The result is in some ways immensely pleasing (at its best the quality here is easily the equal of the songs from the proper album), but at seventeen songs and a full hour in length Oh You're So Silent Jens suffers a bit, predictably, from too much of a good thing.

For longtime fans, there’s little reason not to buy this. For newcomers, Peel Sessions might not be a logical starting point, but you’ll still walk away understanding why Galaxie 500 are still revered.

Less sparse than open, the songs resist the build-and-release structure that most other Montreal acts utilize, and they also refuse to ride a groove or play with distracting orchestration.

Summer succeeds largely because it forces Oldham’s songs into unfamiliar positions.

Easily her finest effort since Ray of Light.

Kicking Television is consistent, professional, and unapologetically inclusive. It’s also a uniformly strong testament from one of rock’s most endearing acts, capable of producing both heady noise jams and shameless lighter-wavers.

A complete album of epic scale, musical significance and a highly prescient lesson in listening, participating and challenging.

Aerial isn’t perfect, but it is magnificent.

He sounds ragged, out of tune in places. He simply doesn't sing as well as he used to.

Suitcase 2 does exactly what it sets out to do, documenting the incredible breadth of Bob Pollard’s songwriting.

The difference... between For the Season and Gris Gris’s debut album is that the detours are less frequent and less distracting.

Although Punk summarizes Fatlip's traumatic post-Pharcyde life, the record is buoyant with character.

Even with Kozelek's laudable work on this outing I feel that something more robust could have emerged had the roots been original.

A set of saccharine sweet songs which occasionally dissolve spectacularly in a haze of whirring electronic mist.

He’s a post-techno indie geek making clattering, dead-end grooves with clumsy-but-endearing melodies splattered over the top like oil stains pressed in symmetrical folds of paper to make a Rorschach pattern that just happens to be a song.

Vulcanized basslines, ice-burn synth washes, and helium-fused guitar lines again serve as his trademarks, and Nguyen has yet to shed his reliance on preset dub-lines to offset his lumpen beats. He may seem a bit more comfortable with English, but his lyrics have waned with his accent.

The album swells with beauty, but an intimate, unapologetic beauty drained of gravity or mystery that invites and comforts in one stroke, stronger than the gravest clock and gentler than a stray sigh.

Admittedly, though it’s clunky and overwrought, the real problem isn’t that the story is tedious or that Olga’s voice is awful--it’s actually weirdly thrilling--it’s that the album simply doesn’t feel as well executed as the premise promises.

Descended Like Vultures snuggles down between Wolf Parade’s Apologies To The Queen Mary and Modest Mouse’s 2004 release, Good News For People Who Like Bad News as a competent, half-slapped together, half-methodic slice of evolved indie-rock.

Feels is a near-stunning album a notable amount of the time.

This record contains some of the most astounding music that Boards Of Canada have ever composed.

Every moment screams to be played a little bit louder and a little bit longer; because Playing the Angel is just that good.

The compressed, cleaned-up ferocity of Hypermagic Mountain is a leap of refinement in every way, a sign that the band, while lushly unripe, is ripening gracefully.

Musically, he’s ditched the clean, plainly instrumented indie-country schlep of his previous efforts for something brassy, something downright soulful.

This is a very good record. I personally dare the “ASHLEE SUX” folks reading this to give it a reasonably objective spin.

As long as Wonder is producing and laying down basic arrangements himself, he’ll never be awful, which is a shame: like any lifelong charmer, he can stand to be more vulgar, or show some teeth, damn it.

Cale faces a problem that neither recent Tom Waits nor Leonard Cohen have overcome: he can't sing anymore.

The restraint the whole band shows, on this, their most finished and instantly effective album, becomes something more than respectable: the Clientele’s commitment to their own sound has crystallized into something almost wonderful.

A slow burn may not be quite as exciting as a scorch, but this is a hotter flame than most anything else you'll hear this year.

Abandoned in the spotlight, Doom appears to falter, though again I think it’s just because we’ve grown so accustomed to cherry-picking his lyrical gems from a well-blended stoned barrage.

Despite its exhilarating moments, The Runners Four feels like it’s missing something.

It has a beautiful simplicity that belies its sophistication.

Occasionally, it does seem to forsake being interesting in order to just sink into snarky spot-the-reference games or gnash another guitar solo in the interest of vapid overstimulation.

I’m definitely recommending Unplugged--with reservations, but it’s still a recommendation--but damn, I just wish the fun Keys seems to have on stage would translate more clearly to record.

A great study in songcraft, but not a consistently exciting listen.

taTu, somehow, miraculously, still matter.

If music is best judged by its immediate effect on the listener, this record succeeds and cannot be forgotten. In this case, that's not a good thing.

I’d imagine Thunder Lightning Strike will not age well nor reward a thousand listens, but for what it attempts to do, and succeeds, it’s worthy of attention.

A rudderless piece of work.

Though it loses its momentum in the final few tracks, and prevents me from giving it the downright slobbering it might otherwise deserve, Broken Social Scene, much like its release day partner, You Could Have it So Much Better..., is a cinder in the eye of all the indie-haters.

You Could Have It So Much Better... is plagued by the same averseness to surrender that hamstrung their breakthrough eponymous debut.

Those who have loved Ladytron’s move toward a mix of harsher electro and lighter pop elements will find this a welcome progression, and seemingly a natural one, too.

It's hard to argue with any album that possesses the virtues Z does: James' voice, one of the most astonishing instruments in rock; a band who, turnover notwithstanding, play like they've been doing this for decades; a sense of delight that often eludes young men with guitars; and songs that let you use the descriptor “rocks” without fear or shame.

Foregrounding the self-doubt that was a quiet but insistent subtext on the eponymous album, producer John Shanks provides unobtrusive arrangements and lets Phair strum more electric guitar; this is a singer-songwriter record, like Exile On Guyville. It’s also warmer than its predecessor.

It’s not that change is bad, but Wolf is moving into areas already well covered and away from ideas that beg for more exploration.

The result may be, in a manner of speaking, the most consistent Atmosphere album to date. That is, You Can’t Imagine is consistently okay.

There isn’t a track on Live It Out that stays fresh from start to finish. Some takes wrong turns along the way; others simply wear out their welcome a tad too quickly. Still, all but a couple contain individual moments or elements strong enough to overshadow the weaker links.

The sparkling electronic/acoustic subtlety of 2001’s The Invisible Man has been replaced here by excursions into poor trip hop, and this low-key solo effort lacks a good polish and a harsh editor.

By refocusing outside of dancefloor functionality for Suckfish, Dear invests in his material enough to give it a weight beyond the novelty of sensationalized titles set to jacking tracks.

Unfortunately, the record fails at times to live up to its largesse.

Ultimately, The Day After is another middling album from a tremendously talented rapper who will never get the respect he deserves because he's all too eager to make compromised crossover records.

The substantive quality of the political commentary found on Ahead of the Lions may not measure up to Rage Against the Machine’s most agitprop knee jerking, but there’s no questioning the sentiment is clearly and loudly expressed with propulsive rhythms, radio-palatable hooks and real production values.

A fairly enjoyable album as long as one doesn’t saddle it with expectations of being the next Sister Lovers.

Sometimes the after school special feel of it takes its toll... But they win you back, because that's what underdogs do: they eventually win.

The last decade has bled the band dry of energy and verve meaning that where once these songs would have been pop classics, now they’re tastefully tuneful AOR.

They’ve cleaned up their grungy guitar lines (thank you Sub Pop), reworked a few of the best songs from their early EPs, and the result is undoubtedly the best contender for the Arcade Fire/Broken Social Scene-helm of 2005.

Relentlessly benign.

On Collisions, Calla don't flee from their influences; instead, they turn inward on themselves, pushing out at their songs' edges.

At this point, Wilson looks like the most important new artist to hit country music since the Dixie Chicks.

Sean Paul is a gifted songbird, and on The Trinity his vocal gifts and Jamaica’s continued creative vitality are a surefire formula for thrilling music.

While the drop in adrenaline has left room for some good ideas, they’re not fleshed out well enough, and with the lack of a single flat-out rocker, there’s nothing to get excited or exhilarated over.

One of 2005’s most thudding disappointments.

This tapestry of homemade instruments gives the mythology of Konono a potent, raw edge, and the ferocity with which they play them only further substantiates the feeling that the music has been pushed into a raw, indelibly pure zone.

They've lost two members... so perhaps that explains some of the more aggressive focus and minimalist arrangement, but not the surprise-around-every-corner freedom they find within their self-imposed stricture.

This is not a ‘return to form’—how could it ever be? A band of this age have some many peaks and troughs in form as to render that kind of phraseology practically meaningless. Just as Porcupine should, just as Ocean Rain should, Siberia too should be taken in isolation.

Certified may be a cinematic holding pattern but it’s a holding pattern in a place--both geographically and artistically--that we can’t hear enough of.

[An] extraordinarily unassuming, gorgeous release.

This new sense of excursion comes with its costs, and like many of their predecessors, it robs this Toronto band’s tunefulness in the name of unnecessary experimentation.

It’s the collage of styles that distinguishes this album: Cuban and Indian flourishes, Eisenhower-era doo-wop, the smoky Stax groove, bucolic British trad-folk, the eccentricities of American folk, of both the Dust Bowl troubadours and the Vietnam flower-children.

This is indie in the most traditional sense.

Noah’s Ark proves, again, that the Casady sisters are perhaps at the forefront of the overlabored ‘freak-folk’ scene.

In The Reins is intelligent but natural, different but not queer.

Pales in comparison to its predecessor.

Never in his career has McCartney seemed more serious in tone and more aware of the play of his lyrics as poetry.

A solid, atmospheric, singer-songwriter record.

I always felt as if those moments of triumph in the band’s music were the focal points, the “good stuff” you waited for and wanted to arrive and then stay forever. This time around though, they appear to have taken a backseat to the band’s darker impulses, and staggeringly, Takk sounds all the better for it.

Stellastarr* pushes its new grasp of tension and release, and the album shows their increased sense of cohesion.

Love Kraft is taken down by sludgy pacing and a paucity of ideas.

The Double has a high ambition of making outré textures pop, but their obliqueness can walk a fine line between compelling and evasively wussy.

For a high-minded piece of process, one that rests on the old trope that the good stuff is always bad for you--or in this case, for the majority of the world--Herbert packs a lot of snap, crackle, and, particularly, pop.

It is arguable that Gold & Green is the link between Super AE and the Bores’ much feted neo-psych masterpiece, Vision Creation Newsun.

A diverse batch of songs that she brings together as a consistent set, showcasing Yearwood as not just a fine singer, but also a just-gets-better-and-better artist.

While their recorded output has still not quite caught up to their prowess as a live band, that moment is likely right around the corner; in the meantime, this album is more than good enough to make that wait worthwhile.

Broken Ear is limited and bogged down with its exacting and overriding sense of rhythm and lack of true sonic experimentation.

This is a quietly pulsing release, alive with simple pleasures and celebrating events like hanging out and running into people you know.

In its no-frills pleasures, A Bigger Bang recalls Some Girls and Emotional Rescue, two great meaningless albums.

It’s an easy and mostly enjoyable listen.

Oh No is, if anything, even better than their debut, which now feels like it was trying a bit too hard. Everything feels more natural this time, slightly less polished but still as forceful and hooky.

Not a dud, certainly not a work of cosmic art. It’s meekly above-average.

Howl is surprisingly solid.

It would be a joke to call an album as lush as Twin Cinema “lo-fi,” but it is a more subtle, reined-in New Pornographers.

Pixel Revolt is the sound of a man trying to come to grips with the larger questions--the "why?" questions--and, if nothing else, the sheer attempt makes this an essential album for our troubled times.

Where this release stands out is in overall sound and songwriting.

It’s certainly another step forwards and upwards for one of our only real musically emotional geniuses.

It has one pace, and that pace is “mature”.

With No Flashlight, Elvrum is shifting the focus of his music onto himself. It’s unclear whether this is the smartest move to make, in light of his obvious production mastery.

Ghost lacks the dynamic swing of much of their past material, content to move towards unnecessary cohesion, one that takes all the wide-pupil joy out of their songs.

A work far more potent and lasting than their debut.