This album is difficult, complicated, pretentious, infuriating, inconsistent, and asks more questions then it answers.

Why Should the Fire Die? may see Nickel Creek turn further away than ever from CMT’s trappings, but it also shows the band reaching to eclipse its more generic pop-rock reference points as well.

God love her, but Faith and her handlers just can’t seem to tell the difference between good and bad songs.

It’s not groundbreaking. It’s not a huge stylistic forward leap or a studio-stunt. It’s simply another of Eric Johnson and his band’s records of simple grandiosity.

Rehashed Bob Mould still beats most of what’s out there, though, so the album has its strengths.

Clor’s singer and main-man Barry Dobbin unfortunately posses the kind of high, straining voice that grates to the point of making you want to punch him on the nose, and when combined with the incessant business of the band’s undoubtedly clever and accomplished music it makes this eponymous debut feel like an effort to listen to.

Honeycomb proves too rigid and self-serious to make good on Black’s strengths.

There’s just not much to get; these 9 tracks awkwardly move from one improvident moment to the next, collectively assembling a record that might elevate the mood of an extreme skiing video but does little to lift conciseness.

A quiet, thoughtful, but never uninteresting album.

Much of the album bears more than a passing resemblance to the second half of [Daft Punk's] Discovery.

If the sound that the original Son Volt line-up cultivated began to feel oppressing for Farrar, it’s clear on Okemah And The Melody of Riot that a return in part to that sound has been good for his musical soul.

La Forêt has the sort of courage-minus-contrivance that is exceedingly (and ironically) rare in music of its dramatic and thematic ilk.

That these songs sound like mashups to my ear is both their strength and their weakness--they’re good enough to remind you of the best work of the parties at hand, but the term implies that you’re not going to hear anything new, just two songs mashed together.

Her adventurous and, yes, massive, persona is allowed to wander wherever it wants on The Cookbook, be it avant or common.

Uneven by and large, and below what we all know R.’s capable of, this one mostly shoots blanks.

It's a bit of Michigan redux, which works because it's so uniquely Stevens and so uniquely beautiful.

Though The Wilderness is filled with stunning songs, by album’s end, they tend to meld together. Their uniformity is their greatest fault, though admittedly one that can be overlooked during its best moments.

To be fair Free The Bees isn’t a bad record as such, it’s just that this backwards looking, past-is-best philosophy so often smacks of a distasteful and conservative obsession with authenticity and tradition, as if sounding like the past is more important than sounding like yourselves.

Multiply sounds like he picked up some ancient reel-to-reel tape from lost Holland-Dozier-Holland sessions and gave them a 2005 production spit-and-polish.

If there are complaints to lobby against this remarkable debut, they lie mostly in its sound-quality. Namely, it sounds like what it was: self-recorded and self-released.

With the multifarious tributaries flowing effortlessly into the whole, I Thought I Was Over That has a diverse coherence that is hard to define and establishes itself as a distinct entity in its own right.

All of the bands calling cards are present—they’re just scribbled down on the back of a phone bill, rather than printed out professionally then laminated.

Building on his unassuming alternative icon status, this great debut (under his own name) is sure to bring him that bit nearer to the awareness of the mainstream.

It doesn’t always succeed, but it most definitely exceeds expectations.

Has only a slightly spottier ratio of hits to misses than their best albums.

Easily Strait’s worst album in over a decade.

Kano has spent the last several years making “grime” records, but for better or worse, Home Sweet Home isn’t one of them.

Sometimes it does sound like The First Ever Country Record On Matador, too tied down to ideas of what country records are supposed to sound like.... And then Laura looks you in the eyes and you realise that really, you’re being a bit of a twit. She’s still there, the same as she ever was. Her surroundings have just got a bit grander.

What The Future Embrace lacks in terms of consistency, it makes up for with the feeling that Corgan has turned a corner, that his return to musical credibility is well underway, and isn’t nearly as inconceivable as it was one year ago.

Songwriting necessarily takes a backseat here most of the time, but it’s hardly missed when there’s so much gorgeous, woozy texture to loll in.

These songs stay stuck with you like a lump in your throat.

A big confused mess.

Chavez Ravine drags occasionally, the result of too many serious narratives, but the stories that do work are jaw-droppingly simple and painfully familiar.

Another Day On Earth is more blank than frank, a journey through a hollow land, more discreet than it needs to be. Imagine a recording in which every human error has been scrubbed, like coffee grounds off a formica counter.

Discover A Lovelier You is as good an album as any in Joe Pernice’s discography.

The handful of slower songs drag more than they have a right to, and fail to hint at any depth or versatility that’s missing from the straight-ahead rockers.

Whereas before Embrace always harboured that tendency to fuss over minutiae, to pore over every detail with such attention that betrayed self-consciousness, their fourth studio album, Out Of Nothing, finally sees them free of their own fastidiousness.

And the thing is, an over-reliance on pastiche wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that a) they’re running in grooves created by the wheels of the bandwagon they’ve arrived too late to jump on and b) they tackle it all in the most hopeless, hapless, school talent show cover band style of derivation imaginable.

If you come expecting a great album full of hit singles, you won’t get it. If you come with an open mind, what will greet you is the opening chapter of a tale about a girl living through music, remembering through music, exploring her art and herself, starting out to create something special and different.

The basic songwriting on show here is essentially the same as ever; mid-paced, desperately sincere and earnestly simple, decorated with piano and passionless falsetto, only now with more detours into maximalist, synth-soaked modern rock epics cut from the same cloth as “Clocks.”

Man-Made is, to be sure, the least immediate record Teenage Fanclub has made since Thirteen, but at a compact and finely-tuned forty-two minutes it avoids the flaws of that under-edited and under-cooked record and nestles itself softly into the heart of every TFC fan as another low-key modern classic.

The finest album of the White Stripes’ career.

Thrills hits upon a unique and confident path that doesn’t seem forced or contrived.

The first disc actually suggests the band is capable of making a live album worth your time even if you didn't like Bring It On and Liquid Skin, but its welcome is worn out and its charms are fatally undercut by the turgid, unnecessary second disc.

It’s obvious that Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler have not lost a bit of the touch that made them famous in the early 1990s.

The genius of Wearemonster is that Mueller takes the clarity and mobility of house and synergizes it with the overabundance of melodies, textures, theories, and arrangement schemes found in IDM.

The subtle backing musicians never overshadow Callahan’s reedy baritone and direct lyrics; they merely add subtle shading and light in the appropriate spots--a restraint reminiscent of Bob Dylan’s use of studio musicians on laid-back classics like John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline.

Don’t Believe The Truth is simply Oasis being Oasis with maximum efficiency. Which is to say that if you’re a committed acolyte of the church of Oasis, you’ll love it.

Everything Ecstatic provides an enjoyable listen, but it also sounds as much like a groping as a declaration.

As much as a lot of the tracks are just bluster + accent + guitars, there are some melodies hidden along the way and the bluster + accent + guitars here are better than those pimped by the likes of The Others and Kaiser Chiefs and so on and so forth.

A much more consistent and coherent album, equaling Gorillaz’s high points and easily besting its shortcomings.

The ridiculous in-the-red ruckus keeps you from noticing how hokey and contradictory the lyrics are.

With the Fiery Furnaces bringing indie-prog rigmarole back in fashion, Face The Truth might get a little more love than Pig Lib did, despite being the same album with a few more fart sounds.

Criticising this album because you’re not a teenager is like criticising inhalers just because you don’t have asthma. This may not be for you, but when it hits stride it’s impossible not to get caught up in it.

So frustrating then, for such a multitalented rapper, to have his supposed magnum opus weak, stale, and far more aged than we’d expect.

The quality level is almost inhumanly high, and the range of the tracks here gives you a better idea of what the band is like than any of their individual albums.

Without relying on a crutch of irony and cynicism, they boldly risk sounding cloying in order to summon the emotional honesty necessary to create music that is unabashedly romantic and achingly beautiful.

Honkytonk University is one missed opportunity after another.

A record that positively teems with gleeful personality.

“Wires” does grow in stature with familiarity through radio exposure, and “Trading Air” could easily have the same kind of airplay success, but I can’t understand the mindset of anyone who’d want to play them over and over again when so many other, more exciting and intriguing things exist.

I’ll always give credit for trying something new, but I’d expect a bit more from Electrelane after the strength of their prior album.

Each song glows with infinitesimal joys, tiny pointillist production flourishes noticeable only under close scrutiny. But in rounding out their sound, they brought the viewer close enough to see the brushstrokes and the smudges.

Make Believe seems so simple compared to [Weezer's] other albums.

Aside from the token bummer track, the rest of the album is as stupid fun as stupid fun gets.

There’s nothing groundbreaking here, and this record could very well sound sickeningly syrupy come December, but Hal have found a way of reflecting the sun from a time when it wasn’t quite so poisonous.

Despite the overbearing length and the sometimes lazy lyrics, Kidnapped by Neptune is a strong release in a year of strong releases.

This record is worth having, but offers little more than a slow orbiting tour of familiar Boredoms territory.

13&God represents less a marriage of rock and rap than it does a meeting of weird with slightly-less-weird.

Perhaps less transcendent, The Milk of Human Kindness may ultimately prove more enjoyable.

Finally--a Go-Betweens album with the clarinet solos, harmonies, programmed drums, and splendor this band needs. Oceans Apart really sounds bright yellow and bright orange.

Finn is a decidedly great lead non-singer, and because of this, he has to rely on brainy, culture-referencing wordage as opposed to impressive melodic style or range. Fortunately, his banter rarely disappoints, even if it is a little repetitive at times.

Current yet sounding potentially classic already... Reznor forces himself further into the mainstream with With Teeth--but on his own terms.

The Wedding has some slow tracks, but they’re greatly outnumbered by winners that leap over a baffling range of musical styles.

The larger scope of the album bodes well for The Raveonettes... [but] it’s a shame that there are several clunkers mixed with such strong material.

Where the debut sounded like a drunken nihilist romp, Castle sounds like an artistic presentation of a drunken nihilist romp.

Features some of Madlib’s most difficult and most accomplished production work to date.

The best numbers show Hart gaining subtle confidence as a composer without feeling the need to break the mold completely.

Maybe their edge was lost in the lukewarm production. Maybe it was lost in Barney’s lyrics, which are as utterly meaningless as they have been for years now. Maybe it was just lost altogether.

Yes, this may well be the best of the Eels, his greatest achievement to date, because he reaches so far on nearly every track, and yet still finds something to grab on to.

It can get very very dull.

The Sunset Tree is one of the most volatile, affecting and coherent records he’s made yet.

That Harrison was evidently too busy to produce the entirety of Touch suggests a missed opportunity for a more cohesive and potentially even better album.

His best [album] yet, his most fully-formed, emotionally engaging and sonically rewarding.

As mechanised as their rhythmic focus can be, there is flesh, bone, and brain beneath the near industrial barrage of beats.

Ex Hex does have some problems, but they are minor in comparison to the thrill of hearing Timony rock out again.

This is by no means a bad album, but to my ears, it’s worse; it’s mediocre.

Like Blueberry Boat, this is a triumphant album of good bits.

It’s easily the strongest album that she’s made in this millennium, but suffers from the fact that her vocals have deteriorated.

Barnes has created some utterly brilliant compositions, captured a perfect blend of melodic energy and sincerity while never sacrificing catchiness, and has used both achievements to create one of this year’s most cathartically fun albums.

Wainwright exhibits a rare talent as a confessional singer/songwriter; her album is an impressive, not to mention emotive, first LP from an ambitious artist unwilling to cling to her family’s famous coattails.

The National are able to pack as much power into the songs on Alligator as any of the more heralded indie-rock bands working right now, only The National have taken the common influences and grafted them into something altogether fresh and remarkable.

By adding textures, piano, acoustic guitars, and restraint, and losing some of the scowling and savagery, BSP have unleashed a truly unique pop creation, one with depth and feeling.

The Books have toned down the weird, smoothed down the edges, and created their most homogenous record yet. Lucky for us, the homogenous version of The Books is still probably ten times more interesting than your favorite band at their most creative.

If there’s a single quality that ties these songs together, it’s consistency of scope and sound.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the kind of music Hot Hot Heat makes. Nevertheless, bands have done it better.

On On My Way To Absence Jurado provides far more satisfying moments than dubious ones, and that’s no small feat when trafficking in the kind of bottom of the barrel human emotion that Jurado has made his trademark.

Although this LP is sequenced into tiny fragments of varying speeds of mood, the LP feels like one super-caffeine express fairground ride.

If this is your first experience of the band, you might still find it fresh, but personally I’m beginning to feel radicalism fatigue.