Even when the instrumentation oversteps its boundaries, like on the extended rock-out bridge of 'Sheets,' it provides the adequate backbone Jurado’s lyrics need to stand.

Rihanna has released a flawed album that may shrink under the weight of her biography, but it also succeeds when approached more directly, superficially.

While the instrumentation gives the impression of self-bricolage, made up of materials from Mac’s own private collection under a particular washed-out filter, the lyrics derive from common property, things like fragments of old clichés and easy rhymes.

If you enjoy the ear-perkingly dense textures of friendlier experimental stuff like Four Tet and Fridge's Happiness LP, then you can't go wrong here.

Kila Kila Kila contains numerous pristine sounds and rich textures that show subtle moments of ingenuity and progression.

Black Holes and Revelations is probably the least restrained album of 2006, which for some is a blessing, for others a pretentious annoyance. It is, however, a focused album.

While the remixes don't contain the same level of shambolic personality that the nascent originals do, they are still a testament to the fact that Friel's work is full of possibility.

Other Life is a collection of poignant, emotionally powerful pop songs; but on a more conceptual plane, this album is a self-referential commentary on music itself, an intense examination--and, ultimately, an extremely heartfelt refutation--of the hollow, ironic appropriation that defines much of contemporary music.

This album is an embarrassment of riches.

The familiar ingredients are there, from superb buildups to instrumental pyrotechnics to Esjstes' buttery voice and a general insistence that points toward some bright and shining future.

Despite these compelling, fidgety positives, those who bugged out to last year's On Patrol (i.e., everyone) will be forgiven for experiencing a sense of deja entendu.

The tracks blister with attitude and grit, but the persistent monochrome grows a bit exhausting all coughed out at once. The bitter sandstorm could stand more punctuation, even if it did make Horehound less terrifying.

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

This lack of identity admittedly fuels the indecipherable, entrancing mystery of the album, yet unfortunately this strength also equates to the album’s primary weakness.

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.

Instead of picking over internal ashes, Krill rotate and swivel, holding a lighter, as if looking more closely at the moment might make action possible.

Yet, for each of these highlights, there’s a much weaker counterpart.

That Ward succeeds so well in capturing something akin to escapism while keeping things engaging enough to bypass passivity is perhaps the album's greatest strength.

Ultimately, Celestial Electric could only have been made now, and it stands on its own merits. As the future sons and daughters of generations come to pass, the genius of Shawn Lee will be widely recognized. With AM up front, Lee is like The Funk Brothers of Motown.

Talbot Tagora are the latest Left Coast noisemakers to keep your eye on.

It all seems a bit too canned and contrived.

This is an album of breath and sigh, baby’s gibberish and parent’s confession. It’s also a complex and layered meditation on fatherhood and family, rich in emotion, textured and capacious; it’s a long exhale--stately, calm, joyful.

Menos el Oso takes the act of melodizing the banal to dizzyingly silly new heights.

Ultimately, though, it becomes hard to identify individual tracks without keeping a close eye on the tracklisting as you go.

The songs drag, the lyrics lag depth, and many of the songs break down into nothingness due to a lack of concentration and effort.

Their sound isn’t one that’s been carved out necessarily; it’s always been there since Exquisite Corpse, but only more recently has it been developed (perhaps because of the aid of top-name producers).

What was once shambling and humble and fun has turned into another anonymous, swaggering, guitar-driven indie rock act.

Enjoyably dumb and agreeably psychedelic, Eating Us is easy listening for an easy-going season.

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

With so much music released by White Hills, a lot of the tracks end up being mood-lighting (“InWords,” “OutWords,” “The Internal Monologue,” “Circulating”), but the album’s back-half, kicked off by “Forever in Space (Enlightened),” is what keeps me spinning.

No matter how likable all 10 of these songs may be, there's something missing here.

With Perfect Hair, Busdriver has once again crafted a fantastically immersive listening experience (arguably Busdriver’s finest work yet), only blunted by how profoundly it telegraphs its own ambitions and intentions, more than meeting my expectations as a piece of confrontational sound art, yet leaving its targeted structures a bit too comfortably in tact.

The new songs display a newfound sophistication in composition, arrangement, and production, with richly layered, textured guitars, and Pundt having come ever closer to finding his own voice.

Their residency was capped by a performance of their new record, Exotic Creatures of the Deep. Their crowning achievement? There is certainly a case to be made for it.

If the man’s curious oeuvre hasn’t already provided reason enough to pay attention, it’s doubtful Beware will convert anyone to the fold. But for those already attuned to Oldham’s songcraft, Beware is a rich and fulfilling work from a man who seems to have a paranormal grasp on human nature, with all the sensuality, God-fearing, tummy-rubbing and head-scratching that implies.

Much like his 2007 debut, "Ash Wednesday," Perkins speaks through characters and, more importantly, though his musical arrangements to present a nuanced approach to musing on mortality and loss and loneliness.

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.

Oddly utilitarian, geared towards dancing rather than listening. This is the type of music that reminds you that iTunes has made 'party' a utility.

Hold It In recalls the excellent Stag in its effortless eclecticism, and if there’s one criticism of the album, it’s that, even with its variety, its sounds and styles can’t help but echo its sibling from 1996 and also most of the other albums at the more diverse end of the Melvins spectrum.

There are tons of memorable hooks and verses all over 10 Summers.... All of these moments fly by and come across as natural and effortless, even “formal” in the platonic sense.

Even though songs like the jittering “444Sure” teem with propulsive energy and dynamic peaks, they lack the inventiveness and originality to induce euphoria in any other way, and thus they descend into commonplaces and banalities.

It all adds up to The Mountain Goats’ most musically sophisticated endeavor to date. In fact, the music is finally beginning to hold its own with the lyrics.

An album of satisfying, summery rock.

Swift hasn’t put out a bad record yet, but The Atlantic Ocean is his most solid effort yet, his best attempt at managing the dark-lit record store in his head.

The New Pornographers are straying away from the niche they’ve carved out for themselves, and they’re doing it with skill and calm. And perhaps that should be celebrated, because Challengers is everything this sort of smooth transition ought to be.

The best thing to do with this album is to put the first and last tracks on repeat, and give everything in between a shot when you’re stuck in bed sick; it could be the perfect moment.

Unfortunately, not all of the experimentation works.

Where its siblings thrash and writhe and scream, No One Dances flows, undulates, sighs. The result is nothing short of pastoral.

I'd like to say Automato is an album worth slobbering over, but it's not.

There’s really no good reason to seek this out if you already own the... debut album.

The music is personal--an interior look--softly sung with more than a smidgen of sass and blitheness

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).

While Life of Pause appears to lack any songs with the lasting impact of tracks like “Chinatown,” “Only Heather,” “Paradise,” or even the sublimely beautiful “Golden Haze”--well-written works that exhibited a naïve clarity in purpose--it’s certainly a grower.

Unlike Patton's previous forays into the experimentalism of John Zorn or Merzbow, Mondo Cane delivers a more conventional set, heavy on romantic strings and swaying nostalgia.

This newest Cocker incarnation restages this conflict in a way that establishes his continuing vitality and creativity and confirms that his sardonic wit has only sharpened with time.

Just Like the Fambly Cat is appreciably better than its predecessor, but a far cry from the bliss we've all come to expect.

A relaxed, tender record with enough grace, humor, and intelligence mixed at just the right moments with heady rushes of musical energy that one is left captivated.

Although the production isn’t what it would be if my dreams were made reality, Rabbit Habits is a respectable re-creation with chops cookin’ allova the place.

The mesmerizing quality they create through drone beats and varied vocals engage the listener in a whirlwind of noise, and it rarely ever lets up.

The album is most similar to Apple O', but while Apple O' seemed to have a somewhat lethargic quality, Milk Man sounds fresh and fully inviting. And it's a lot better.

Even though the evidence isn’t excessively rife on Aerotropolis, it’s clear that somewhere under the shiny, retrogressive hedonism and 4/4 decadence, there’s a voice trying to escape the easy confines it has found for itself.

Its songs are well-constructed, well-paced, and all subtly different from each other.... [but] for the most part, it’s a little too “safe” and unadventurous.

Love is the Plan, The Plan is Death, perhaps Blackshaw's most lucid and rawest effort to date, explores the effects and possibilities of repetition, plunging deep into a humility that suggests the movements of this process of refinement.

Despite the absence of a unifying theme or motif, these primarily acoustic songs breathe with a plethora of everyday detail that obscures their often nonexistent innards.

A Broke Moon Rises isn’t pastoral like Bon Iver, and it doesn’t trade in the woe, guts, and glory of an Explosions in the Sky. It’s folk rock as an aging human in all its requisite fallibility and disgrace, pushing through torrents of doubt and disillusionment to a place where their essential spirit can take wing.

At times, the record is just classically Surreal, a bucolic unheimlich provoking a fleeting confrontation with the unconscious. What remains most alluring about this experiment’s broken logic is the sense that you’re furtively occupying someone else’s dream.

As dub creates stripped canvases to then be used to host further expressions, so do these versions. They encourage engagement and further remixing by projecting the past and present into an unknown future.

Now seven full-lengths into their career, Xiu Xiu have hit a milestone with Dear God, I Hate Myself. Over 12 songs, they condense the best aspects of all their previous albums to craft what may prove to be their finest hour.

Heron King Blues definitely signifies a transitional phase for the band.

Marrying the weight of her subject matter and boundless ideas into such a light and airy form can sometimes yield lopsided results. But given enough space, Lafawndah can truly soar.

Every aspect of the album sounds like the full-length equivalent of a Spotify Chill Out playlist: flat, disposable, inoffensive (though “technically-sound”) 2010s muzak.

Soft Airplane’s basement-recorded mastery is equal parts charming and unnerving, and on the whole singularly spectacular.

If Departing sounded as if absurdly-energetic drummer Paul Banwatt was holding back, then Mended With Gold corrects this modesty a bit.

Yes, Virginia is the album The White Stripes would make if they were getting more passionate and creative with each successive release instead of lamer and more commercial.

Orth would do well to pay more attention to whipping his songs into shape next time around.

An unapologetically lovely affair that is sure to soothe the frazzled nerves of its discerning listening public.

The melodies don’t propel; they put buffers and stopgaps between other moments of intense sound design. Like a luxury car at a car show, they exude and ooze sleekness and velocity. But hidden within that is a terror: the terror of being surveilled, minute by minute, devoid of ontological access to the eternal or the metaphysical.

These songs won’t necessarily get stuck in your head, but the swerving asymmetry to C’est ça has you clinging to these hooks like handles on a speeding train.

The most egregious offender is Planet of Ice's last song, 'Lotus,' which clocks in at close to nine minutes, thanks to clumsy feedback inserted somewhat inappropriately between the beginning and end of what must have started out as a fairly straightforward rock song.

The middle of the album is as hard-edged and relentless as anything of Squarepusher's, if not more.

There is very little experimentation on the album, at least in relation to previous albums, but there is also a wider spectrum of songs.

It’s refreshing to hear such heavyweight harmonies being shipped out by a modern act, especially when relatively crunchy guitars and urgent drums act as the styrofoam packing peanuts, ensuring things never get too messy or convoluted.

They’ve managed to wrap the menacing and the rewarding up in an air-conditioned pleasure circuit, beyond transgression and provocation

Antidotes is really a pleasurable record that found itself displaced by its worn-out, second-hand clothing

Serving as the final part of a trilogy that includes the much feted records Rook and , the album is an epic feat of baroque pop craftsmanship, something akin to an update of Scott IV or Dusty in Memphis for the new millennium.

Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 won't win any awards for innovation and probably won't yield any radio hits, but that's perfect. This album isn't about creating the perfect pop song, but about creating a story that bridges generations.

Unfortunately, Me Moan doesn’t really deepen Gibson’s exploration of this novel niche. Instead, it feels mostly like a country record that still has one foot in the sample-based electronic aesthetic that previously defined Gibson’s work.

A bit more laidback than its predecessors and encapsulated by exotic shades, Across the Meridian sits somewhere between Les Baxter’s lovable cheese, the playful ingenuity of Pierre Bastien, and the more twisted corners of a 1970s European TV station library music.

With more focus on the adventurous composition and skilled playing of Coomes and Weiss, it would be hard for anyone, including myself, to dismiss this as anything other than impressive. Now, if they just hire a new lyricist for their next one.

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

The songs are all snappy with their rhythmic play and potentially memorable with their stop-start hooks.

Krzysztof Penderecki and Jonny Greenwood are cultivating a dialogue of past, present, and future ideas, presented as potential energy for creation--and also for acquiring new ways of understanding music.

Its framework and color scheme may possibly end up as just a passing diversion for Halo, but it will still remain a captious rendering of where her craft and human-craft could one day go.

A lot of W.C. Hart’s lyrics are preoccupied with the idea of locating yourself within the whole whorl of the earth-psychedelia-human experience, be it from underneath, above, sideways, chronologically, anyhow, anyway, somewhere between the “rock and stars and sand.”

The songs that do hit the number, however, are unimaginably nimble in their enthusiastic originality, carrying on the busy-bee legacy Hill has been building and venturing into exciting territory. Considering how ground-floor some of his proper-solo recordings have been, this is an intriguing development.

Kazuashita wants what psychedelics want of human brains: transcendence. But its fleetingness masks any sort of completion. Frantic impulses come from afar, a random sphere of floating values, frames of signification.

The guitar work is all painted in one color and changes are predictable, while the vocals are less adventurous and human than before.

There are plenty of sticky hooks and hummable melodies to be found, and their existence inside the delicate, shifting tapestries are what makes Dreams Say so endearing.