If there's one thing that defines Midnight Boom, it's the new sense of fun that The Kills seem to have discovered.

This is a great record but is very often hit or miss.

On the whole, The Odd Couple has a much more unified atmosphere, but in quality the album is sporadic and unpredictable.

She & Him's debut release is more like a collection of songs rather than a cohesive, fresh album, and as such, is a letdown for a singer that showed a lot of promise.

Crystal Castles is definitely a fun listen just don’t expect something highly experimental or interesting.

Visiter is an impressive sophomore album, a wonderful growth for the Dodos, and one of the year’s subtlest surprises, even if it took thirty listens to get there.

They’ve crafted a record that feels more like imitation than originality.

Alopecia stands out as an interesting little album.

Del sways wildly between hit and miss. And Eleventh Hour, for all its boisterous and awkward handling, fails with a resounding thud.

obZen is a thoroughly enjoyable and engaging record, and is without question an early contender for metal Album of the Year.

Bouzilich however, does have some good ideas and there are some very good moments to be found on Hello, Voyager, it's just the convoluted mess of ideas that is the rest of the album overwhelms its strongest points.

Real Emotional Trash is a simultaneously funny and interesting record, shaped with just the right kind of meticulous care to strengthen its band-jam aesthetics.

This represents a new territory for both Dulli and Lanegan, and it's one that they (generally) excel in.

The changes Murder by Death have brought with Red Of Tooth and Claw are a sufficiently demanding and acceptable result.

Float is rescued from abject tedium by the deep, poetic lure of the subject matter and a couple of genuinely outstanding compositions in ‘Float’ and ‘(No More) Paddy’s Lament.’

From the first minute till the last, this is enthralling, invigorating stuff, and because of that it's comfortably the duo's best album yet.

New Amerykah reveals its considerable depths and strengths, and invites the listener to invest the time needed to explore them.

The album truly is beautiful within its down tempo setting, and as a soundtrack for the morning after, there’s nothing quite like keeping the lights off and the volume low and simply letting Devotion get you through the day.

Heretic Pride is a stunning, well-rounded piece of music that only The Mountain Goats could pull off.

Lyrically, too, the album excels.

For Emma, Forever Ago is a heartbreaking and heartwarming album that ventures deeper than the its simple history could predict.

Atlas Sound meanders where it ponders, a purely ethereal trip without the oomph.

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.

The Bedlam in Goliath is simply an immense album.

Vampire Weekend banks on showering its tribal pop with lyrics poised for literary analysis, skimping pretentious by appearing completely natural.

Though I can't say this album has as many of these killer tracks as Xiu Xiu's previous albums, Women as Lovers is a satisfying installment for fans of Xiu Xiu's singular style.

While at times angrier and more energetic than Death Cab for Cutie, many songs could be (and are) B-sides of "Plans" or "Transatlanticism."

It's a scarily mature album for a bunch of 21 year olds to have recorded, and the pairing of its ambitious lyrical concepts and motivated songwriting is something to be admired.

Although the guitar sounds are very pretty and sublime it’s tough to listen to an album where the songs follow the same exact boring formula.

The first three songs will undoubtedly hook any listener into continuing the album, but the listener will find nothing as impressive as that opening statement.

Jukebox isn’t a misstep, but it does seem like a unnecessary lull towards an album that might build on the promise of Jukebox’s best assets, the most important ones being of Chan’s own, warming design.

This could well have been a much better album than it is. Still, there's enough here to indicate that Nash's obvious natural flair for songwriting will blossom, and that her fearless voice will only get better with experience.

Surprisingly, The Cool works as an album despite its many obvious flaws: the pop tracks are as good as anything from his debut, and his attempts to branch out are at least hit and miss, with exciting tracks like ‘Little Weapon’ and ‘Dumb It Down’ breaking the monotony of his soapbox moments.

I guess once you define hip-hop you can't really go anywhere but down, but unlike of any of the other Wu-Tang Clan albums 8 Diagrams is able to stretch itself out of the shadow of "Enter the Wu-Tang" which in itself makes this an impressive record.

Sigel is too erratic to fully allow his album to mesh well upon itself. But that is why it works so well anyway, The Solution as much Sigel’s fresh step into untested waters as it is a fall back into a well-worn groove.

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

Once The Black And White Album settles in, and you've figured out which songs to skip, it's as enjoyable as any of their previous albums.

Red Carpet Massacre feels almost like a weird sort of jam session between band and producers, and the quality is about as patchy and uneven as that description implies.

Despite the consistency--the one area in which she's improved--it's almost certainly the weakest and most irrelevant album she's produced.

I can't help but admire the wondrous technicality of the band members, but I wonder if they could have deployed it in a more tasteful way.

When the natural flow of Nas' rap elevates 'Success' to one of American Gangster's best songs, you kind of wish Nas could have just had the same idea and done the album himself. It shadows the finale of the album, even the tight, appropriately grand title-track that finds Jay-Z at his breeziest.

There's enough brewing under the sedated surface to make Hvarf-Heim (and especially Hvarf) a satisfying listen.

It's consistently great stuff--this is among the best hip-hop albums of the year by my reckoning.

The biggest failure of these songs, and the most confusing thing about this album, are the melodies.

Avenged Sevenfold is "City of Evil" minus the cool parts, more of Shadows, a circus, and an occasional female singer that’s supposed to make it all sound innovative.

For better or worse, it's the most predictable album of the year.

Minor complaints aside, pound for pound and song for song, Unbreakable may just be the best pop album of the year so far.

No World For Tomorrow is Coheed doing what they do best; writing an excellent album, where the songs combine for a bigger effect together than they do individually.

Defense of the Genre is the best major label release of the year, and the most surprising album to boot.

Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces is nearly all negative space with very little beauty.

Overall, Chase This Light takes the pop rock sound of their latest albums and perfects the style, complemented with Butch Vig’s flawless production skills. Again, the choruses sound bigger and catchier than ever.

As a concept album, it's halfway to becoming an amazing cycle. There are a few flaws and the second half of the collection to worry about, but so far, Thrice has produced another stunner.

The music within the album has many sides to it, and the execution gives each aspect enough emphasis to add to the sound without creating clutter or over saturation.

Of course, nothing on This is Forever is really new territory; the 80’s influenced synthesizers, the electronic drums, the monotone vocalist, it’s all been heard before. It’s all been done so much better.

It stands well alongside any classic Springsteen record you can mention.

As usual, Dashboard puts out an album with a couple of very good songs, and a bunch of passable filler. Recommended for fans, but still has nothing on what Dashboard used to put out.

To try and explain just how bad the "music" is on this disc is about as much of a masochistic exercise as listening to it.

There's not a weak track here, and on close inspection each song could be singled out as a highlight if debased from the album.

The album is just standard rock/alternative affair.

The Shepherd's Dog proves that Beam is worthy of the attention that he is given and actually a brilliant musical mind rather than some guy who got lucky enough to make a great album in his bedroom.

It sounds like the work of a band who are simply trying to get their feelings off their chest, rather than one trying to sell records.

It's too empty, too boring, too lifeless, too lazy.

The Weakerthans are still writing pretty, tender music, but they seem to have lost their immediacy and potency.

What's right here is awesome, and I for one have got a lot of joy out of listening to it.

Although it's a little inferior to Stars of CCTV, Once Upon A Time In The West is a good album, make no mistake about that.

Drastic Fantastic achieves success due to its near-perfect composition and construction.

There are no surprises (other than the lyrics about cutting himself) and nothing all that redeeming to take away from the listen.

A cohesive and complete album in the world of Southern rap.

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

The brevity of this soundtrack makes for an overall calming effects with a few great moments.

'My Gun' is one of the best tracks Fifty's lent his name to; Adam Deitch and Eric Krasno's skilful production keeps the tension bubbling just below the surface with a muted hard rock guitar riff; 50's rhyme and flow is more varied and expressive than his usual monotone drawl.... The remainder of the album is as inconsistent as Fifty’s career to date.

Animal Collective is a completely different beast on Strawberry Jam, and it’s beautiful at times, it really is.

Graduation is consistent, yes, but it's consistently boring.

It’s also an extremely solid record that comes highly recommended for any fan of its predecessor.

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.

When contrasted with the tide of other like-minded electronic albums released recently, Simian Mobile Disco’s effort feels fresh and vibrant and with an execution that consistently delivers on simple but fascinating ideas.

Chesnutt has created something earthy and beautiful with North Star Deserter and at this point, its difficult to imagine another singer/songwriter bettering it this year.

As it stands, Liars is an appropriately titled, highly worthwhile piece of work that the band and any of its fans should be extremely proud of.

Ultimately, while there probably isn't anything here truly great enough to draw any more attention to the band, this is a perfectly good album that displays an awful lot of potential.

Harper sounds hardly inspired even in a city like Paris, and his homage to past artists sounds like cheap imitation more than anything.

To their credit, the album is fun in small doses. Still, the musicianship is never great, sometimes dreadful. The "fun" of the album sometimes feels forced, trying to capitalize on the success of "In Case We Die."

Kala is definitely a song-based album, but, that being said, the songs fit together perfectly, and even more surprisingly, they’re all good.

Andorra strikes out further, reaching deeper into Snaith’s box of musical curiosities which are, at once, tasteful and fruitfully tawdry. Phantasmagoric and stunningly organic, another crowd pleaser for fans of Daniel Snaith’s aural hallucinogens.

This Delicate Thing We’ve Made is undone by too much, too much, too much of everything. Too many ideas aren’t allowed to compete with each other, meaning that the bad ideas are given just as much importance as the good ones.

The Historical Conquests is astonishing for its depth of exploration in the folk genre.

It is easily one the band’s best album and possibly the best album of the year.

The Stage Names, despite being dense, is rarely difficult and is probably the band's most accessible effort to date.

The disc is hook laden but the hooks are bland. The rapping is heartfelt but forgettable and, 'So Far To Go,' easily the highlight of the album, is actually a track of J Dilla's posthumous "The Shining."

Korn feel tired, bland and dated.

War Stories is another win for Lavelle.

Planet Earth is one of the more varied albums Prince has done, yet all the same it's probably his most straight-forward release in a long, long while.

Underclass Hero tries its best to be profound and musically challenging, however its only success is found, without exception, in the tracks which drop the pretense entirely and return to the formula which made the group popular to begin with.

Their vocals throughout the entire album are fantastic and they work together only like sisters could, even if they live across one of the largest countries in the world.

It is not as good as the ARIA awards will undoubtedly make it out to be but still one of the better mainstream listens of the year.

The end result is a record that runs quite average, there are some quality songs that can be picked from it ("We Are the Night," "Do it Again," "All Rights Reserved") but by itself it will lose many listeners.

As a whole, the album is a well-executed pop punk album and shows that Yellowcard are better than the average band.

While not enough to stand among the best the Pumpkins have to offer, Zeigeist nonetheless stands fairly well on it's own

Super Taranta! is easily the group’s most accomplished effort to date, and an exciting prospect of things to come.

It's easy to enjoy on a superficial level, because the music is well written and enjoyable, and lyrically it's more than I could have expected.

It does nothing to distinguish itself from other BR releases and some of the premier punk albums released in the past few years, but it also can immediately trump most of the stuff being put out these days on the virtue of BR's tight and likable style.

A handful of jukebox-friendly hard rock tracks and a thoroughly replayable album is almost as good an outcome as could be expected from this group of aging rockers.

Easy Tiger is at least Adams' best release since Love is Hell and it may even be the long awaited successor to Heartbreaker.

The songs just are just way inferior this time around. My December’s fourteen tracks (including the hidden "Chivas") sound like rough sketches fleshed out with Breakaway’s light rock arrangements.

Desire is an amazing record the story of Monch and his recording career is admirable in its own right.

Icky Thump, despite the presence of some simply insane over-indulgence, is a great album.

Most of the album is still enjoyable, however, and certainly provides some new ideas for instrumental rock music.

Devoid of any country heart, country soul, or country swing, if Bon Jovi had started out a country band and decided to play mainstream rock, this is what it would sound like.

In the end this is a nice EP to play and a timely release considering the season and what they're releasing it right before.

All of these tracks are listenable and easy to digest- some are just notably better than others.

A spunky, Hayley-driven vehicle that nonetheless proves that Paramore justly deserves whatever critical acclaim it was getting.

The production quality does most of the work here, because when you listen, everything seems relatively simple. And that’s not a bad thing by any means.

Carry On is not a bad album, nor is it a good one.

Ma Fleur is a triumphant return for The Cinematic Orchestra.

Its a richly textured, layered, and almost earnest stab at everything this artist ever attempted to do before, all rolled up nice on one album.

If Alligator was The National's first masterpiece then Boxer is surely their second, a 12-song journey that thoroughly exemplifies everything that a modern rock band should be capable of.

Some listeners may find the album samey or too similar but one aspect of Mirrored that can't be disputed is that it is a unique album with little to no similar peers.

These are all songs that you would have trouble getting out of your head, and It Won’t Be Soon Before Long is the second coming and establishing factor of Maroon 5 as the pop band of the century thus far.

Release The Stars, if not a step forward, is at worst a side-step en route on to a knockout album.

Our Earthly Pleasures, in contrast to the water-tight radio punk of its predecessor, overflows with ideas, even if it’s to the detriment of the material.

Volta is a strong album with memorable, remarkable tracks that have great variety, so much that the album loses cohesion.

God Save the Clientele is a good record: mellow, pretty and, at times, quite fun.

Human the Death Dance may not be perfect and perhaps not even an improvement for fans, but regardless, it's full of wonderful moments that should satisfy fans and serve as a great introduction for newcomers.

The material is of a consistently high standard, nary a clunker in the bunch, but while many will be surprised by Send Away The Tigers, few will be bowled over.

Ranging from dense electronica to stark piano ballads to an amalgamation of indie pop, electronica, and concert orchestra, The Magic Position envisions a magical world where Wolf has everything he could ever want at his disposal.

A masterful little work of sonic soundscapes, dark edges, muted colors, and low, simmering sexuality.

Beyond’s main flaws come in a lack of variety.

Tears of the Valedictorian is easily one of the best records of the year.

Meet the new Rush, same as the old Rush....and as it turns out after all these years that's a pretty good thing.

There is nothing radical or daring about the faithfully rendered tunes we find on Twelve.

For the first time, the band is inconsistent.

A very fun listen.

The album almost has a mix-tape esque feel to it and the staggering amount of guests has much to do with this.

Unfortunately, he forgot he cannot sing or write coherent lyrics.

The range of emotions and material on display make The Best Damn Thing a much easier listen than the monotonous angst of Under My Skin.

Make no mistake this is NIN as usual, but [it is] an effortless, inspired, and unaffected Trent Reznor the likes of which we may not have had the pleasure of knowing for almost a decade and a half.

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

23 has a lack of contrast, and that is really its only flaw.

Adventures is a record that is just as quirky as it is brilliant.

In many ways it's more of the same, but it does seem to improve upon the formula ever-so-slightly.

This album is a swirl of pure emotions and grandiosity, but is never overbearing, never feeling like anything more than your own personal score. Thus, it’s completely brilliant.

For all its inadequacies, Dignity is a solid, cleverly-constructed pop album.

Steingarten is a unique take on ambient/glitch inspired music however it’s lack of musical progression brings it down.

Distinguishing themselves from the shadow of Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance and the like without sacrificing too many of the essential elements of their debut album, The Academy Is… have emerged as a band with ambition and the songwriting skill to match.

Myths of the Near Future is no classic- the highs don’t come fast enough to warrant that- but it’s a solid debut release from one of the least pretentious bands around.

Yours Truly, Angry Mob is such a sloppily put-together album that it almost seems intentionally bad.

The production quality is a crowning grace throughout the album in the face of some very dodgy writing and bad musical choices.

What we get is listless by the numbers "latin rock", dull, sleepy ballads, and overblown Diva numbers I wouldn't wish on Whitney Houston.

The massive dip in quality towards the end, including the progressive worsening through closing, bonus and hidden tracks, is disappointing, considering how well the album begins.

The great thing about this album is the same as was great about the last full length LCD Soundsystem album, and that is its effortless blend and execution of mix.

At times, it can be a difficult piece of work and its dark themes may require a few spins to grow on the listener. Irrespective, Drums and Guns is a fine piece of work, Low's best since Things We Lost in the Fire.

It's different, its harder, and its honestly a bit of a disappointment.

Introducing Joss Stone has the sound of an artist who is beginning to go places, not of one coming from somewhere or standing still.

It’s safe to say that, Person Pitch just might be album of the year (so far, at least).

For the most part Hats Off To The Buskers is second-tier British post-punk.

Back To Black is by far the best popular soul album I’ve heard this year.

Bouncy bass and catchy vocals keep it going, but sometimes it seems Albert Jr. has nothing substantial to fall back on.

Most of these songs are melancholy and soft, waiting for a darkened sky to play to.

It's about as good as Funeral and features some truly wonderful songs; although The Arcade Fire have certainly progressed, Neon Bible features everything that made them special in the first place, to even more epic proportions.

Cringe-worthy lines are unfortunately rampant through The Weirdness’s (long) forty minutes.

His conception of melody and harmony is well above the average hip-hop artist, but the album as a whole is very flat and boring.

You, You're a History in Rust is nothing short of an experience; emotional enough to take the listener on a journey, and subtle enough so that not a moment of the record feels contrived.

While the most fitting genre to place Dr. Dog’s latest, We All Belong , in may be Indie-Pop, the 12 songs that make it up don’t sound a whole lot like The Shins or Death Cab for Cutie. We All Belong instead sounds like an album that was buried in Brian Wilson’s backyard for 40 or so years.

While clearly it is their best work to date, the purposefully epic moments of the music just don’t hold the same candle to the ones that were found on their earlier records.

Despite pulling out all the stops towards the end, The Cost is everything The Frames usually eschew: it’s bland, it’s monotonous and it barely achieves a tempo shift across forty-four minutes.

Copia is Cooper’s greatest work to date, but it leaves even more roads for him to take.

A masterpiece of edgy, pop-infused rock composed with intelligence.

Essentially, Infinity On High is From Under The Cork Tree, except this time done well.

It is something brand new and completely unexpected.

Norah Jones has the potential to be one of the defining singers of the decade, but her songwriting needs to take on more styles and more voices.

Busdriver gives his best performance thus far.

Hella is stuck in the realm of Yowie -- playing with excellent ideas, but too stuck on defining themselves with an all too familiar genre.

While the album as a whole is far from being perfect, moments of it are some of the most gorgeous and interesting things I have heard.

Most of The Bird and the Bee is average, albeit highly danceable and fun, Pop music: worth the download, but hardly the purchase.

Yusuf hasn't missed a beat, as this is still the same sound he made famous on 70s staple "Tea for the Tillerman" and later perfected on "Teaser and the Firecat", and while it's certainly not as impactful, I'm comfortable saying that "An Other Cup" comes pretty close.

It's like the debut, but slightly different, definitely better.