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

Amid all that cultural confusion basking in a neon glow, Mala in Cuba is a welcome relief, an artist reveling in his uncertainty and building it into something original and authentic.

Much like Bon Iver's output, Range of Light delivers a set of songs with a fixed sense of place and a nostalgic sense of time.

Sometimes trance-inducing, sometimes wildly dynamic, the album is a sumptuous, woozy feast that proudly dances on the lines between nirvana and reality.

She’s flipped the script on us, and in doing so has created her most cohesive work--and maybe even her happiest ending yet.

Thanks to a volatile mix of the uplifting and gloomy--there's a bitter murder tale ("Dust Bowl Dance") and lingering visions of death ("Timshel")--Sigh No More transfixes.

Plundering the 1980s for inspiration (shock!), 27-year- old New Zealander Pip Brown emerges with a confection of synth-infused, mammoth-chorused tunes that sound surprisingly and thrillingly fresh.

They’re caustic and incendiary as hell, but they’re also unbelievably fun, an exciting and rare quality in music this visceral.

Despite being haunted by the group's flip from rock-star charade to reality, Congratulations still brims with mischievous energy.

The guest cast's presence never infringes on the album's overcast beauty. [March 2003, p.120]

Isolating his experimental tendencies to specific tracks leads to some uneven pacing on the album's second half. Otherwise, Green Language fully delivers, serving as a fascinating turn for an artist who earned his reputation by essentially bashing fans into submission with bass.

A half-dozen times on their debut, the Shackeltons sound completely convincing, and that's about six more times than most bands ever manage.

You're Nothing turns everything up--it's smarter, faster, catchier and noisier than their debut, more a Funhouse than a Rock for Light.

Mumbly, scratchy-voiced Pete Quirk is more self-assured than on 2007’s Invitation Songs, championing optimism and determination in the face of trouble, powered by sharp folk and country-blues guitars, plus no-frills percussion.

The project is very human and certainly the band’s most dynamic effort to date. Never has Paramore left so much space in its productions or allowed Williams to sound so sparse in moments, like her tiny frame might finally shatter. Nor has the band ever played so deftly with sounds of comfort and alarm, like a clock radio slicing through the most blissful dream.

Sun Coming Down is Robin Hood-rich with pithy one-liners punctuated by Keen’s hi-hats, crashing through Darcy’s free-associating swarm of noise like that one person in every New York-based rom-com or sitcom wending his way through an avenue packed with people.

High Flying Birds isn't a total knockout, but it should keep Liam sleeping with at least one Beady Eye open.

While Brock's pop instincts have never been more refined, his jitteriness has never run more rampant. [Apr 2007, p.85]

While that may sound dangerously morose, Death Cab have become skilled with the light/dark juxtaposition.

The album is claustrophobic and unrelenting, but also intensely exhilarating in its brevity.

The [album] is exuberant and enthusiastic, and its architect bops along with an unapologetically clean-cut strut.

A soundtrack nuanced enough for the rippling wit of Mann's lyrics.... These songs are layered and soft-spoken, to be sure, but also confident and rewarding of multiple listens. They are the sound of Aimee Mann growing as a songwriter. Yet the album also features the sound of Aimee Mann grousing about being a songwriter.

While her sound is still dominated by typical darkwave elements--doomy synths and the pishy patter of minimal drum machines--the rest is unexpectedly warm, illuminated by her indomitable voice.

Los Campesinos! can't stop adorning their odes to existential grief with snappy handclaps, but the Welsh septet are still showing signs of growth on this third album.

Vampire Weekend have made a truely fresh, fun, and smart record. [Feb 2008, p.91]

From murky ambience to noise, free jazz, and beyond, Hval deploys sounds with a careful attention to feeling, building lush collages with a strategic intent further amplified in the lyrics. While ultimately smaller and less ambitious than her previous full-lengths, The Long Sleep grasps at ideas about presence, affect, and influence, recognizing the important potential of networks of all types in the lives of all who listen.

Wit's End is even more hushed and sluggish than 2009's Catacombs, leaving lighter Dylanesque fare for depressive Leonard Cohen depths.

After several albums of caustic, cryptic scuzz-punk, San Francisco's Ty Segall finally cleans up his act--or, at the very least, dustbusts it around the edges.