While the drop in adrenaline has left room for some good ideas, they’re not fleshed out well enough, and with the lack of a single flat-out rocker, there’s nothing to get excited or exhilarated over.

One of 2005’s most thudding disappointments.

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.

They've lost two members... so perhaps that explains some of the more aggressive focus and minimalist arrangement, but not the surprise-around-every-corner freedom they find within their self-imposed stricture.

This is not a ‘return to form’—how could it ever be? A band of this age have some many peaks and troughs in form as to render that kind of phraseology practically meaningless. Just as Porcupine should, just as Ocean Rain should, Siberia too should be taken in isolation.

Certified may be a cinematic holding pattern but it’s a holding pattern in a place--both geographically and artistically--that we can’t hear enough of.

[An] extraordinarily unassuming, gorgeous release.

This new sense of excursion comes with its costs, and like many of their predecessors, it robs this Toronto band’s tunefulness in the name of unnecessary experimentation.

It’s the collage of styles that distinguishes this album: Cuban and Indian flourishes, Eisenhower-era doo-wop, the smoky Stax groove, bucolic British trad-folk, the eccentricities of American folk, of both the Dust Bowl troubadours and the Vietnam flower-children.

This is indie in the most traditional sense.

Noah’s Ark proves, again, that the Casady sisters are perhaps at the forefront of the overlabored ‘freak-folk’ scene.

In The Reins is intelligent but natural, different but not queer.

Pales in comparison to its predecessor.

Never in his career has McCartney seemed more serious in tone and more aware of the play of his lyrics as poetry.

A solid, atmospheric, singer-songwriter record.

I always felt as if those moments of triumph in the band’s music were the focal points, the “good stuff” you waited for and wanted to arrive and then stay forever. This time around though, they appear to have taken a backseat to the band’s darker impulses, and staggeringly, Takk sounds all the better for it.

Stellastarr* pushes its new grasp of tension and release, and the album shows their increased sense of cohesion.

Love Kraft is taken down by sludgy pacing and a paucity of ideas.

The Double has a high ambition of making outré textures pop, but their obliqueness can walk a fine line between compelling and evasively wussy.

For a high-minded piece of process, one that rests on the old trope that the good stuff is always bad for you--or in this case, for the majority of the world--Herbert packs a lot of snap, crackle, and, particularly, pop.

It is arguable that Gold & Green is the link between Super AE and the Bores’ much feted neo-psych masterpiece, Vision Creation Newsun.

A diverse batch of songs that she brings together as a consistent set, showcasing Yearwood as not just a fine singer, but also a just-gets-better-and-better artist.

While their recorded output has still not quite caught up to their prowess as a live band, that moment is likely right around the corner; in the meantime, this album is more than good enough to make that wait worthwhile.

Broken Ear is limited and bogged down with its exacting and overriding sense of rhythm and lack of true sonic experimentation.

This is a quietly pulsing release, alive with simple pleasures and celebrating events like hanging out and running into people you know.

In its no-frills pleasures, A Bigger Bang recalls Some Girls and Emotional Rescue, two great meaningless albums.

It’s an easy and mostly enjoyable listen.

Oh No is, if anything, even better than their debut, which now feels like it was trying a bit too hard. Everything feels more natural this time, slightly less polished but still as forceful and hooky.