It's the construction of it all that's so perfect: that the music can follow, this time, but still be what Grizzly Bear are all about.

I Was Here For a Moment, Then I Was Gone is simply an excellent post-rock record, with all the fat and filler cut out, leaving only room for pure, brilliant songwriting.

Koi No Yokan is a passable alt-rock/metal album by a band that is capable of much more.

'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! is a truly unforgettable experience.

With its terrible lyrics, uninspired and generic music and general sense of boredom, the only positive to glean from the wreckage was at least it couldn't get worse.

It veers from cautious optimism, to sadness and to those odd moments where you feel anything's possible. Young and Crazy Horse continue to run free.

If their self-titled LP represented a slight dip in the usual quality of this band, Cold of Ages represents a trip both back and forward--back to their earlier days in terms of material and the quality of the compositions, but forward in terms of recording quality, evolutionary potential, and available elements at their disposal.

While lacking the immediate and defining qualities of their previous releases, the album still manages to outclass its peers in almost every regard.

Where the album ultimately succeeds is in its song-craft, with everything from its diversity and song structures clearly improving, without significantly forsaking the trio's effortlessly catchy and engaging melodies.

Although the album barely brings its head above the water-line marked "passable", it's still too slick, too unified and too perfectly structured to convince you that apart from the vocals of Stanley and Simmons, the rest of the album is nothing more than a hodge-podge of contributions from various pony-tailed musos from somewhere sunny.

Lost Songs is brash and sincere, a caterwauling beast of chunky guitar chords and drums that never give you a chance to breathe, and in its best moments is as fiery and hot-blooded and rousing as anything off of those earlier albums fans are always pining for.

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.

What you find in Transcendental Youth aren't answers to any big questions, but instead questions to a bunch of answers that never meant anything before but now seem exceedingly important.

A passionately resonating, electronic-underscored tour de force that somehow never betrays their true essence.

For the die-hard Four Tet fan who jumps over every release the man has put out, Pink isn't really going to offer much outside of a rather flash piece of packaging that coincidentally happens to store all of his recent tunes in one convenient place. For others though, it's simply going to be another Four Tet release, which is a lot better than a whole lot from everyone else.

The album excels, featuring some of the artist's finest work, despite being mostly retreaded material. Do not let this be a deterrent, though, for there is something here for the devoted members of his "Wolf Pack" as well as his fiercest detractors.

Only in spurts does it ascend to the heights of the band's opening three acts, but it does manage to triumphantly assert itself as a leaps and bounds improvement over Coheed's most recent material.

While decidedly uneven and lacking in the sheer number of hooks a regular dose of Newman provides, Shut Down the Streets does have two of the best songs of his long career.

Converge has become synonymous with consistency, and the band's latest effort proves that after seven albums they still have what it takes to put their listeners through hell in the best kind of way.

They might not be fracking new rocks with their sound, but for those in the know with ears to blow, it's manna from an alternate heaven.

Album Title Goes Here is simply, and honestly, a pointless release, a record designed for two very different crowds, yet lacking the ammunition to even moderately please anyone.

The very elements that made No Doubt popular in the first place have disappeared.

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

The defense that it isn't trying, that it's just for kicks, would I guess be admissible if the songs weren't so entirely devoid of substance.

If you despised Sigh No More, then you will find nothing here that even attempts to change your mind. If you found the band's debut to be charming and fun, then Babel is absolutely worth your time and money.

[Moms is] about lamenting family trees and the things that created us worse for wear. Together, Harris and Seim have created a rock album punching the stomach the way their lyrics do.

This unconventional marriage winds up being one that's most conventional, with the traffic of conversation decidedly one way.