The sheer scope of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is so utterly breathtaking that repeat airings only reinforce its stunning songcraft and otherworldly sonic splendor.

Imagine a troupe of gloomy cow-punks careening down a thundering Hawaiian pipeline and you've got a bead on their wildly divergent sound.

The Creek Drank the Cradle is very surreal, mythical, haunting; it creates a mood of warmth and comfort, and makes me feel as if I've been transported to another, far more peaceful plane of existence.

Seven Swans plays like a stripped-down, less thematic counterpart to its predecessor. It's also strong enough in its own right to keep fans arguing for months over which album is better.

As mindlessly captivating an album as you're likely to hear all year.

Mass Romantic more than repays any musical debt owed by the good people of Canada. In fact, it’s going to take some pretty strong efforts by America's best and brightest to match The New Pornographers' achievements here.

Herren takes what amounts to a series of completely artificial electronic noises and whips them into one of the most soulful, funky, relentlessly compelling albums since the Neptunes' last outing.

It’s quite a feat to create an album that is not only haunting, but uncompromisingly beautiful and utterly serene.

Separation Sunday stands a chance of being one of 2005's true classics.

A monster of an achievement.

The Decline of British Sea Power is a record you'll probably tell your friends about, but it won't make you into a fervent, foamy-mouthed convert -- at least, not unless you're in a suitably receptive mood and play the record at its optimum volume...which, in case you wondered, means as loud as possible.

Not just for followers, Minimum-Maximum is perfect for the old-school, drawing a new crowd of robot poppers and maybe convert a few disbelievers.

This is one of those rare albums where every single track is a keeper and killer hooks abound.

Welcome Interstate Managers is a watershed accomplishment, surpassing the band's debut in terms of whimsical pop songcraft, lyrical astuteness and blind melodic ambition.

It took ages to arrive, but LCD Soundsystem isn't the album you've been waiting for -- it's far, far better.

Although not every track here is of the highest quality, all sixteen tracks are woven together expertly.

As beautiful as much of the album is, it all starts to blend together after a while.

Make no mistake about it, The White Stripes are the real deal, and if they can continue to kick out the jams as they do on White Blood Cells, everyone else would be well advised to get the fuck out of their way.

In a hip-hop world ruled by clichéd production and watered-down beats, a sound so simultaneously funky and strange is, to say the least, a welcome change.

Its ten tracks wend their way through a forest of oblique metaphors, kaleidoscopically fractured images and alt-country instrumentation, their path lit only by the wounding fragility of Orth's voice.

It's a good-natured and engaging mix of subtle sample manipulation, music concrete, downtempo dance beats and pop experiments.

It isn't identical to Mass Romantic or Electric Version, but it differs from them in ways that probably could have been predicted, modeled and simulated.

Though the group largely downplays their skull-splitting excesses, their songs resonate with a fury that a lifetime worth of broken power-chords couldn't match.

Source Tags and Codes is phenomenal. It's one of those albums that starts the listener on a seeminlgly unsustainable high note, and uses that as a launching point.

As entertainment, Tenacious D succeeds surprisingly well -- for the first few listens.... The only long-term replay value you'll get from this record will come from playing it for friends who haven't heard it.

The Real New Fall LP is as solid and interesting as anything the group has released in the last ten years.

His most compelling, not to mention complete, work to date.

Their most musically adventurous yet artistically grounded record to date.