

It’s structurally confounding, simultaneously weirder and more welcoming than any of the other material she’s released to date.

Pairing dreamy synths and tight riffs, the result is confident and exhilarating.

Compton doesn’t need to exist, but it does, and that it’s actually pretty good and fresh in a year brimming with vibrant, relevant young voices, says something.

Watson gives Nero's robotic skronk a rare injection of humanity, and the U.K. producers are smart enough to build most of their debut full-length around her husky voice.

The occasionally somewhat disturbing words he pens for that medium knock around on the page with the same ease that they roll out of his mouth.

Bun combines swagger with substance without losing a step. [June 2008, p.104]

The results are brilliant, but the album too often focuses on the latter two-thirds of the album title at the expense of the first.

They still make totally successful, totally stupid modern rock anthems pumped up on three-chord riffs, an abiding love of the sci-fi sex-kitten archetype and a separate track for handclaps.

They hew to a similar early-'70s aura -- nodding to a time when spacey keyboard effects and alt-country dust carried serious cachet.

All hands sound fully engaged on their first album since 2006, which opens and closes with glorious echoes of X's overdriven guitars and yowling male-female harmonies.

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.

Five songs, one skit, and just 18 minutes total, this is a concentrated dose of Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire's spaced-out, drink-and-fuck-too-much, end-of-days rap. It's also frustratingly brief and low-stakes, though it leaves you immediately anticipating his next move.

Despite fairly rote lyrics, Buck's ferocious flow can turn even the most cliched hood yarn into a fire-and-brimstone sermon. [Apr 2007, p.97]

The US debut of Damien Rice's former band turns sentimental mush into something palatable. [Mar 2008, p.97]

Andy Cabic's balmy folk songs pull from pert shades of doo-wop 'Everyday') and Latin syncopation ('Strictly Rule'). But his whispery voice can take on a Donovan-like sultriness, making a song such as 'Sister' far sexier than a song named 'Sister' should be.

Consistently spirited and glowering, a discomforting album that never leaves his narrative comfort zone, equal parts impersonal and important.

Though Kool Herc is just eight songs and 27 minutes long, it's plenty challenging and weighty.

God Forgives is a comedown--sporadically introspective, occasionally rousing, and sort of without purpose.

[Razorlight] give post-Strokes neo-garage rock a tidy soul makeover. [Sep 2006, p.111]

Despite the full dismissal of punk roots here--the blended-in drumming, the lack of rollercoaster twists and turns in the tempos and time signatures--Uncanney Valley's only real stumbles are lyrical.

Oh (Ohio)'s languid chamber folk murmurs as expected with Wagner sketching vivid relationship dramas like a master painter. Should it all sound overly proper, a closer listen revals sly humor in the details. [Nov 2008, p.96]

Much of the record satirizes plastic surgery and oversexed macho men, but despite the ironic humor, there’s a compassion in the music that’s unexpected coming from a band best known for a Taco Bell–referencing novelty hit.

Hooky, blood-soaked bad-love allegories such as "Draculina" and "Dine, Dine My Darling" (check the punny Misfits nod) satisfy like heartburn-inducing comfort food.

A far more sonically consistent and textured work, cushioned in Americana, drenched in soul.... But there's no urgency to this album, which stops looking out at the world and settles in for some serious celebrity navel-gazing. [Nov 2000, p.195]

Even by Hyperdub’s standards--a 20-year lineage of beats birthed and incubated in London’s most soot-smeared corners (grime, dubstep) and Chicago’s windwept streets (footwork)--this is not a light record.

That tight, compressed punch [of staccato guitar rhythms] is augmented by subtle orchestrations whose airy ambience hints at the chameleon funk of David Bowie and the dance minimalism of early B-52's. [Aug 2007, p.106]

Less of an anthemic, balls-to-the-wall affair than Elements of Freedom (still her strongest album overall), this one does have its own liberating, empowering charms.

Like "Tiger," Cardinology is long on midtempo country-rock shuffles that sound comfortable with their own familiarity; Adams isn't straining to reinvent the Great Art of American Songwriting, and that allows you to focus on what he and the cardinals are actually playing, as opposed to what they're thinking about playing.

Upside Down Mountain is a curious, if occasionally disturbing pleasure to listen to. Just don't expect answers when you turn it right side up.

ATL kingpins Young Jeezy, Gucci Mane, and T.I. pay their respects, and Mike mimics their strip-club homilies, but he shines brightest as the trap's "book reader" and "gang leader."

Even with its sonic detours -- the slightly nutty percussion, a lot of general yelling -- the record feels a bit monochromatic, like a just-fun-enough surrey ride whose background keeps repeating.