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

Given the genre-splicing we witnessed on 10,000 Hz Legend, Talkie Walkie sometimes seems like white-bread Air, like a fractured spin-off of Moon Safari.

Hera Ma Nono improves on "Ok-Oyot System" in almost every way: the guitar sounds are more vibrant (padded with reverbs, phasers, and other bubbly what-have-you’s); the songs hang together better as a record; the slide between Swahili, English, and Luo is as effortless and colorful as good pidgin; and, most importantly, it usually gets at--or at least hints at--African music’s most cherished balance: unhurriedness with a pulse.

The main draw here is in Prodigy rediscovering his way with words.

Music fans of the world rejoice--Yo La Tengo can once again hear the heart beating as one.

Everything on Winds Take No Shape is done with such mechanic precision that there’s little room for any sparks to ignite this mythic fire.

Musically the record comes off as simply a rote (if spirited) rendition of the best records from Rainer Maria or 764-Hero, which certainly isn’t saying much.

BYOP’s debut cascades on itself. Its compulsive, one-sitting punk is delivered with absolute self-conviction.

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.

The explorations of Security aren’t exactly shattering, but they’re refreshing.

This is indie in the most traditional sense.

Get Lonely doesn’t have the full force of any albums in the Mountain Goats catalog.

Apropa’t’s biggest flaw could be the use of Eva Puyuelo Muns’ vocals. Perhaps I’m accustomed primarily to Herren’s music as instrumental, but the use of Eva feels painfully forced at times.

The music is still missing one crucial element—hooks. There really aren’t any of which to speak, and no amount of production skill and instrumental finesse is able to mask that.

While it's admirable that The Secret Machines are trying to solidify their niche as the go-to guys for soundtracking laser light shows (or at least My Morning Jacket for indoor kids), Ten Silver Drops is a sideways moonwalk that won't get them any further away from the planetarium circuit.

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

Axis is an easygoing, engaging listen, an album whose relative triviality easily forgives its flaws.

Whereas the somewhat timid and searching De-Loused in the Comatorium was all about surprising audience, critic, and probably the band itself, Frances the Mute is a self-assured organic animal that should come as no surprise to anyone.

All of their typical sentiments are there, but where their prior releases used spacey interludes and bridges as a recess from the hopelessness, the group employs these moments more sparingly.

Fundamental offers pleasure as rewarding as The Magic Mountain or Glenlivet 18--indulgences best enjoyed as you approach the half-century mark, when your imagination is keen to leisured elongations of familiar tropes or newly appreciative of exotic sumptuousness.

The entropic quality of the ‘yellow’ Pole has undergone a ‘rehab’ of sorts, resulting in a cleaner and reinvigorated sound.

Music that’s easier to admire than love.

So when you see Infinity On High getting praised, don’t bother scoffing. This deserves to get praised. There's a lot on here that's great and pretty much nothing that's bad.

Good Arrows is still a series of beautiful songs for that part of us all that just wants to stay in bed all day.

Of the album’s 13 tracks, not one feels like filler.

Its utter lack of anything approaching strong feeling relegates it to the realm of indie-flavored muzak.

The rest of More Adventurous is mostly what you would have expected from Rilo Kiley before the album's bracing beginning, only now it carries the stench of promise unfulfilled.

Ce is Caetano Veloso's 40th album—and the first in many years to make the hairs on the back of one's neck stand up.