The best Falling in Reverse songs, with rare exception, are the ones where Ronnie sounds like he's struggling to keep up with the song's pace.... The weakest songs on the album are, again, easily written-off as the band falling into familiar traps.

With Shake, Shook, Shaken, we get an album that has never sounded truer to The Dø’s strengths as a band.

I Love You, Honeybear is the rare love letter that manages to capture all the ugly, bitter sides to a relationship, the angles covered in shadow and hidden behind front doors, because it understands that these are the moments that make up a full and fulfilling relationship between two people with issues and histories and feelings that are more often awful and conflicted than not.

Alpha is easily the band's most accessible album to date.

For all its technical skill, though, this focus inward makes for a circular listening experience, at least for long time listeners of the band. It’s difficult to feel like this is ground that hasn’t been traversed before, and just as well.

What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World explores a much wider range of topics than their previous literature/storyline-bound themes could have possibly covered, and the result is hands down the most emotive release of The Decemberists’ career.

No Cities To Love is a triumph. Not only does it meet every one of our over-the-top demands as fans, it serves as a great entry point for those new comers who have yet to be introduced to one of the most important bands of the last quarter century.

Definitely a leap into the right direction, the album is the product of a clear mindset and less ego tripping.

In trying for everything, they’ve highlighted the disjointedness of the end product, turning a fully-fledged transformation into an erratic collection of middling-to-great Belle & Sebastian songs.

Uptown Special’s greatest attribute, then, is that it could have been a hit in any decade, a slyly running commentary on the fluidity of modern pop music but one that never fails to forget what the people really want: to dance, dumb and delirious, and forget.

What we’re left with is a somewhat novel approach that’s bolstered by improved songwriting, but ruined by a sheer lack of direction--or anything interesting to say.

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

Minaj’s latest release is a complicated being, one that might never sit easy, but the layers she provides for the listener to peel through provide for an engaging and ultimately satisfying experience.

Sucker, for all its charms, occasionally comes off as one-dimensional. But there were few records this year as sparkly and blindingly colorful, with production values that revel in excess and a mischievous spirit that rivals the best of Charli’s rebellious, sexually adventurous forebears.

It is simply a good collection of good songs, put together by talented folks to showcase their obvious talents.

It's both primal and audacious, raw and approachable, unnerving and at times comforting. Most of all, though, it tackles the relationship turmoil in a brilliantly inventive and thrilling fashion.

To be honest, Super Critical is simply a cute record that shows they are back on track after a few years of less successful experiments.

The speed at which the songs are played sounds not only like they are stuck in the mud, but that the weight tethered to them is also dragging them backwards. The final result is an anemic, lackluster 52 minutes.

What makes this effort so different is its ability to transcend those mere qualitative descriptions and transport one’s mind to its most emotionally darkest corners--even if it has to clear away some of the cobwebs that we attempt to veil our pain in.

The robust rock songs fall flat, rarely achieving lift off from their rote, chugging origins, while even the band’s worst proggish impulses are neatly trimmed down into manageable four-minutes-and-under transitions and slapped with a typically Trail of Dead-ian name, a middle finger in disguise. Only closer “Sound Of The Silk” really marries the two histories of the band into the kind of complete performance that made Tao of the Dead such a thrilling ride.

The Last Act of Defiance isn’t here to dazzle you with musicianship and diversity, it’s here to bludgeon in a way that only good hardcore can.

Dope Body have managed to modulate their sound without watering down the characteristics that made them unique in the first place. In consequence, Lifer is a ferocious record that deftly coalesces noise rock with early grunge and psychedelic flourishes. It's a trip down memory lane well worth taking.

Outside of “Love Again,” the album is chock-full of jams from front to back, and RTJ2, in its astonishing scope and finesse, continues a tradition of greatness for the unlikely duo, and serves as one of the more distinguished bright spots in an otherwise stale year for hip-hop.

It’s not a verbatim copy of Kendrick’s work, but it’s every bit the stylistic counterfeit, and while it, along with the other mentions above, could be seen as imitations done in reverence had they been released on a free mixtape, their use on an album is no doubt a calculated effort to profit off of the ideas and work of another who did it first, in an attempt to capitalize on the ignorance of those listeners who may not know better.

What truly puts Swift’s fifth full-length in its own class is the combination of brilliant songwriting and incredible production. Those two strengths come together throughout 1989, but no track showcases it better than “Out of the Woods.”

This is a very nice record, yet feels more settled overall. Nevertheless, it's a matter of choice rather than quality.

On Lift a Sail, we see a Yellowcard that is no longer holding back.

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