The lack of in-your-face future-funk arrangements isn't a sign that Beyoncé has lost her appetite for domination; indeed, as a singer's showcase, 4 will probably end up bested this year only by Adele's 21.

The weird miracle is how natural singers Scott Paterson and Adele Bethel sound harmonizing (well, singing together) over subdermal synth buzz.

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.

He still enigmatically declares solidarity with the urban proletariat and critiques pop-culture clichés, but Black Up impresses most with its beguiling sounds.

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

This time around, ATR's protest platitudes ("Are you ready to testify?") and electronic skronk-thud ("Digital 
Decay," with female member Nic Endo holding forth on Internet freedom), sound awkwardly dated.

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.

Nadler's fifth album benefits from a newfound directness. Over acoustic fingerpicking, splashing cymbals, and languidly twanging steel guitar, Nadler inhabits her strongest set of songs yet, pining in a barely adorned soprano for both lost loves and a conjoined twin.

The musical spitting 
image of his dad Neil Finn (Crowded House, Split Enz), Liam blends sophisticated melodies and wistful vocals with masterful authority.

All 6's and 7's is an admirable attempt at balancing Tech's heavy-metal rep and hard-won maturity.

Accordingly, In Light is best absorbed in small portions, allowing you to savor the seriously catchy melodies and uplifting vibes.

Fortunately, his muse digs punk and trash--these 16 basement screams are the B-sides of rock history.

Some marriages end with shrieks, others with sighs. On Loud Planes Fly Low, Rosebuds co-conspirators Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp set their breakup sighs to a Greek chorus of lo-fi keyboards, singing things they can't bring themselves to say.

Since 2004's Last Exit, Junior Boys' main man Jeremy Greenspan has couched his plaintive voice in various strains of modern electronic music, flitting between 2-step and synth-pop, with diminishing returns.

Though restlessness is the dominant lyrical theme here, Nothing Is Wrong sounds familiar and comforting (see the airy, aching "Fire Away," featuring Jackson Browne)

The title of Gomez's seventh studio album reflects the low-key, easy-flowing attitude these boyish Brits have maintained since winning the U.K.'s coveted Mercury Prize with their 1998 debut.

On the band's sixth album, they're most comfortable in the spot where Guided by Voices ("Any Other Day") bump into 
the Kinks ("What Faces 
the Sheet") -- slightly psychedelic and frequently sticky, breezily charming and pleasantly woozy.

Two Matchsticks evokes the Everly Brothers' sibling intimacy, but Kenny's lonely campfire songs cling to a limited number of minor keys, similar tempos, and virtually identical arrangements.

At times, F&L rival Ariel Pink for eccentric sonic pastiche, while there's enough elasticity in "Too Much Midi (Please Forgive Me)" to hold up an entire generation's leg warmers.

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."

It's one 
of the most overly complicated hard-rock records 
of the past ten years. It's also one of the best.

Frank Turner gives sincerity a good name on the rousing England Keep My Bones, an exclamation point in an increasingly brilliant career that ranges from early punk spew to more recent folkie testimony.

When the hooks of their surprisingly humble songcraft dull, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. are mostly a spanglier version of the Spoon-fed types that flooded the Internet with serviceable but risk-free indie rock in the mid-2000s.

In the hands of dapper producer Mark Ronson, the glibly sloppy, lo-fi brats are almost sculpted into garage-punk sophistication, adding extended psychedelic guitar lines, fleshed-out percussion, even retro-soul sax.

Suck It blends the deliberateness of that record with the fleet-footedness of their still-stunning 2006 debut Whatever You Say I Am, That's What I'm Not and follow-up My Favourite Worst Nightmare.

Braxton's clever, found-sound loops are missed, but the remaining members' rampant ideas and inexorable groove keep Battles engrossing.

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

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