There is a crisp richness to the sound, best appreciated on a decent system, which is redolent of the orchestral pop of the 60s, bringing out also the best of Gold Leaves' folk influences (as The Velvet Underground taught us so well, an aptly placed tambourine shake is a wondrous thing).

If we're ripe for an introduction of post-grunge sounds into the retro mélange - and given that the moment in question is now 15 years ago, no doubt we are - then we have here one among the early contenders.

There are thus a number of quite diverse stylistic influences at work, but here they are all fused together into a whole that is both natural and low-key.

As ever, the music of Rob Mazurek has numerous layers to confront, peel away, and embrace.

It's a subtle album about an unexpected range life, full of slow talk and afterglows, the work of a confident and comforting craftsman. If this is what it means to grow old with Stephen Malkmus, faults and all, then bring it on.

Too often, Program 91 is a controlled explosion, hemmed in by a fangirlish conservatism. When it all clicks--as it does with "Above All" and a handful of other tracks--this is spiky twee pop in a black-and-white cardigan of glory.

NewVillager have the potential to expertly toe the line between unkempt ambition and childlike fascination, and bridge this unfortunately large gap between big ideas and big audiences in the process. They just aren't quite there yet.

It's very long and the songs don't really relate to one another, despite the band's description as "a subconscious concept album about the sorry state of rock n' roll." But Let It Beard certainly seems like a strong statement about something.

It isn't life music, unless you live in a camp permutation of Gold's Gym. The Air-like, Gary Numan-lite instrumentals popping up between the songs with hit potential are way lighter than air. I don't mind 'em, but also don't love 'em.

Drums Between The Bells is challenging and complex, but evocative, rewarding, and not altogether fragmentary, not even (or especially) when you bust up the long-playing order.

At heart, Watch the Throne is a Kanye West production. It's more of a holding pattern than the seismic leap of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, but WTT covers a ton of territory with aplomb; Kanye's hallmark versatility and tasteful maximalism as a producer are again in full view.

His strengths are all being restrained, but you can tell they're struggling to get free.

It's got more of an arc and sense of unspoken redemption than most contemporary albums that parade themselves as such. It's also one of those rare albums that starts out great and gets better over its 45-minute length.

As a representation of how it feels to find yourself helplessly adrift, The Rip Tide simultaneously strikes a nerve and soothes it; that's a pretty old trick, but Beirut have done it with the right mixture of solipsism and grace to bring the feelings flooding back again.

From a group as self-satisfied as Oneida, there is a pervasive feeling that, having completed such a grand statement, they will feel consummated and move on in accordance with whatever insatiable rock 'n' roll muse they have been following all these years.

While the conceptual ambitions occasionally overstep the mark, they rarely get in the way of the cerebral and gluteal-vibratory enjoyment that is to be found. It's a work no less beneficial than entertaining.

An interesting and extremely well-crafted moment of critical self-reflection early-ish in a talented producer's career rather than a worrying about-turn.

The dull interludes and derivative sound of "Close Forever Watching" prevent Owl Splinters from achieving the promise intimated by its standouts. It's a noticeable improvement over Pale Ravine, but perhaps not what one might expect after six years of hibernation.

With a bevy of somewhat indistinguishable tunes, a production aesthetic that keeps everything front, center, and earsplitting is a problem.

They've got that sound--you'll know immediately that you'll like it, and this time around, Grooms don't screw around with your certainty.

Like the craft of the best tracks here, the album itself describes a smooth and clearly bookended parabola, an unexpectedly rainbow bridge, but one that, unlike the most well-known of these, is a pleasure, not a revelation.

Despite any missteps, Bermuda Drain is laudable simply for its willingness to branch out and discover new ways of expression.

Lonely Twin is a unified creation, concerned from start to finish with existential idee fixes like death and despair, and how humanity deals with those universals.

That mainstreaming of queerness and breaching of boundaries is the context, spirit, and thesis of Pictureplane's second album, Thee Physical.

It maintains the headstock-nodding guitar work, the coherence between players, and the alternating structure, but it winds down the pace and pokes some air holes in the top of their sound.

It's not like Again and Again is a terrible album; in fact, it's an almost uniformly enjoyable one.

Alongside Youngs' anxious, distracted acoustic guitar picking, the most characteristic sound of this album is a damaged electric guitar, pealing its mournful, inarticulate song again and again.

Last Summer sounds good; next summer could be even better.

It tends to, er, drag, but the producer's deft touch with wonky textures remains thrilling.

Ultimately, Galactic Melt is like a good bartender: approachable without being overbearing, reminding you of past buddies while keeping a slight but not uncomfortable distance&hellip and fading into context, so that when you wake up the next day there's nothing more than a pleasant gap in your memory.

At 35 hefty minutes, Dedication is Zomby's most complete statement to date. But, much like the man, it offers a number of details in one hand while obscuring other crucial signs with the other.

Ty Segall culls some some of his scene's most appealing aspects and affixes them to unusually-written, melodically appealing songs; in essence, he's an ideal ambassador for his Bay Area milieu.

It's more pleasant than arresting.

If one didn't care for White Hills before, this won't change a mind. Of their recorded material, however, White Hills' latest is perhaps their best; short of an in-person experience of the band's eardrum-shattering performances

Friley has taken the sound of his debut EP--the four songs of which all appear on Paddywhack--and maintained that arresting, zombie barbershop quartet aesthetic, while also extending it into new developments, intervening piano lines and looped organ riffs, with which it blends in ways that never jar (your preserves).

There's a primeval sense of exuberant abandon here that, again, many bands working in similar territory try to capture, but that is rarely manifested so completely. And for hookiness, this is as habit-forming an album as you're likely to come across.

On this new album, it's not so much a problem that they remain stuck in the 90s politically, but more that their music seems so irrelevant sonically and willing to wallow in a mid-tempo techno-metal goth-night ghetto.

Listening to this album suggests a universe of unheard information beyond the reach of understanding and perception, of phenomena both too brief and too enormous for us to comprehend.

Pitiless Censors is a sparkling album, a lo-fi synth pop masterpiece that manages to give endless aural delights while still being intellectually engaging, and despite having been caught at the center of a whirlpool of current movements, all of which reflect some aspect of Maus' style, he has only cemented his identity as a singular, unimpeachable figure.

Despite some shortcomings, 4 is an unqualified success in the Hawksian sense: There are at least three great songs and no bad ones.

The timing may be off, but Total transcends trends to be one of the year's best dance records, and a likely cult classic in the making.

Landing well above a genre bedeviled by the twin albatrosses of solipsistic whining and overwrought political grandstanding, lyrically Sollee's songs feel well-worn yet sturdy. But they stand out chiefly because the array of melodic and textural effects available to a cellist is much different than your run-of-the-mill fingerpickin' crooner.

Though for him this may seem to be a progress toward honesty and wholeness, for the listener the benefits are not so clear.

It's a careful mix, edging onto cream-puff territory but never surrendering its solidity.

Zayna Jumma has a similar clarity, allowing listeners to immerse themselves, for a spell, in the special magic that Group Doueh have made their own.

Ultimately, Bon Iver, Bon Iver is the sound of growth, of growing pains, and the sound of grounding, of tearing new ground. If it aches, it aches like any natural growth, with beauty and wonder.

In a word, Gloss Drop just sounds confused, and its structures don't challenge or excite.

Codes and Keys is littered with PDA for Gibbard's new celebrity wife Zooey Deschanel, but this especially garish monument to his muse would have been better placed on one of her She & Him album-wafers.

Between the overlong, overstuffed songs and arrangements, ridiculous album concept and lyrical conceit, there's no room left for the vicious, hurtling energy that first impressed me on Hidden World's best songs.

As far as collaborations go, Thao & Mirah does a good job of showcasing its contributors' strong points while still allowing them to mesh together as an organic unit.

The prettier recording wraps up songwriting that seems perfunctory and performances that sound tired by comparison to the psychedelic dervishes Woods first appeared as.

Fortunately, It's All True is every bit as great as their early releases promised.

While Castlemania lacks the punchy, propulsive crowd-pleasers ("I Was Denied," "Block of Ice") that have lately been the band's stock and trade, the record glows with the unhinged, live-in-studio quality that translates so well to an Oh Sees live show.

Although I'm usually a fan of the short and (hopefully) sharp delivery, at 34 minutes the album feels insubstantial in terms of length as well as material.

The thrill of Flux Outside is that, if it had its way, it wouldn't stick around either.

There is a deeply impressive EP to be found on this album.

What one rarely finds, however, is the synthesis of the sounds brought by such a group's various components into a new form that nonetheless retains their recognizable trademarks. But Channel Pressure is such a beast.

Strip away voices, acoustic guitars, and the lullaby-ish balladry, and you have substantial grooves, declarative beats, and mesmerizing blends of fuzzed, meandering synthesizers clanging and cooing.

The result is an experimental pop album that's easy to appreciate, but difficult to fully connect with.

Their days of wild experimentation seem to be over, but on Hot Sauce Committee (and the fine tracks they left off, some of which have been made available online), they demonstrate that there are plenty of nooks and crannies to explore within that style.

Sleep Forever, if anything, is an assurance of their staying power; they could probably get away with releasing this same record throughout the remainder of their career.

At its best, ISAM enters the realm of pure abstraction without losing its sense of purpose.

Oddly, he's got a ton of talent, a great band, an excellent producer, and lots of committed fans, but he still comes across as needy and overbearing.

In its own subtle way, Demolished Thoughts is a triumphant statement, one of power through peace, of love through fear.

Beyond all else, perhaps, think of this zero as the massive bedazzled orifice out of which our heroine has spawned a new era of popular culture.

This isn't to say that Girls Names don't display any originality, and for those who have a special place in their heart for this kind of sound, no matter its repetitive trajectory, Dead To Me will be an unalloyed pleasure.

I Am Very Far can only be considered a stumble or misstep on a steeply curved scale, yet it proves, even as the shock of the musical pomposity fades and familiarity sets in, to be a less emotionally generative return to the same wells from which Sheff has long drawn.

The band's aching for that contradictory limit can be felt quivering in every inch of Aesthetica. It is to their credit that one feels at peace through the record's most violent and cataclysmic moments.

Per the majority of The Sea and Cake catalog, Butterfly is roundly solid: not great, but very good, with frequent moments of luminosity.

Overall, Smother seems to be missing purpose. I hear those careful ruminations on relationships, and I hear the pain that evidently went into this, but it leaves me cold.

At its best, Burst Apart is a delicate, varied work that hints that we've only begun to see what this group is capable of.

While Helplessness Blues is sparser and more restrained than its predecessor, it's also spotted by unexpected flourishes that are almost experimental by the band's traditionalist standard.

For anyone with ears tired of the sirens, the red herrings, surfing the more visible peaks of the endless ocean in search of something worth combing over, you'll find this spacebound lighthouse a good place to put your feet up; and get up on your feet, if so inclined. Thoroughly recommended.

Art of the Improviser is a testament not only to the improviser's art, but also to solo and group composition, both in the immediate and overarching sense.

Taken in small bites, there are great moments here, but you're unlikely to clean your plate and ask for seconds for all 14 courses. I for one will be hanging out for dessert, but I don't imagine I'll be invited for dinner again.

This is extremely addictive stuff, and after only a few listens, every track will attempt to/will succeed in worming its way into the willing listener's brain.

The question, regrettably, becomes whether or not their transgressive lyrics are funny, whether they're 'appropriate' in a world where we're hung up on identity politics. This difference is significant, and it's precisely here where our reaction to Goblin becomes less weighted: if it's all in jest, who really cares about the relationship between his lyrics and our values?

Light Science manages, thus, to be impressively conducted, self-announcing, and well dressed while remaining static, safe, and a tad lonely.

Although the limitations of Claire Denis Film Scores 1996-2009 will make parts of the collection appear inessential for casual listeners, this music will certainly be welcomed by Tindersticks fans and soundtrack buffs.

On this album, Garbus attempts to do this in a sophisticated and admirable way, and in the very form of her music, she offers a potential solution of a sort.

McCombs is making music as if his soul depended on it. I'd listen to the sound of that struggle any day.

Dancer Equired is a fine and mature next entry in the growing catalog of three of Columbus' finest.

Cotonou Club backs up the feeling I got when I saw the group on their recent UK tour, namely that, while they're still very funky, they aren't currently laying the voodoo down like they did on those magic 70s discs.

Terra clearly isn't meant for a sun-soaked day at the beach. It's meant for quiet evenings at home, for slow living, for monotonous days of insularity, idealized but never unrealistic.

On Talahomi Way, the Llamas are in fine, optimistic form, taking a holiday outside of time, to a place where Brian Wilson converses with Shuggie Otis over mai tais, major seventh chords are once again heard in pop songwriting, and distortion is something that happens in a funhouse mirror.

Black Sun is spotty and rusted, and it is likely that it will be interesting to most for this or that track - a grimy slayer, a leftfield floorfiller - or for the fact that it has a fantastic musique concrète apocalyptic vignette featuring Flying Lotus for a coda.

To be a little more complimentary, Bespoke sounds like darkly magnolia-lined city streets, like late afternoon, like crisp hotel beds. Darlington may have tailored the album from existing sonic cloth, but at least this time the seams are a little more skillfully sewn.

Explosions In The Sky continue to tap into this special vector of imagination, emotion, and possibility, making everything that much more vivid.

There's a great, brisk evening stroll quality here, drifting imperceptibly between wistful and paranoid.

Dee's lyrics consistently reveal a formidable intelligence and a deep and deeply-felt cultural repertoire.

Although as a dub obsessive it saddens me to say it (indeed, it saddens me to say anything critical of anyone as seminal, interesting, and all-round sympathetic as Styrene), it's mostly the reggae tracks and uninspiring deejay cameos that let the album down.

II is gonna get you. It's gonna fold you up, flatten you in its steel press, and make a revolting panini outta ya. Then it's chow time. So long, sucker.

They've got all the right footnotes and they know their way around a hook, but A Thousand Heys doesn't carve out a distinctive enough place for itself amid this year's crop of guitar-wielding miscreants.

Do Whatever You Want All The Time is tepid and uneventful, and proof that the band's previous work didn't succeed solely on its raucousness.

It's an enjoyable record (if somewhat slight, for a full-length), but its best moments are a lot like those faded mom-and-dad photos Huntai likes to use: iconic, intriguing, but not quite his own.

In Love With Oblivion is generic in the best sense of the term, a record that blasts a bright light through its otherwise dead sources.

The intensity of their work comes from a great deal of poise and restraint, but as is the case with Deep Politics, this tact can also come across as strangely normative.

Nine Types of Light has the same basic sonic patina, but TV on the Radio still have cards left to play.