A subtle improvement on the band’s debut.

As eccentric as it is beautiful.

What really makes Wincing the Night Away succeed is how the Shins’ moneymaker templates evolve into more complex tapestries. In a manner similar to the New Pornos, the third album becomes the most successful due to an implied heft that comes from a concerted effort to sound like a band rather than a singer-songwriter vehicle.

That vocal in 'The Kill Tone Two' is unfortunate, because the rest of the album approaches some spectacular peaks.

An endlessly enjoyable sophisticated pop album.

Musically, at least, it’s the most accomplished thing he’s ever done.

A complacent, inoffensive set of songs that belie the talent and vision of their creators.

A long, exhausting listen, Strawberry Jam will occasionally satiate fans hungry for the band’s strange brilliance.

It’s hard not to notice that the best songs on Fourteen Autumns were already featured on last year’s EP.

A full realization of a band at the top of their game, filled with intricate guitar pop of the highest order.

This is the type of album impressionable teenagers fall in love with, crammed with melody and variety and thrill.

A record of flippant, tossed-off, uninspired, only sporadically involving chamber pop that feels, dare I say, half-hearted.

Easily the most satisfying album of his decade-plus solo career, Illumination marks the first time in ages that Weller has sounded at ease in his own skin: mellow, upbeat, yet aggressive and gritty in all the right places.

Stoltz's musicianship and songwriting are engaging and technically inspired while remaining loose and comfortable. It's just there are too many obvious references.

It’s not about reinterpretations of songs or giving the fans something to listen to until the next record comes out. It’s a definitive marker, a turning point for one of our finest songwriters.

Because of the Times validates the theory that the Kings of Leon are merely the Eagles in wolf’s clothing (or the Strokes in overalls), being that the album’s collection of tales, focusing solely on hard-living and harder women, are but hokey pulp fictions disguised with mellowed sincerity, played out on mythical dirt roads and overgrown farmhouses.

Supper is a fine accomplishment, a record of sad grace and folky simplicity that outdoes its predecessors and hints at a very worthwhile future.

This is a dismal failure.

While Psapp clearly echoes its precursors in myriad ways, its sound is ultimately unique and its album far more accomplished than the conventional debut.

Pick a Bigger Weapon would’ve made a truly killer party album, but two factors hold it back--no one cares about Riley’s politics, and he’s not nearly as clever as he thinks.

Van Pelt teases enough sonic frontiers and has enough madcap charisma to mildly triumph where others would have failed.

Sure, there are flashes of undeniable brilliance, but most certainly not the full wattage of the awakening sun as advertised--far from the record Chasny's capable of making.

Every song is a savage burst of raw anger, taking Pink Flag’s sarcastic punk and updating it for the new millennium with cleaner production and even more minimalist arrangements.

Quite simply, Sunshine Hits Me is fantastic.

One of those singular albums that is so richly dense, so unabashedly whimsical and so damned polished.

It’s almost as good as ['Hearts & Bones'], and likely to be as undervalued, but don’t worry: give it 20 years and its cadenced ruminations and instantly dated production will get some love from the usual suspects.

That’s why there’s no cacophony and very little white noise: the finished product is essentially of a common mind.

The musical missteps wouldn’t be so bad if Broder’s voice didn’t often betray him.