There's a little something for everybody hidden within this mysterious box.

Unwieldy psychedelic dinosaurs like "First Wave Intact" and the title track hint that they're looking to become the new gods of bong-powered thunder -- but then they drop a bomb like the sleek, urbanely scoffing "Road Leads Where It's Led" and instantly re-cast themselves as black-clad top forty gatecrashers looking for a fast ticket to fortune and fame.

Nashville is further proof that Rouse is one of the best songwriters of his generation.

Aficionados of WGC's autumnal, melancholy sound will find this fifth full-length release comparable to the group's previous four, only more refined and maybe a little more assured.

You will love some or all of these ten tracks, but for reasons you don't quite understand, you may never love the album as a whole.

Outside Closer is maddeningly indirect, and the diminishing returns of its final minutes might make you wonder why you invested the time in the first place. But honestly, how many albums can claim to have so palpable an effect?

Despite the band's penchant for uneven electronic dirges, Out Of The Shadow is a very accessible work -- perhaps too accessible for indie enthusiasts who thrive on innovation and sonic exploration.

Its startling brand of dreamlike space-folk, while reminiscent of earlier efforts like Stereopathic Soul Manure, is a wholly unique venture.

She Has No Strings Apollo is, if anything, a portrait of one of the most passionate bands you'll ever hear, at a time when they've fine-tuned their improvisational telepathy.

Although they don't quite hit the emotional peaks and valleys of some of the tracks on labelmates Mojave 3's last disc, they've got a similarly fetching combination of lush music, terrific voices and sad but hopeful songs.

As wonderfully crafted an album as Reconstruction Site is, some listeners will be put off by its perceived highbrow attitude; it's too scholarly for the masses, too pop-smart for the avant garde set.

No More Shall We Part is a beautiful, elegant record, capably fulfilling the promise of The Boatman's Call, but it exacts a harrowing toll from the listener. This is not a record to which you can listen lightly; if used as background music it will gradually darken your mood, like poison seeping slowly into a well.

To their considerable credit, TVoTR don't run out of innovation before they run out of songs, so even "Wear You Out"'s final minutes, during which a flute, a sax and various oscillating tones bang away at each other, are inventive and enticing.

Give Up's one real pitfall is that, on the whole, it sounds almost exactly like you'd expect a collaboration between these two men would, or for that matter, should, sound -- which certainly isn't to say that the music isn't enjoyable, or memorable.

A strong contender for album of the year, Shaking the Sheets is a masterpiece of fucked-up mod pop: political but not preachy, insistent yet never twitchy, respectful but never blatant.

While Rejoicing and Niño Rojo were clearer, simpler and more cohesive, Cripple Crow may actually be the better record. It feels exactly like the kind of album Devendra Banhart ought to have playing in his head -- a cacophony of cool sounds, a plethora of contradictory ideas, a patchwork quilt of psychedelically bright colors.

While the band revisits and expands upon musical ideas from its past, Nextdoorland never seems like warmed-over Soft Boys history; the arrangements are exponentially deeper, the playing is energetic and economical, and the songwriting has clearly benefited from Robyn Hitchcock's twenty-year career.

Optometry's highlights throw expectation to the wind. They're more than jazz, more than hip-hop, more than whatever the hell "illbient" actually is.

Equal parts prog-rock pretension, spiritual rejuvenation and glam rock harangue.

Killing Joke feels as fresh and exciting as 1981's album of the same name.

The New Year's sound is fraught with contradictions, soft melodies and pretty strumming stretched over tricky rhythms and acerbic lyrics.

Unlike many live albums, which edit out or otherwise correct artists' less than studio-perfect moments, this album offers Hayden at face value. It captures his faults, but it also captures his strengths.

While they consistently get dismissed as "generic indie rock" by folks who lack the patience to seriously dig into their oeuvre, they are as multi-layered and subtle a band as you'll find.

It's definitely nothing like the laid-back experience of listening to him live, but it's his best album yet.

A safe, if frayed, rock album that bristles and pops with flashes of brilliance, yet never ignites into the full-blown firestorm they're quite obviously capable of creating.

Man-Made is among the finest collections of pop songs any of us will hear all year.

The Clientele have crafted another lovely batch of tunes, perfect for autumnal introspection and wintry solitude -- but somehow it doesn't seem like enough.

The songs on About a Boy are all exactly what we've come to expect from Gough, and the disc's lack of cohesion is its only real failing.

The Stills have always shown promise, but Logic Will Break Your Heart ascends far beyond anyone's wildest expectations.

These are love songs destined for indie purgatory -- the emotions are too real for corporate radio, the hooks too poppy for Indie 103.

Underworld's music rarely makes dull listening, even at its most linear.

These minimalist songs are surprisingly and undeniably funky.

As perfect a brew as this is, it's Gelb's voice and lyrics that push the music into otherworldly territories.

The album sounds full whether you're in the next room or sitting right beside the speakers. Details -- a horn here, a steel guitar there, a lilting piano figure that appears out of the ether -- fill every cranny in a sound that's still as spacious as Giant Sand's Southwestern soundtracks.

Even though Lemonjelly.ky's cover looks like something straight out of Wavy Gravy’s closet, its sound owes much more to the work of '60s luminaries like John Barry, Esquivel and Jean-Jacques Perrey.

Lovers' vast scope quickly becomes a daunting proposition for its listener.

It doesn't always work.... But when it does, in the blended tones and dark piano chords of "The Fox and the Hound", the result is magical and otherworldly.

While the disc's increased emphasis on electronic textures, balanced songwriting and non-linear production is a welcome breath of fresh air, it lends itself to a feeling of sameness that becomes increasingly apparent as the record progresses.

Murdoch, finally free to take charge of his band, has done so in spades, and the result is a confident, assured affair...that, to many listeners, will seem utterly out of character.

American Idiot isn't so much meticulously crafted as it is unflinchingly audacious.

The only real problem with i is the sheer volume of excellence we've all come to expect from Merritt.

For all of Walking with Thee's obvious musical accomplishments, its most impressive facet is the ability to transcend all the hype, hoopla and haranguing surrounding its release.

What’s Next to the Moon is Kozelek achieving the impossible; he has actually managed to make AC/DC sound romantic.

It is (Smog)'s most colorful, vigorous, and alive album to date.

His vision appears to be his own, and just happens to coincide with both the director's and the author's visions also, resulting in one of the best soundtracks -- and albums -- I've heard in a long time.

It's hard to put into words exactly what makes this album so appealing. The mindlessness of it all is a major selling point.

It's a dense, matte-black monoblock of furious sonic energy -- ultra-compressed riffs, barely controlled bursts of feedback, and lyrics more urgent and angry than anything Wire have done in the last twenty-odd years.

Anyone searching for a wholly absorbing listening experience should look (and listen) elsewhere.

These new stylistic change-ups give Of Montreal a contemporary edge, but dull the pastoral chaos that made them so charming to start with.

It's powerful, clever, and you can dance to it.

This is powerful stuff, unrelenting and dark.

Aside from being a strikingly orchestrated affair that ranks among Quasi's best work, Hot Shit! is the fully-realized version of Quasi that Coomes has envisioned since the beginning.

Here, finally, is a goth album for people who hate goth, an electronic album for people who hate electronica, and a pop album for everyone else.

Deliberately slow in tempo, delicately arranged, emphatically "dreamy" in tone, Misery is a Butterfly is lovely, but also difficult going for Blonde Redhead fans.

Waiting For The Moon is a welcome and singularly strong addition to one of the most impressive catalogues in modern music.

The songs may pay excessive homage in spirit, but their composition and divergent tones are wholly original.

By the time "Our Mutual Friend"'s symphonic percussion and hammering cellos reach their crashing apex, the album begins to feel a little like the fourth consecutive hour at a well-stocked party full of musical theater majors.

While Face The Truth rarely presents a side of its creator that has not already been seen, loved, and cried over, it's a passable, even better-than-average album.

Real Gone may not rock your world in the way that 2002's musical one-two punch of Blood Money and Alice did, but you'll still be glad to hear it.

One of the major differences between this and other Grandaddy releases is that Lytle finally seems comfortable in his role as production auteur.

The music here is never outright parody, and there's evidence that real work went into creating this record -- it isn't a lightweight effort designed to cash in on retro-trendiness.

A band more fixated with guitar solos and drunken fist-pumping than in the more nuanced, desperate territory of their former incarnation [Lifter Puller].

The joy of Lost in Revelry is its balance. It's assured, but freely flaunts its imperfections; it's polished, but clearly revels in its most amateurish moments.

While it delivers the triumphant rock 'n' roll thrills and oddball incantations promised by the GBV "brand", the most surprising thing about Earthquake Glue is that, at a point in his career when his inventiveness really should be waning (along with his libido and his prostate), Robert Pollard's creative spark seems brighter than ever.

The album sounds mature, weathered, tired and occasionally almost weary, but is far to dynamic to ever seem truly lethargic.

Usually entertaining, often thought-provoking, and occasionally insightful.

The Double combine unsettling electronic noise with simple, enjoyable vocal hooks to create a rickety, rattletrap pop collage that's too undeniably ear-catching to ignore.

The Instinct is a showcase for an amazing voice and a band that knows how to build around it.... One of the best albums of 2003.

An exciting return to the days of the imaginative songwriter.

Another staggering batch of Nashville by-way-of New York twanging folk-punk ditties that will all but solidify his reputation as the Gram Parsons of the no-depression set.

The Power Out's most impressive feature is the musicianship and songwriting skill on display.

Although its quality and creativity never falter, as Fugu 1 goes on it becomes a little redundant.

They've traded amped-up aggression for seething sexuality without losing any of their muscular bite.

So infectiously content are the Oranges that they can make even the most jaded listener bop his/her head or tap his/her foot to their power pop structures -- but this is also their downfall.

The music is fantastic, but the sinking suspicion that there's something else going on that you can't possibly fathom becomes pervasive by album's end.

Sure, they meld muscular riffs with smoky organ meditations, folky landscapes, pompous orchestration and the occasional IDM skitter, but not without losing the transcendent detail that makes each of these genres worth savoring and holding on to.

Radian boasts a sound far deeper and richer than most of their push-button contemporaries.

Tyrannosaurus Hives has hit garage rock's heart like a huge syringe of adrenaline, and even if it doesn't awaken the hibernating beast, its furious tempest is a blinding final gasp for a genre that has repeatedly rewarded mediocrity.

Where Stellastarr's debut hits the jackpot is in their gutsy decision to wipe the slate clean by declaring the years 1981 to 1996 a single era, synthesizing the sounds of that fifteen year stretch by playing every band on the soundtrack to a mid-eighties John Hughes gem with the knowledge of the nineties college rock boom.

A Healthy Distrust is impressively fluid; Francis fuses his experimental leanings and newer mainstream hip-hop allowances with ease.

Even taking into account his work with the Replacements, this is the album on which every song is truly worth hearing.

If you're fifteen years old, female, and want to rebel, So Stylistic probably makes a lot more sense than a Bright Eyes record. If you're any older, it'll probably just make you feel dirty.

The jazz leanings and fascination with electronic music remain, and are sometimes imprudently indulged, but in general the band seems to have a renewed awareness of the needs of the people on the other side of the speakers.

The first thing that really jumps out at you about Two Way Monologue is that it lacks its predecessor's exuberant, puddle-jumping panache. But when you stop and look at things closely, you realize that the progressions Lerche has made on the songwriting front more than atone for any zeal he's trimmed off the back end.

The intimacy is startling. The introspection is as charming as it is insightful.

The group creates an ornately atmospheric resonance throughout Ambulance Ltd., but their light-weight compositions place the album at serious risk of floating away.

There's a feeling of constant evolution over the course of any given track; subtle changes in swing, intonation and attack let you in on the secret that this is no automaton, but a living, breathing entity that's being brought into existence.

When the formula works, the results are quite impressive, but at other times the songs simply fall flat, victims of their own overly simplistic and repetitive arrangements

Titles & Idols' songs solve the same acoustic guitars + electronica beats equation as do the songs of Beth Orton and Everything But the Girl, adding up to adult pop with just enough jitter to give it a tinge of hipness.

One of the year's best knock-down-drag-out rock 'n' roll records.

It's classy, but also honest. Not a single emotion seems overplayed or exaggerated; you'll dance and sway to it because each song feels as organic as life, and the life it documents is nicely lit.

One hell of a good album.... [It] retains the intelligence of Prewitt's Sea and Cake work and melds it to rock and roll songcraft.

Bold, adventurous, whimsical and witty, this debut offering from Circulatory System proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are still signs of life to be found in the Elephant 6 collective.

A meticulously crafted pop album that's as well suited for curling up on a bleak winter night as it is for driving with the top down on a bright summer day.

It's as important to women in hip-hop as Joni Mitchell, Madonna and Sleater-Kinney were to their respective genres.

Effortlessly charming and strangely compelling, despite moments of complete and utter unlistenability.

Instead of embracing the angularity of the self-conscious Britpop and New Wave scenes of yore, Field Music embrace the sugary pop-rock that defined the first British Invasion.

A charged and melodic album full of anthemic choruses, hummable verses, and passionate rock.