All that needs to be said is that C I V I L W A R was well worth the wait.

Dig Out Your Soul isn’t the worst record Oasis have produced, but even the heavily shat-upon (an unfairly so, in this writer’s opinion) Heathen Chemistry was comfortable within its own skin.

While it may not be a classic record and won’t be the new soundtrack to the revolution, Appeal to Reason is filled with faux-punk rock anthems and memorable lyrics and basslines that will satiate anybodies need for Rise Against.

In the end, Fucked Up aren't nearly as good as Refused were thought to be, but hey, Refused aren't even as good as they were supposed to be, so Fucked Up may yet be remembered as revolutionary.

Doomsdayer's Holiday is certainly a step in the right direction in terms of balancing the eclecticism that marred "Burning Off Impurities," and it has some amazing moments, but the album as a whole is too nebulous to be complete nirvana.

With Alegranza!, El Guincho takes what could have been a disaster and forms one of the most peculiar, inimitable records of the year.

Squire helps to mount these stories and it’s this that makes Lost Wisdom last.

Good music that works, effortlessly, and is even easier to love.

More lyrical than Lil' Wayne and catchier than Young Jeezy, T.I. has once again proved the fact that he represents an excellent blend of lyrical talent and pop sensibility.

As a lyricist he’s dull and unimaginative and as a singer he’s extremely limited: both facts detract considerably from the obvious passion he exhibits elsewhere for his music and his politics.

Working at breakneck speed, Vivian Girls is sloggy, hampered by the cloying feeling that the lo-fi shtick is simply too on-the-nose.

Shogun is by no means an outstanding metal album, but it should be enough to satisfy both fans of their older material and those attracted to the meatier hooks of ‘Anthem (We Are The Fire)’ and ‘Entrance Of The Conflagration.’

Alongside "With Oden on Our Side," Twilight of the Thunder God just might be the strongest record Amon Amarth has written thus far.

Feed the Animals, despite its tentative start, is chocked full of the same bombastic booty-shaking moments that defined "Night Ripper."

The Hawk Is Howling is just an ambiguous mixture of the band's past.

As it is, it's a very fine record from a band who are seemingly growing in stature, confidence, and ability by the day.

One of the best albums of 2008, Dear Science, is an album you can ramble on about for nearly 600 words before you realize you forgot to mention 'Golden Age,' arguably the best song on the album.

He deliberately avoided all piano and strings simply to prove to himself that he could write a full album without any of it. What resulted, however, was his most engaging and enjoyable album to date.

The Way I See It isn't going to blow any minds, but it might open a few eyes.

Overcome is but a grain in the sand on an oversaturated desert; a metal album you'll enjoy while you play it but won't ever be something you‘ll yearn to hear.

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.

Like "Red Carpet Massacre," The Block is proof that it requires more than the best producers and songwriters to make good pop music

When Underoath hits it they hit it well, and Lost in the Sound of Separation is still a very good record despite its faults.

Exit is a classic, a refreshing and rewarding experience that is sweet and euphoric and brilliant. Exit should make Tokumaru a star.

When it's good, it's really good. Otherwise, it's never really bad, just excessive and somewhat unfocused.

While it's not without its obvious highlights, All Hope is Gone feels too much like a demo with professional production values to make me recommend it as an album.

Ultra Beatdown features the same guitar riffing, theatric singing and the rest of that stuff that doesn’t matter in regards to Dragonforce.

Perhaps the greatest compliment that could be paid The Rocky Road is to say it can easily be recommended alongside the best in the Dubliners and Luke Kelly’s catalogue, a distinction both Dempsey and Kelly would no doubt be delighted with.

Coupled with the fact that his synergy of indie, singer-songwriter, pop, and trip hop is never quite realized, renders Resurgam a few steps below the 2008 hip hop releases that have already proven themselves to be superb.

These songs aren’t necessarily greater than the pop tunes around them, but they are different, more singular and more interesting.

It’s not bad in the sense its unredeemable, just in the sense that it fails to do what it wants to really, really hard.

White Fields and Open Devices is simply one of those albums that is well-composed and well-executed.

That an album can match enjoyment with artistic merit in a year that has largely seen albums go one way or another is a joy in itself.

Zach Hill is a talented drummer, with some great ideas, but certain elements of the album just tarnish all of the positives. This album is even unlistenable at moments.

It has great ideas brewing, but there are tons of bells and whistles in the production that upstage the songwriting, which admittedly is weaker than usual for The Faint.

Lyrically, however, the album is just another soul-searching journey, and while he may be getting too old to call a “boy genius”, he's not lost any of his wistful intelligence.

It's hard to slate Harps and Angels too much, because the music is actually quite good in places and it's nowhere near bad enough to be a chore to listen to.

Unfortunately, with Fragile Future, Hawthorne Heights start awkwardly and never really find their feet.

Black Kids are trying too hard, plain and simple.

It fails as dance, as rock, as pop, and as art-rock or art-pop. Really, should we be settling for an average, inoffensive midpoint between all these, given all the music that exists in the world?

Simply put, Fate is a refreshment of the sound that has been missing for so long.

The sound quality is, by all accounts, mediocre, but the raw nature of the music reflects the “one day” aspect of their motto.

This is just lazily done and disappointing considering it’s been marketed very well to appear mysterious.

Untitled is far from terrible, but it's still a deflating, disappointing, infuriating listen.

Ultimately this is very hard to judge as pop music. Judged as art, however, it's sensual, insidious, cathartic, and quite beautiful.

Hercules and Love Affair is a killer work from Butler, an album not meant to break down any barriers or start a revolution.

So Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust is just another Sigur Ros album, but if I can be the first to say it, our "first vital band of the 21st century" is starting to feel old hat.

While Saints Of Los Angeles is occasionally stunning, as is consistent with Sixx’s recent return to form, it often sounds too much like something Nikki Sixx would expect Crüe fans to like, rather than the top-class rock n’ roll he’s time-and-time-again proven himself capable of making.

Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends takes a band who should have been in decline and a sound that’s been tried and true and makes it all sound fantastically fresh.

This misguided eagerness to please is endemic throughout the album’s 12 tracks, from the appropriation of other artists’ styles (the chunky riffing and brutish vocals of ‘Hammerhead’ are reminiscent of Dave Grohl, while closer ‘Rage And Grace’ is a transparent attempt to recreate the vitality of Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’) to Holland’s equally unrelatable lyrics.

It can't even stack up to Gabriella Cilmi. Estelle? Leona Lewis? Yikes. Avoid.

As of right now though, Evil Urges is on the top of the heap for 2008.

Tha Carter III is scattershot, which oddly strengthens its faults, as if any lull in quality means that the next batch of producers can just reset the formula.

Flying Lotus has once again proved that he is an artist that can consistently reinvent himself and make his new sound just as effective as it was before

More than just a pretty acoustic record, Harris, through Grouper, has created a startlingly vivid and brooding shoegaze gem that works in spite of its length and first impressions.

A triumph on many levels and a failure on only a few small fronts, ExitingARM is a more than worthy addition to Themselve’s vast array of musical treasures, and a sign that perhaps in the future we’ll see a truly universal album come from anticon.’s most brilliant duo.

There's a huge promise to Fleet Foxes, one that can't be ignored, but Pecknold and the rest of the guys haven't tapped into it yet.

While Meiburg's voice, charisma, and songwriting dominate this album, his backing band does a fantastic job of growing and falling, creating the dramatic effects he envisioned.

The witty anti-gangster taunts of A Little Bit Cooler and pretty much everything else on the album, makes for a fun, but still quality, Hip-Hop record.

The album features a great number of their best songs to date, a couple expected stinkers, and some expected and unexpected lyricism.

There’s not much else to say that you shouldn’t already know: thick, melodic and endearing, Life...The Best Game in Town is essential listening.

By listening to What Does It All Mean?, you're giving yourself a vital history lesson, a blast of fun, and above all, some 130 minutes of fantastic music.

Anywhere I Lay My Head is a vanity project made by Scarlett Johansson, for Scarlett Johansson, and what's more, it sounds suspiciously like a desperate cry for credibility from a woman who doesn't actually need any.

Islands produced an adventurous and daring record with Arm's Way, an adventure many bands are afraid to attempt.

Lie Down In The Light is still slightly marred by this uneven pace.

Duffy is a major talent, and Rockferry is little short of outstanding.

Caught between the indie-pop that they so cleverly deviated and their new found ambitious sound, Death Cab For Cutie have lost themselves.

The album is harmless fun, and the funky, groovy, hook-dominated tracks are impossible to hate.

The Airing Of Grievances is not about anything so much as it is for everything--the beauty of life, the tragedy of life wasted, the looming of death and the desire to go out having lived fully--no, it is not about those things at all, it is for those things, it is a collection of songs written as odes to the gritty and the beautiful and the mixing of the two: our world, our sick world.

I’m sure, at a certain time (or high), these songs work more than they let on; they’re risks that seek rewards. Credit No Age for making Nouns still pretty great.

Water Curses sits just shy of being worth the price of admission, even if the individual tracks are.

Ringer may not be as varied as some of Hebden’s prior releases yet it is certainly a unique stab into the vast world of electronica.

That’s the biggest problem with Station: it’s not a bad record, it just tries to be too “gargantuan” for its own good.

It seems that Blue Lambency Downward while sonically easier to comprehend has become Kayo Dot's most diversely opinioned album.

Brilliant.

With "75 Bars" being the only real dud on the album, Rising Down proves to be more of a collection of songs that work together as a whole than one cohesive album.

Smile does have it's special moments, but the problem is that they never amount to anything better than the star parts on their previous efforts.

The London five’s debut effort is hampered by uninspired, unmemorable songwriting and a baby-proofed approach to recording and composing that ensures anything that could be described as edgy or life-affirming is, at best, lost in translation.

Overall, Flight of the Conchords created a well-rounded, original, and entertaining album filled with classic songs from their hit show.

Air is a masterpiece of production and gives the best few tracks from the entire collection. Earth is a cool-down lap after the more developmental and progressive preceding discs, showing a Thrice that is willing to trade in all that has made them great during their niche period (1999-2004) in favor of pursuing a less challenging but equally viable sound

Pfeffer is only 21 and already he has released an album that possesses a very original sound as well as an impressive amount of musicianship.

This album is surely a success, its just there is a lot of things that a great album like 'My Life in the Bush of The Ghosts' (which Ghosts sincerely seems indebted to) have that are missing here.

Walk It Off combines songs that attempt an idiosyncratic progression, but fail to expand upon things like, say, songwriting, with songs that struggle to capture a bright ol’ Indie Rock flame that was once there.

Accelerate’s songs are generally well-constructed, almost to the point of being formulaic- eleven alternative pop songs with no excess fat around the edges.

But really, it's Kozelek's voice in all its imperfect glory that makes April (and indeed all of his other work) as wonderful as it is.

The ambitious sound of The Bright Lights of America is a dreadful fifty-two minutes long; with an average song length over three minutes.

More often than not (and this is the kicker, ladies and gentlemen), Pretty. Odd. is just pretty dull.

Overall, 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons shows A Silver Mount Zion at their hardest rocking, their most powerful, and their most irritating.