The result is in some ways immensely pleasing (at its best the quality here is easily the equal of the songs from the proper album), but at seventeen songs and a full hour in length Oh You're So Silent Jens suffers a bit, predictably, from too much of a good thing.

For longtime fans, there’s little reason not to buy this. For newcomers, Peel Sessions might not be a logical starting point, but you’ll still walk away understanding why Galaxie 500 are still revered.

Less sparse than open, the songs resist the build-and-release structure that most other Montreal acts utilize, and they also refuse to ride a groove or play with distracting orchestration.

Summer succeeds largely because it forces Oldham’s songs into unfamiliar positions.

Easily her finest effort since Ray of Light.

Kicking Television is consistent, professional, and unapologetically inclusive. It’s also a uniformly strong testament from one of rock’s most endearing acts, capable of producing both heady noise jams and shameless lighter-wavers.

A complete album of epic scale, musical significance and a highly prescient lesson in listening, participating and challenging.

Aerial isn’t perfect, but it is magnificent.

He sounds ragged, out of tune in places. He simply doesn't sing as well as he used to.

Suitcase 2 does exactly what it sets out to do, documenting the incredible breadth of Bob Pollard’s songwriting.

The difference... between For the Season and Gris Gris’s debut album is that the detours are less frequent and less distracting.

Although Punk summarizes Fatlip's traumatic post-Pharcyde life, the record is buoyant with character.

Even with Kozelek's laudable work on this outing I feel that something more robust could have emerged had the roots been original.

A set of saccharine sweet songs which occasionally dissolve spectacularly in a haze of whirring electronic mist.

He’s a post-techno indie geek making clattering, dead-end grooves with clumsy-but-endearing melodies splattered over the top like oil stains pressed in symmetrical folds of paper to make a Rorschach pattern that just happens to be a song.

Vulcanized basslines, ice-burn synth washes, and helium-fused guitar lines again serve as his trademarks, and Nguyen has yet to shed his reliance on preset dub-lines to offset his lumpen beats. He may seem a bit more comfortable with English, but his lyrics have waned with his accent.

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.

Admittedly, though it’s clunky and overwrought, the real problem isn’t that the story is tedious or that Olga’s voice is awful--it’s actually weirdly thrilling--it’s that the album simply doesn’t feel as well executed as the premise promises.

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.

Feels is a near-stunning album a notable amount of the time.

This record contains some of the most astounding music that Boards Of Canada have ever composed.

Every moment screams to be played a little bit louder and a little bit longer; because Playing the Angel is just that good.

The compressed, cleaned-up ferocity of Hypermagic Mountain is a leap of refinement in every way, a sign that the band, while lushly unripe, is ripening gracefully.

Musically, he’s ditched the clean, plainly instrumented indie-country schlep of his previous efforts for something brassy, something downright soulful.

This is a very good record. I personally dare the “ASHLEE SUX” folks reading this to give it a reasonably objective spin.

As long as Wonder is producing and laying down basic arrangements himself, he’ll never be awful, which is a shame: like any lifelong charmer, he can stand to be more vulgar, or show some teeth, damn it.

Cale faces a problem that neither recent Tom Waits nor Leonard Cohen have overcome: he can't sing anymore.

The restraint the whole band shows, on this, their most finished and instantly effective album, becomes something more than respectable: the Clientele’s commitment to their own sound has crystallized into something almost wonderful.