Smith seems to struggle with whether he wants to write emotional pop songs or dark experimental soundscapes, but the push and pull between the two sentiments is ultimately gorgeous.

All in all, not bad for the inevitably disappointing follow-up to the greatest rap disc ever made.

Though the Random Axe effort is relatively high-profile, these three conjure one another's grimiest gusto.

Almost dreamlike in his flow, Thundercat totes us along by way of his agile bass-neck work, sly Rhodes riffs, and vocals that sound filtered through daisies and sunshine.

The songs justify further replay and analysis just because the group knows how to deliver consistently smart, compelling imagery.

The lyrics resonate hard, though, felt most strongly when Rønnenfelt sings with broad expressive shouts.

Praise & Blame casts away the extraneous baggage that has weighed down many of Jones's previous recordings and puts the focus squarely on the voice.

Transference, the Austin band's seventh full-length, will serve as another whittling down of the singular aesthetic that has made them one of the most engaging American bands of the past decade.

At its core, Earthly Delights is the sound of a band digging in so deep, they’ve struck something molten.

Segall spent six months writing and recording Goodbye - his longest investment in a record yet. The time spent soaking in the classics has paid off.

Always ambitious, occasionally experimental, and sometimes even radio-friendly.

It's an effortless move to help firm up No Age's place as one of the most bi-polar party bands around.

White Chalk is more chamber music, and a dark chamber at that. The only flickers of light come from Harvey’s voice: high, airy, and imperiled as she weaves her echo-coated and darkly soulful spell till the story’s bleak finale.

It’s Dulli sounding like Dulli at his best. And Lanegan delivers some of his more devastating vocal performances.

Although it doesn’t attain the career-defining cumulative power of 2005's "Gypsy Punks," it's a broader, more intricate disc.

The dreamwave immersion and haunting power of Hunter's vocals invite comparisons to fellow Baltimore mood-wizards Beach House, but whereas Teen Dream aimed for beauty even at its darkest, Lower Dens keeps things weird.

Throw It to the Universe, number six on the docket by the sextet, keeps pace with past efforts despite dragging at times.

Although Citrus allures with its dizzying waves of sound and airy melodies, the band never let those elements become tangential or spiral off into cul-de-sacs of pointless theatrics.

If there are a few dull moments, that’s all part of recording an album that functions like one extended, magnificent achievement of a song.

It’s as warm and melodic as the Soft Boys’ Nextdoorland was brittle and jagged.

As dense and diggable as it may be, however, its sheer quantity of intel and change-ups can be euphorically overwhelming.

Silver Age is the best album Mould has released since his days in Sugar.

Under the Skin’s tenderly whispered ruminations... are gripping little creations, full of weird acoustic-guitar riffs and uncomfortably intimate vocals and open revelations about the anxiety he feels in trying to reassert his creative identity at this late date.

It's all well and good, but this experiment works best when Ditto showcases her snarly pipes, as on the break-up-themed cruncher "Open Heart Surgery." Otherwise, she's just awash in layers of electronica that dilute her Southern bite.

Throw on those headphones and head heavenward.

Somehow, though, they forgot the crucial dollop of excitement or charisma, so we're left with an earful of directionless heartbreak and failure.

The King of Limbs, a breezy exploration of the depths of subliminal glitch-folk, is this band's admission that the labyrinth of post–OK Computer zigs and zags they've led their audience through may never again lead to an arena-rock goldmine.

If the lyrics weren’t so surreal, you could imagine yourself dining with George and Tammy before a Grand Ole Opry performance.

The title cut is the best of the lot, an anthem about the beautiful chaos of family life where wine is sipped from a jelly jar and “peanut butter is everywhere.”

It's a bummer that Visions ended up as a fever dream of a record: unnecessarily oblique, listlessly long (48 minutes!), and painfully shapeless.

Ascent is stuffed with psychedelic guitar virtuosity, moments where Chasny leaves this plane and enters one of those transcendental, mind-freaked, head-tipped-back, eyelid-fluttering states that few are capable of.

Humor, melody, and weirdness rule, and that makes Ceramic Dog lighter than both Ribot’s Los Cubanos Postizos Afro-Cuban band and his aggro-noise outfit Shrek.

When Longstreth uses his newfound focus to shake up his methods... the results are often startling.

The template holds.

Rising Down is a grim mirror of a particular time and place, one that will still be worth the look when (if?) things get better somewhere down the line.

There is no mistaking, Parade is Keene at his best.

Suffice to say that with all its slowly blooming beauty, alluring aberrations, and deftly measured brute force, the closest analogue to what Fennesz has done on Black Sea seems to be nature itself.

Although his latest is less personal, it has a similarly broad emotional scope and a warm sonic palette far from the house-rocking R&B that’s the foundation of his four-decade career.

Even at Tesfaye's most awkward, it's impossible not to be intoxicated.

But as a musical concern, the Conchords can’t hold a candle to [Tenacious] D, a shortcoming that’s much more apparent on this homonymous CD than it is on TV.

A merger made in musical heaven.

Blending in traditional strings and flutes, singular soulful vocals, trenchant dub pockets, and inventive production flourishes, this is the most powerful contemporary release out of Ethiopia in years.

So many wonderful things happen on Lenses Alien that you can't possibly remember them all. The only solution, of course, is to listen again.

Travels with Myself and Another doesn't quite live up to the band's first studio album, 2007's "Curses," but it reaches the same boorishly absurd heights on the spastic 'Drink Nike' and on 'Stand by Your Manatee,' a catchy freakout about the "shame" of using plastic silverware.

Son exudes the studied calm of a laboratory technician engaged in heavy-duty experimentation.

What makes this inspirational lyrical gimmick work is the quality of the songs and the sure-footedness of Mottet's approach to sound, a not-so-distant European relative of the Elephant 6 palette.

The smooth shape of this album - there's no rising or falling action - and lack of a big concept won't replace 2005's Black Sheep Boy for diehard fans, just as the superior The Stand-Ins didn't in 2008. But Elvis Costello fans should holler.

More than just a slack reunion, the album marks another turning point in a band who may yet wind up describing a circle.

You can’t ask for much more from a sophomore album.

It's a grower--don't go in without some time to invest, or the desire to listen multiple times and peel apart these lavishly constructed layers.

His philosophizing is rarely twee, and his fine-oaked voice gives new authority to his pastis-and-mushroom-fueled musings.

the Waits of Glitter and Doom Live values theatricality as much as storytelling. As on his previous live album, 1988’s "Big Time," Waits often borders on playfulness.

At a certain point, the xx need to turn off that reverb pedal and learn to sing above a whisper - but I'll be damned if they haven't worked their magic again.

Ejstes seems more concerned with texture and feel than with hooks. Translation: it all sounds better once you’re stoned.

The reason Father, Son, Holy Ghost is so uniquely, imperfectly swell is because the band plainly give fuck-all about convention or stylistic uniformity.

Whereas their 2006 disc, "Moonlighting," was across-the-board impressive but a tad monotonous, their latest hinges on memorable and unpredictable style jumps.

The Scottish outfit have delivered again with jangly pop full of skittering guitars, self-flagellating lyricism, and whimsy under a pall of darkness that no amount of the big spotlight can dispel.

There might be something deeper rolling around here than "There's nothing that will change me/There's nothing sure as shit" ("Bring the Fight"). Probably not, but if you want to bang your head, this will do the trick.

The melange of old sonic idioms doesn't say anything remarkable about their sources or feel particularly original. White Denim sound ready to craft a groundbreaking record--D just isn't it.

Exploding Head is less an interpretation of a forgotten sound than a restoration of an abandoned mission. Even if you've heard it all before, you certainly haven't heard the end of it.

Middle Cyclone is her most fearless and arresting record, ruthlessly composed and beautifully recorded.

These numbers are soaked in a disorienting futurist nostalgia that epitomizes Trans Am’s ironic humor and their ability to transform leaden clichés into gold.

Every so often a bright, nerdy, nasal-voiced and infallibly catchy male songwriter appears to less critical notice than he deserves for his remarkably concrete lyrics and thoughtful melodies.

For the most part, Velociraptor! is a stellar representation of K-sabes magnificence and dexterity.

National Ransom isn't the midlife masterpiece that obsessives have been pining for, but its finer points are worth seeking out, in all their sepia-tinted glory.

Even though damn near every third song sounds designed to sell overpriced sweaters at the Gap, the nectar at the heart of this album is worth the roughage you have to chew through to get there.

The warmth and the easy familiarity enable The Trials of Van Occupanther to stand on its own.

Sublime production quality and danceability aside, this mix scores as a chronicle of American pop music that elicits a dual layer of nostalgia: the first for the sampled songs themselves, the second for the thrill of the novelty of early mash-ups.

There are synths that buzz, synths that whiz, synths that glow in the dark--the luxurious texture may put you in an electro-psych trance. But Young Galaxy are greedy. Not satisfied with being masters of atmosphere, they also aim for hooks--most of which are not sticky enough to jolt you back to the waking world.

Huismans has always fought the good fight in his attempt to fuse dubstep with comparably hard-nosed genres of electronic music, and Fever is his most fully realized effort yet.

Ironically, this patchwork of 12-inch singles is Kieran Hebden's most delectable album-as-album.

Any of these songs would have been a charttopper in the day. Should be now, too, but that’s another story.

The Eternal is a fun, superficial tangent, disappointing in its regressiveness but enjoyable as long you don't examine it too closely.

They’ve gotten good at re-creating in the studio the sound of a dingy rock venue in full throb.

Every song, no matter how familiar, is transformed by one detail or another.

The album is full of this kind of mish-mash, but it never feels forced or too clever. In fact, it's the apparent lack of thought that makes the whole thing work.

Mostly, though, I Will Be is a flawlessly light album that floats to the top of a lo-fi pond overcrowded with sinking debris.

Fuller than usual of slow songs and piano ballads, One Life Stand is their mellowest, most thoughtful effort so far — which means it carries the risk of also being their most boring. (Contrast is one of their secret weapons, though it didn't seem like such a big deal until now.) But keep listening: slow to reveal, its charm is just as slow to fade.

The dry vocal mix leaves her somewhat narrow range exposed. It adds up to an unsatisfying whole.

He'd be proud of what his little girl's done with that sheet of paper.

Gloss Drop is another infectious, drug-induced carousel ride in which electric guitars sound like short-circuiting circus organs and drums punch through the mix like atom bombs--but there's a distinctly multi-cultural vibe here.

Produced by the late Jerry Finn, the album is a slice of American rock radio, polished, compressed, and routinely combustible.

Danilova has crafted perhaps the year's most emphatically romantic record--defiant, loyal, indomitable.

You still get an album's worth of pristine, beautifully constructed songs that enhance Yo La Tengo's literate reputation.

So what subgenre tag is appropriate now? Is this discogaze? Funkwave? Only time will tell.

The fuzzy guitars start to blend together as the album progresses — the point, perhaps, but Black Mountain do well to break up the repetition with 'Stay Free,' an acoustic, falsetto ballad, and 'Queens Will Play.'

This is DiFranco’s most sophisticated album, a musical convergence of her best qualities: warm singing, graceful writing, experimentation.

Although it packs 20 songs into nearly 70 minutes, Field Music (Measure) feels remarkably concise and well-plotted — a series of harmony-rich guitar-pop ditties and resonant motifs that are covertly part of a larger package.

Meric Long, vocalist/guitarist for San Francisco duo the Dodos, makes a lot of broad statements on the band's fourth studio album. Fortunately, the music fills in the blanks.

Hecker's sonics are huge and unrepentant, but they tease the ear; individual sounds are highlighted by their sustained revision.

Unlike liars, fakers, and bullshit artists, he backs up his name and claim with anecdotal gems aplenty.

Any initial quaintness complexifies into something richer, more layered.

As Real Estate grinds on, it settles into a monotony of its own, until you can hardly distinguish one hazy nod-off jam from another.

Whether telegraphing heartbreak, world-weariness, or menacing intent (the latter especially on the Psycho-meets-Bad-Seeds nightmare of "Sooner or Later"), Badwan and Zeffira excel at heightening their musical senses simultaneously to the graces of the Heavens and the billowy depths of Hades.

These tricks crop up throughout the album--sly moves familiar to house fans are retrofitted to a pop framework, and the result is an entirely new (and very livable) structure

The lyrical immediacy and intimacy lift Black City leagues above much of the disassociated drivel that's labeled vocal house.

Bringing in Nevermind producer Butch Vig risked dangerous nostalgia, but his analog recording gives a fresh, warm feel to the proceedings.

Stripped down to a bare, live-band essence, and with the old-school touch of Roth/Daptone, Antibalas go places by simply playing it safe.