Talk Normal invoke the bare and abstract, not the fully rendered or figured, and it feels like they are making not only the kind of music we never thought we'd be missing out on, but also the kind that would be hard to live without.

Magnetite is not wholly arrhythmic, but its rhythms are sparse. They enter, and as soon as they develop to recognition (slow gong sounds, for instance, are common), Vainio destroys them with either unrecognizable noise or silence.

It's the fact that the album emerges from these lacunae, between mainstream electro-pop and DIY indie, between declaration and uncertainty, between contemporary knowingness and a complete lack of irony, that imparts its own imperfect je ne sais quoi--and, paradoxically, the hooks don't hurt.

An exhilarating listen.

On GEM, the power of Megan Remy's hooks is almost dangerous, to the point of threatening to overwhelm entire songs. It's where she attends to the muscle of her work that GEM invites deeper listening.

Rather than referring to primal transgressions, however, Cowgill refers to the performative transgressions of earlier musicians. There is nothing wrong with this approach, and yet there is something about King Dude's particular gloss on neofolk that I find naggingly inauthentic.

Tragicomedies isn't terrible, but its significance hinges on two established and already surpassed mediums.

A memorable, impermanent joy, it restores, rather than disturbs, the equilibrium--a feat of engineering in the service of artistry.

Sound-wise, the album is gorgeous and perfectly placed, natch. Although I've spent so much space and breath on the thematic qualities of Long Slow Dance, the actual sounds might be the strongest force of the album.

The sound design of the album is conventionally breathtaking.

Tender New Signs does not manifest the insistent post-punk rhythms of the Led Astray Washed Ashore EP (2011), but it's not a huge departure from 2010 debut The Waves, though its sound is less chiming and more grinding (in a good way), the ethereality present only in vocals rather than in general suffusion, the darkness lingering at the edges palpable where before it was merely hinted at.

This sumptuous sonic depth exceeds that of a live band, but still feels like something The Luyas will pull off live without a hitch. Evocative and avoiding narrative, brooding but warm to the touch, you'll feel compelled to return to these songs without actually learning the mechanics of their nature.

Unknown Rooms is entirely built on pure rests and negative space, the nerve-racking space of silence. Everything on the album sounds and feels distant, as if the sounds are emanating from the other end of a dark eternal hallway.

By the artist's own admission, Hallelujah! is an album that comes with an "expiration date," but the themes of civil disunity and political gamesmanship are likely to resonate with us long after the election results are settled, and Lucas' mixture of mordant wit and in-your-face rock will make this a record worth revisiting.

This is techno at its most individuated, the drama of small, melodic transitions between layers of simple, emotive phrases sought in weirdsigged box jams.

Sagittarian Domain is a noble quasi-failure, an enjoyable and driven jam that, despite its reliance on certain tired tropes of its obvious Krautrock influences, nevertheless succeeds when it focuses its exploration on texture.

There is plenty here to suggest Lamar has a long career ahead of him. But the album nevertheless falls short of the pedigree his storied elders have set for him, and its status as an all-time classic is far from guaranteed. For the most part, though, good kid is solid.

Local Business is an uneven record in comparison to the two that preceded it, owing to a slight loss of momentum in its back third, but the material that shines does so with an effulgent intensity that's become par for the course with this group.

Darnielle [is] a songwriter still worth paying attention to.

An album that is, at best, a dilution of the real experience it's trying to capture.

As Moon Duo have become sunnier and rockier - a trend evident on 2011's Mazes and continuing on Circles - their vision seems less distinctively their own.

I haven't heard, read, or seen anything that portrays or recalls the state [Montana] as beautifully as Dept. of Disappearance.

At the end of the album, no stone on the topic of love and disillusionment feels unturned. Such is the strange comfort of blanket statements, but Lekman's fans may still feel the pea-like irritant of stories lanky and untold.

All We Love We Leave Behind entices kinetic release in every possible way, irrational and otherwise, allowing unchecked ventilation as means for escape through a medium that has never sounded so engaging.

Throughout its brisk playtime, Overgrown Path evinces an airy touch with transitions, a knack for phrasing (the pauses and extra beats always find their right place), and an invidiously deft hand for crafting verses equal to their choruses.

Oblivion Hunter recaptures missing pieces of the Lightning Bolt jigsaw and reconfigures them in a new context, painting a broader picture of the band's roots while giving us the sense that it might not be a singular instance of "lost" material being pulled back from the edge of eternity.

Twins shows Segall in greater command of his craft. Whereas the songs on Goodbye Bread and the previous (and spectacular) Slaughterhouse would gradually fall out of control, here the dissipation feels deliberate, as if Segall were trying to drive the songs to their deaths.

It's in songcraft that Black Marble shine (though that's not to give the expectation of overt hookiness, which would miss the point, moodwise).

In its more spacious moments, Look A Little Closer recalls the best Talk Talk in the way that their tight grooves serve to (almost) order and contain the ambient chaos and arrhythmic percussion in the gaps.

The Dropouts tend to the same dynamics and tones, and even at 30 minutes, it gets a bit tedious.

Another solid release.

Until the Quiet Comes isn't bad, exactly. It's just definitely not good either.

It's a stand-up, spaced-out entry in the already formidable footwork scene.

There is a currentless drift to these nine doggypaddlers, what with the sloppy rhythms, plain-as-dirt vocals, and obligatory wah solos - but it's all so satisfying in its way.

While End of Daze features some of Dum Dum Girls' more sophisticated songwriting to date, there is an overwhelming shadow of certainty and safety that is cast over the EP, preventing it from being a truly singular musical experience.

Foster is a surprisingly competent and natural songwriter; freed from the constraints of tonal faithfulness owed to giants of poetry like Dickinson, Foster is able to draw from disparate genres to play with whatever form she's interested in from song to song.

Beams, like Asa Breed, is front-loaded with the atmospheres and vocal manipulations that are bedrock to his best work. But Beams fails to evince the kind of songwriting growth that the vocal minority of his fans have been waiting for.

In the moment of listening itself, the lo-fi complexities, interactions, and repetitions create a revelation

Their most concise yet dense and appealing album since their first non-album, Description Of The Harbor.

This new approach is graceful but weary, with mixed results throughout.

Cruel Summer is half a classic and half a concession to mediocre talents.

As much as Stephens desires for a naturalist/humanist authenticity found in the limits of the extremes of existence, The Bloom and the Blight achieves an equal subjectivity that Stephens searches for.

Thee Oh Sees construct a serious approach to a non-serious existence, placing value upon both craft and childishness.

The contemplative Mary's Voice may win over listeners who couldn't stomach the unrefined energy of The Music Tapes' older work, with artistic integrity intact.

Where xx was an album that got its hooks in you, Coexist becomes a somnolent atmosphere-in-itself, in which hooks are conspicuous by their absence. It all works best when the tempo rises (relatively speaking), as on "Tides" and "Swept Away;" still, the pulse races placidly.

I admire the boldness of the album's sequencing more than I admire any of its individual tracks.

Tempest's epic scale and grandeur makes his few previous albums look like short stories leading up to a great novel.

Held is as sputtering as it is spartan, and as such the perfect tome to the eternal wretchedness that surrounds human need.

Nothing is excitingly radical nor is anything unpolished or poorly composed.

There are no weak tracks on Breakup Song, and the album unfolds at a natural pace. Just short enough to resist sagging at the middle, it also ends with a quartet of songs that are more radio-friendly than anything the band has ever done.

Its songs are mostly amalgams of tired pop music tropes/techniques and trite realizations

Centipede Hz feels celebratory.

This is a solid set of space rock that will melt plenty of faces, even though it doesn't seek nirvana in Six Organs of Admittance's usual ways.

Mature Themes lives up to what's promised on the tin, but only relatively so.

While Nothing Bad has great, well-written, dynamic pop songs, the album suffers from length.

Maybe we're supposed to love this album because it's the musical equivalent of a KFC Double-Down, filled with fancy co-stars and production, deep-fried, and devoid of any intellectual or nutritional value.

The Seer delivers on its promise. It's an exhausting and maddening document, but one can't help but emerge from it filled with a renewed radiance.

Through his exuberant, alien compositions, Deacon seeks to manifest for us the wild places of his country, the barren plains and arid deserts, and in the process, reminds us that they are things worth preserving.

The digital readymades provoke an interesting set of concepts and questions, which is good, but results in an album in which a majority of the heavy lifting is performed by the extra-textual aspects of the project, providing undeserved depth to a series of obsessive repetitions of the banal.

Tracer glimmers with the CD-ROM gleam of early-90s intelligent techno.

Yeasayer soar with sublime choruses that are everything that pop has been trying to realize: high-art dionysian bliss contained in three- to four-minute bursts.

[Bring Me The Head...] is the perfect accomplice to the contorted bliss of a seductive daydream.

TRST is a f**king great dance record. While it is so much more than this as well, considering the negative connotations "dance" can have within much music discourse, it's initially, at least, the album's most notable appeal.

The LP plays at depth and synthesis while making do with simply reproducing indie electro-pop tropes.

Hardly a return to form, Researching The Blues (complete with the burp at the end of "One of the Good Ones") is nevertheless a document of a band having a good time doing what they love. When the hooks are this strong, it's hard not to have a good time with them.

Intermezzo displays Bishop in top form, and if this is an interlude, the next act should be spectacular.

The compositions here are rich, complex, and moving, and they consistently bring out the best in their (very talented) collaborators.

What Shackleton has done with this mammoth album is create a full-bodied, visceral experience that meditates on the nature of the essence of a sound in a time and the space of time in which it appears, and the narration only presents the voice as the confrontation with time.

From the simplicity in songs like "Lightning Thunderbolt" to the momentary pause before the tempo jump of "The Rule of the Game," the lyrical content of the album depends on the musicality, which itself attests for the album's strongest moments.

What is perhaps this record's greatest strength: Baroness has crafted an epic collection of heavy music with two distinct spheres: the hard-hitting paranoia of Yellow, and the more organic, earthiness of Green.

Mysterious Phonk feels extremely private in ways that are powerful but not entirely sorted out yet. Purrp finds numerous occasions to talk about smiling in the face of a cold world, but even a facetious smirk never really cracks, and the world is cold in only the most brightly-lit, fantastical, and dystopic ways.

Ocean's work is almost as good as those he references; his lyrics are almost uniformly terrific, sensual, specific, and unpredictable.

Earth's greatest strength is also its structural weakness; to continually enact the tremulousness of all origins is to refuse to get going, to depart

While acting more like a well-constructed argument than a manifesto, Unsound shows that you can still fight into the later years.

Aesop has tremendous control for a syllable-stuffer; he's Kweli with restraint, knowing when to rein in the racehorse flow and slow down for emphasis, never loosening his grip long enough to stumble over the vigorous drum-driven beats, which - to the benefit of Aesop's gruff narration - are simple and unobtrusive and angry and allow whatever he's talking about at the moment ... to sound not only compelling, but also hard.

Simply put, the music on Swing Lo can't support its great ideas. To quote Dylan, "a song is anything that can walk by itself." Maybe time will prove me completely and utterly wrong, but as far as I can tell, nothing on Swing Lo walks by itself.

Pretty okay.... The lyrics, typical alpha-male self-pity material, aren't all that bad, really, but they're often curdled by the delivery.

Marion's guitar and synth bedroom pop project continues to be immediately enjoyable, simply because he never seems to be reaching for something that's outside of his grasp.

Hope in Dirt City presents some of Pemberton's most complex material to date. Most of the songs still bear the characteristically breakneck rhythms that garnered a nod from the Polaris Music Prize committee back in 2006, but unlike Breaking Kayfabe and Afterparty Babies, this album is swathed with layers of full-bodied instrumentation.

I Love You, It's Cool is an indication of the band's ability to actually live up to the hype and promises that have previously, sometimes carelessly, been thrown their way.

Dry Land Is Not a Myth fails for two reasons that could have been easily corrected: (1) rock albums, especially rock albums purporting to be "psychotropic," should never be produced by artists whose primary working medium is the remix, and (2) Church's weird, pinched vocal delivery, which the editor remedies with a variety of fixes characteristic of overproduced music (see point 1).

Whether sublime or quizzical, the work of David Daniell, Doug McCombs, and their like-minded collaborators has resulted in a pair of fascinating albums.

Attractive Sin ultimately suffers from a lack of humor and humility (namely, pride).

Blues Control are one of the most intriguingly unclassifiable outfits in contemporary music, putting forth music that is clear and refined while also being absolutely incomparable.

Under the Pale Moon carries an enormous amount of emotional and existential weight, yet it doesn't sound like the process of acting on impulses. If anything, it exhibits the fine essence of song craft, containing each song's individual mood against different echoes of similar themes in songs both before and after.

There's no such thing as universal appeal, but The Idler Wheel, despite its brittle sound and frequent fury, is galactic, at the very least.

Gira and company have put a lot of care into this project, crafting a beautifully-recorded, exquisitely-packaged set that stands as the obvious next best thing to actually seeing the band in the flesh.

There is something powerful about the chaos of these recordings: it evades critique in that, at its best moments, the instrument becomes a force of nature.

The album is consistently entertaining, but lacking in some of the really revelatory moments of his earlier records.

Evans has created a beguiling work born of an intensely solitary process, inviting sympathetic listeners to resonate with her private mystical revelations.

The satisfaction at being amongst those who make it through to the other side threatens to supplant the sonic satisfaction, but there's nothing artificial about it; if anything, it's flat-out welcoming.

It wipes away the dust and brings fresh ideas into the room.

It's hard to paint this as anything other than what it is: a professional-sounding album of radio-friendly pop. It's as bad as that sounds.

Lucifer - Latin for "morning light" or "light-bearer" - is an unabashedly blissed-out affair, composed of expansive dub grooves and enough good vibes to fill an entire summer.

This album is so soaked in self-pity that a track called "Madness" seems like a given. "Stone Froze Mascot" is a bad metaphor in and of itself - more self-pity, more of the same. Sound-wise, the album could use work, too.

Easy to dismiss, but possible to take seriously if so inclined.

With The Stoned Immaculate, Curren$y has successfully touched down in the land of commercial weed rap with a solid set of downtempo tunes that have everything they need to be successful: rich soundscapes, witty brags, hummable hooks. It just needs a stronger presence from the Jet-Life juggernaut himself.