Nothing’s Lost is a more stately affair, flaunting van Petegum’s growth as a producer without losing his child-like talent for awkward emulation.

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.

Leaving Songs sounds a lot like a Tindersticks album, one that eschews their more baroque offerings for mature balladry.

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

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.

Pieces of the People We Love is a great funky dance record with guitars, and not much more. Luckily, it doesn’t need to be.

With “Crazy,” the duo hits its apex without really shrouding the rest of the album.

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.

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

Buckner’s interest here is in a wallowing mouthful of atmosphere—dominant drums, throbbing guitar, and a fair amount of piano. This has always been the case, but the compositions are seamlessly edited and cleanly brought from instrument to recording.

For Hero: For Fool is a complete work from artists working at the top of their game.

Idols is not quite “country” enough to tackle the road to the prairies, but the headspace of the album is clearly in a place with plenty of room to breathe.

There’s usually more than meets the ear about their aural illusions, and they’ve gotten more overt about sticking in some genuine pop missives into their lattices of clean guitars and metronomic drums.

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

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 mostly top-flight crudity, though admittedly the album’s intensity wanes over its second half.

Unlike its Fridmann-produced predecessor Dreamt For Light Years employs a stripped-down approach more akin to its debut.

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.

In Stormy Nights is by no means the first time Ghost have plugged in and upped the volume, but it is easily their most unhinged, aggressive record; they make a show of steamrolling their subtler instincts.

The Breakthrough is easily Blige’s finest full-length since ‘99’s Mary.

Even on the tracks with mediocre melodies and concepts, T.I. plugs away at the beat and never loses control of King.

No dispute: Usher, Beyonce, Christina, Britney were just keeping the seat warm: The King’s back on his throne.

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.

Sharp, intelligent, and (most importantly) highly enjoyable, Enemies Like This is probably the height of the group’s creative abilities.

“I am a writer, writer of fictions,” Meloy claims on “Engine Driver,” and that’s exactly what he does, but it’s what everyone else does too, the only real difference being Meloy hits the thesaurus and maritime literature a bit harder than most.

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

The Else is their best whole album since, because it’s also the most melodic.