Bunny's performances are pristine: the record navigates its hooks, sonic sways and immaculate v..v..vibes with palpable ease.

Liars successfully created a stimulating, challenging, and disturbing record and while it may click immediately for some, don’t get frustrated if you find yourself lost in the woods.

There is something for every Mark Lanegan fan. It is also a good starting point for those unaware of his music. The only mildly bothering element is the production, since it doesn’t fit every tune. On the upside, there’s a rawness to the guitars and especially the vocals (most of the time they sound as if he’s singing in your room in front of you). Even so, during the multi-layered parts, some details get lost in a muddy pool of reverb.

It may not be an especially immediate album, and is definitely not one which can be listened to as background music for fifty minutes, but its slow-burning qualities turn what initially may seem a little messy, into a satisfyingly cohesive release.

This is a transitory album true to its name and its concept, illustrating a challenging but ultimately temporary chapter in Silberman’s life. Of course it’s not his best work, but given the obstacles he’s faced, it’s not a bad first step as the world of indie-rock slowly regains one of its most talented and alluring artists.

As far as simplistic and generic post-rock goes it’s fantastically inoffensive. Yet with the face of the genre ever changing, God is an Astronaut and their sixth are slowly becoming a relic of the past.

It ends up sounding in love with pop music and longer-form experimental music as well, but the mood captured, and the meditative speed it's captured at, plunge Heartbreaking Bravery into new depths.

There’re a lot of fumbles here unfortunately, a couple tepid ballads, a lot of irritating goon-hop, and a couple songs that go on for far too long (though most of those fall under one of the former categories.) However, the band impress again on ‘Touch too Much’, possibly the album’s best track.

Sure, IM NAYEON is all glossy sweetness and may lack nutritional value, but does that really matter when the final product is this easy to sink your teeth into?

Some experiments don’t add much to the listening experience, but don’t detract either. The story telling is very up front, yet the confidence and attitude never passes into obnoxious, parody of oneself territory. As a result, Welfare Jazz remains a tight effort that hopefully acts as a transition to a richer sonic canvas.

Clone of the Universe brings to the table another batch of headbangers and a big surprise for fans as the second half. The classic Fu Manchu set is augmented by a more dynamic approach to tempo shifts, leaving the straightforward, punk mindset in the background.

IDLES wanted TANGK to be their Kid A, but they ended up delivering their Tranquility Base Hotel Casino.

The maturity and class displayed here is a pleasant surprise (which has nothing to do with Musgraves, and everything to do with divorce/breakup album stereotypes), and the experience is unexpectedly serene given the music's content and overarching themes, but otherwise star-crossed is merely nice: a lukewarm batch of songs eager to saturate backgrounds rather than absorb your full attention.

Overall, Conflict DLC showcases HEALTH at their most accessible in their career. Nevertheless, they discarded a large part of their experimental moments, opting to craft a direct, fun LP.

Local Business feels as pressed with adrenaline through its run as the albums before it, but this final indictment of meaningless life is as vitally summative of the album as anything else, a stony acceptance of what's happened and a hundred justifications lacked.

Sure, this is the worst Charly Bliss album, but it’s also the most fun I’ve had with music in a while: it’s an innocent, radiant celebration of life’s lovely parts.

All Of This Will End is the type of album that will alternately satisfy and disgruntle the existing fanbase, but for me, it’s just another uneven but worthwhile step on an emerging artist’s journey.

The Radio Dept. are comfortable in their safety, the masters of indie pop/shoegaze fence-sitting, neither here nor there in message or meaning. It’s a stance they’ve refined with each release and Clinging to a Scheme rocks back and forth cautiously over a safety net of the softest cotton, never in any danger of losing its footing in the first place.

Their unique perspectives on racial and class identities are perspectives that hip-hop needs to remain vital, to remain that genre that united so many other groups throughout the genre's dominating decades. And the best part is that they fulfill that role while still joking.

With Leveler August Burns Red have reached the limitations of the metalcore rule book that they have been glued to ever since their debut.

Twelve Years might not put Daytrader on quite the same level as recent releases by labelmates Hot Water Music, Cheap Girls, and Sharks but they're well on their way.

That consistent album we're waiting for still hasn't come just yet.

Sremmlife is as good as it is because of how sonically pleasing it is.

Swallow the Sun should have released this as three separate albums. The connection between the three pieces is frail, and given the relative lack of direction this is not a surprise. The album’s strengths are numerous, yet scattered, and its weaknesses are unfortunately a lot more concentrated.

Flowers at the Scene features influences from various decades of pop, classic/art rock, jazz and successfully experiments to offer an eclectic and rewarding collection of stand-alone tracks.

Italian Ice is the product of a talented pool of contributors who simultaneously lift Atkins up while still allowing her tremendous vocals to remain the focal point. It’s the strongest album that Nicole has put forth – a gem that hopefully will not go overlooked.

Sticky is the very definition of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks. Unfortunately for this album, nothing does, and all you’re left with is the horrible odour from its experimentation.

A mixed bag that gathers the good, the average, and the bad. A melange of familiar echoes which, while not a symphony of destruction, still do enough damage to keep the brand alive and kicking.

This is unsettled music for an unsettled era, the kind of songs which can sometimes make you feel euphoric and sometimes make you feel down-hearted (sometimes even both at the same time). Through it all, though, these tunes are the sonic equivalent of living, breathing, human warmth.

Thunderball would greatly benefit from another 10 or 20 minutes worth of mid-to-low tempo grooves to grant their now-besotted audience a chance to sway like sluggish Evangelicals in a primal stupor.

As assured as they are here, one still gets the nagging suspicion that Braids are yet to genuinely find their true sound. And, in a sense, this is what makes them such a fascinating proposition to continue to listen to.

At once highly inventive and unabashedly fun, the album showcases the trailblazing pop star at her most expansive thus far. M.I.A. adroitly capitalizes on her established style, embellishing it with moments of genuine intimacy.

Though it may not capture our hearts as instantly as the ideas of nostalgia and romance, The Rip Tide ushers in different dimensions of emotion and that is a progression to be admired.

These two seemingly disparate parts combine in an off-putting but refreshingly rough-and-tumble way.

The album's congruence in theme, tempo, and tone is both consistent and coherent. Together with Butch Walker, Catherine Popper, and long-time running mates Ian Perkins and Alex Rosamilia (among others), Painkillers is a carefully-cultivated record that Fallon categorically needed to write.

Fantastic lyrical concepts, an improved musicianship and the addition of an orchestra make Cassadaga easily the most enjoyable Bright Eyes album as a whole.

A better title might have been Thriving, because this record continues their remarkably consistent run and proves that they are still very much at, or at least near, the top of their game.

Despite all of these positives, and no real negatives to be found, Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free isn’t quite a perfect work--it’s much too clunky, much too unorganized to be considered as such--but it’s a considerable record, one that’s sure to remain a highlight of this decade’s final chapter and afterwards.

Picture Perfect's silver lining comes in that it is, at the end of the day, a perfectly serviceable pop record replete with euphoric headrushes and the occasional tenacious earworm ("Impossible").

Be it the furious pounding bass of the dubstep angle she toys with, or the amorphous dark ambient she seems to wallow in, whatever led you to Emika's debut LP will also leave you breathless.

Despite being frustratingly inconsistent though, Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness is still a step in the right direction.

Yet even Campbell can’t save Desire Lines from coming off as creatively stagnant, just as pretty as ever but overwhelmingly pedestrian.

There’s a lot of guests on this album and it brings a heterogeneous quality to Ordinary Man, but for the most part this aspect turns detrimental to the overall vision. Ozzy should have banded together a small fixture of musicians for the album and ran with a consistent tone that would see his mantra through to the end.

The Golden Casket reveals itself to not only be the group’s most colorful release in quite some time, but also one of their most consistent.

While this album similarly holds nothing back, it’s not an artifice either. It’s Demi Lovato ditching their indoctrinated pop formula in favor of the music they truly want to be making, all while going for the jugular in terms of scale. Holy Fvck is massive and over-the-top in just about every way, yet anchored by very real pain that lends substance to each grandiose moment.

There’s a worrying air of desperation running through the band’s lyrical choices that thankfully doesn’t spill over into the music, but it is nonetheless a frequent distraction on an otherwise fine album from a heavy metal juggernaut that might just be kicking back into gear.

What we end up with here is Angelo De Augustine’s most brazen step forward to date. Tomb sees him not buried, but bursting forth with flourishing atmospheres.

In the end, Interplay feels like something of an incoherent mess if looked at with a microscope, but zoom a bit further out and it maintains enough of a “vibe” to feel at least somewhat cohesive, while also being a fun listen which should be even more enjoyable as the sun comes out and the temperature climbs.

All told, this is an album which will almost certainly be enjoyable if you like kinda hazy, kinda ethereal, kinda catchy indie/alt thingamajigs, but it’s also an album desperately lacking the hint of an edge which would give the total product further potency. Even so, it’s a solid comeback from another crew of aging shoegazers, just don’t set your expectations too high.

Odd Blood delivers a series of earworms that are undeniably catchy but leave a legitimate question in their wake: why should we care? Yeasayer ultimately fails to answer this question, and Odd Blood sort of just runs its course unimpressively.

Sometimes captivating, always soothingly pleasant, The Land, The Water, The Sky is an accessible effort which should appeal to a wide audience.

There is familiarity here, but nothing feels routine. This is an album as cohesive and thunderous as it would have been if it had come out in 2014.

Never Let Me Go is a fantastic album, and it could even be argued that it’s the most consistent and engaging album of their career – certainly, it’s their most ambitious to date.

Mercurial Bay is bland and overpolished and probably insecure and definitely destined to make mincemeat of fickle hearts all over the web. It is good and shiny like an overviewed but freshly refiltered Instagram photo of a Hollywood sunset.

I Lay Down My Life For You isn’t brilliant for the ways in which it’s bonkers, but brilliant for the ways in which it’s not. This is no hyperactive pile-up of disjointed ideas, no scrapbook of jank, but (rather) a weighty and well-realized WOOF of a statement, one that retains the eclecticism, sense of humor and sample/prod-wizardry that put Peggy on the map, but honing that shit to a point.

Musically, we get a wider array of genres, reminiscing their eclectic classic Feast Of Wire, released in 2003. Nevertheless, Edge Of The Sun flows smoothly from start to finish.

Ring is an album that puts Cameron Mesirow on par with any of the emerging group of experimental female vocalists and if we didn't notice it before, there's a Glasser-shaped hole somewhere between Bat For Lashes' conceptual pop schizophrenia and Fever Ray's icy soundscapes and Cameron Mesirow is the missing puzzle piece. Debut albums rarely come more accomplished.

There’s something absurdly listenable about the whole package, and I suspect that the listening experience will only get better as the weeks go by and the thermostat cranks up to increasingly unbearable temperatures. This is, after all, one of those records built for those moments spent wallowing in the heat haze. Sounds like a bloody good time.

Endless Rooms has the feel of a transition album, with the group throwing some new ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks. There’s several new sounds and influences present on Endless Rooms which present intriguing and viable routes for RBCF to pursue on their eventual fourth record. The future is uncertain, but hope springs eternal.

Despite a few individual disappointments, Alive 2007 is as exciting a collection of music as any released this year.

The good thing is that all songs have a character of their own and hence an appreciable replay value.

Bloom has continued making Beach House a Thing in indie music, a band that has a feasible future, that won't be just forgotten and left by the wayside. It's nothing to get excited about.

They return with something more uniquely insidious than anything heard from the label so far, something which attacks and intoxicates in equal measure, completely assured of its success and all the more awe-inspiring for it.

Maybe it doesn't have the relevance as the original album, and doesn't quite live up to the legacy, but it is intelligently composed and often moving.

Tremors finds time to be adventurous with its feet firmly planted on the ground; it moves maturely.

Bish Bosch is as much about challenging the people that absorbed and accepted Tilt and The Drift as it is challenging the rest of the world--and while that makes it consistent with all his work since Nite Flights, each subsequent album giving his fan base another hurdle to overcome, it also gives it a thrill that's unique to both his discography and the majority of the music you could compare it to. If, indeed, there is any.

By making precise tweaks and adjustments to their sound by approaching Koloss with a new attitude, all the while holding fast to their core strengths, Meshuggah have given us the first truly engaging metal album of 2012.

Filled to the brim with consistently excellent songs, Once More 'Round The Sun serves as a blueprint of how to go commercial without sacrificing one's artistic identity.

In the end, The Thread that Keeps Us is a good Calexico record, still it doesn’t have outstanding peaks. It flows gently down the stream, yet besides a few memorable moments (all of them coming from the band’s comfort zone) there’s nothing to go crazy about.

Even with the missteps and occasional ennui, Terrestrials is a welcome merger between two insuppressible forces in the industry today, which should leave us all curious about what their next cloak-and-dagger collaboration will sound like.

They have embraced mainstream success in the best way that would be possible, by sticking to a high concept and shredding their way through a heady, emotional backdrop while displaying their instrumental virtuosity amazingly.

The band simply sounds recharged on First Ditch Effort, a sometimes hilarious and often consistent return to the sound that worked so well for them well over a decade ago.

In refining the band's sound and style so effectively, The Fire is ultimately a resounding success which meets its objectives.

There’s some reassurance in that many of the more aimless songs sound like they would translate far better to the band’s true home on the stage, but here they qualify more as two-dimensional portraits.

A great vocal performance and solid musicianship from the backing band result in a record well worth the time.

Skeleta is the band’s most immediate and accessible release to date, it is also perhaps the least satisfying to early impressions, and recommends itself to a certain level of patience, paired with a prudent refusal to make the unflattering comparison to stronger versions of Ghost that populate their back catalogue. All issues thrust aside, listeners are left with a fun-loving, tasty-snack version of Ghost, regrettably lacking in satisfying meatiness, but absolutely caked in pretty frosting to make up for it.

Even if Lust For Life isn’t a game changer, it fulfills the potential of a sound that she has been slowly perfecting since she first entered the scene. The album, like Lana Del Rey, has earned the right not to be overlooked.

Restless Ones can’t quite translate their live show to record (2005’s Stairs and Elevators remains the high water mark for that), but it does perhaps the best job yet of mediating between the band’s ragged past and its veteran road warrior present.

For better or for worse--you'll like it because of the music it reminds you of, but you won't love it for exactly the same reason.

Dimensional Bleed may not be the monumental statement Death Spells embodied, but it is certainly capable of engulfing anyone willing to allocate it some dedicated time. Moreover, it reaffirms Holy Fawn's position as one of the most intriguing bands soundtracking the real-time slow-motion apocalypse of [right now].

The palettes on offer are frequently gorgeous and sometimes even transcendent, but No Highs' pervasive gloom and downer vibes render it more standoffish than the lofty fear and trembling of Ravedeath or the playful eclecticism of Radio Amor.

This is a respectable effort, with glimmers of excellence in many places. Indeed, this could well be an entrancing listen for the right fan, but sadly, for me, neither the atmosphere or the instrumentation is enough to prevent my mind from frequently wandering away while listening.

All these songs just sound too much like Gorillaz songs, in an uncomfortable, self-conscious way.

Physical Thrills demands your focus and immersion, a clear sign that Silversun Pickups are accessing their artistic side and perhaps better than they ever have before. What felt like a band in decline just a few short years ago has been given a shot in the arm.

Fantasies is not only a top notch record that effectively picks up where Metric left off at "Live it Out," but with a sense of genuineness that some of the band's contemporaries have lost.

It’s their most cohesive record since Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and its eternally exhausted realizations and powerful, if demanding, passages confirm that the band is as tight and concentrated as they’ve ever been.

Adams occasionally steps into a puddle of shallow adult-contemporary tripe that even his incisive personality and increasingly tamed voice cannot save. Those basic imitations of past great Adams tunes are few and far between on Ryan Adams, particularly when weighed against some of his other recent albums.

As bewildering as Will can be, the overall lack of structure leaves a large part of the experience up to the imagination.

His ambitions as an artist might be plagued by a fanatical obsession with '70s prog, but he's at least able to channel that infatuation into formulating a very well orchestrated and enjoyable homage to his beloved genre.

With a smattering of new influences combined with the homage to their own past, Metallica’s 72 Seasons is another solid release in their discography. It’s an album that feels more consistent and original than anything they’ve done since the Load releases from forever ago.

Trees Outside the Academy, as a whole, is not the musician’s best work, but it’s worth the listen for anyone interested.

There are a few tumbleweeds in the bunch (“Dirt” is curiously overlong to begin the record; “Showdown” fails to make much of an impression), but this is about as good a curiosity that I would imagine a Julien Baker and TORRES country spinoff to be. It’s evocative, heartfelt fun.

It's so smooth, this record, that it's sometimes too smooth, to the point to being slight.

The experimentation found on Life Fantastic, for the most part, works rather well within the gypsy circus that is Man Man but even at its best it makes one wonder what it could have sounded like without the meds.