She doesn’t attempt to emulate the pedantic attention to detail of Kevin Shields, largely avoiding the dreamlike wooziness of Loveless, but rather builds on the cathartic emotional impact that feedback and noise can lend to melancholic melodies.

Slideling eschews all of McCulloch's recognizable quirks and endearing pretensions, replacing them with slick generic “mature” songs and arrangements that make Coldplay sound adventurous.

Interesting, strong in places, but overlong and uneven.

Altogether, Ratatat is a great album, taking the sound Daft Punk constructed on Discovery and transforming it into a remarkably intricate, painstaking work of instrumental genius.

More than anything else, Past, Present and Future is a record that is important because it denotes progress and the promise of far greater things.

While their sounds are pleasant enough, where Lemon Jelly fall short most often is in their unimaginative arrangements.

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.

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.

The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living is an exercise in empty nothingness. But it’s not Bacchanalian coked-out excess nothingness, it's the joyless hollow-eyed actions of a man who is waiting for the next fix and doesn't care what bullshit has to come out of his lips in order to get paid.

All but a couple of tracks here are dipped in the melodramatically thick strings of the opener- and the sum result is that it’s almost too much to take the whole LP in one sitting.

There is a clear passion and enthusiasm in Grohl’s instrumentals and a potency and power in the performance of every singer.

The results are often wonderful.

The moments of "hey, that sounds a bit like ..." are few, but notable; and perhaps unavoidable with such a distinctive vocal presence. In any case, these are welcome echoes from the past, not a weary retracing of footsteps.

The question with Christ Illusion, as with any post-Seasons album, is simple: could these songs make it into Slayer's live set? The answer is yes, and more than the usual one or two.

Pink has fought the record companies for control of her career and won- and with the sage advice of producers and executives she has come out with one of the best pop albums of last year.

Power is one more entry into an increasingly strong catalogue of widely varied danceable punk rock and should do little to disappoint fans.

Purple Haze is such a twisted take on gangsta that it has to be heard to be believed.

Feathers can be at times hypnosis-inducing. The effect of this hypnosis is that many of the unique moments on the album feel like dream states you aren’t sure actually happened.

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.

Spirit If... may be the second-best record any of those associated with Broken Social Scene have issued--whether together, apart, or kind of both.

Ultimately, The Meanest of Times stumbles when the folksy frayed stitching is torn away, exposing nothing but atrophied punk muscle.

His music could be a good deal better than it is.

With no foil to Barat’s grumpiness and bitterness, it’s therefore difficult to see anyone getting nearly excited enough to love Dirty Pretty Things as much as many loved The Libertines.

I don’t like it. I don’t hate it. And that’s the truth exactly.

Man Mountain is a poor album. It feels forced (the worst kind of feel for this kind of music), it feels cheesy, and sadly it doesn’t conjure many more feelings beside ‘I think I know what they might have been going for with this…’ Unfortunately they never get there, and it’s a chore to hear them try.

The Evens’ self-titled debut does sound curiously like hardcoreless moments of The Argument polished and lengthened into full-fledged songs.

For something so obviously and deeply grounded in marketing, it’s still an outstandingly solid and enjoyable debut.

Just Like You shows and proves unquestionably that Cole’s capable of some seriously rich, powerful art.