Sadly, This is for the White in Your Eyes sees a band with great potential whose ambitions too frequently get the best of them.

Alien in a Garbage Dump sounds like the work of a noise veteran relaxing and trying out whatever comes to mind, tossing out ideas without worrying if every one of them sticks. And in this case, this approach yields considerable rewards, the noise equivalent of summertime jams.

While VanGaalen seems to be overflowing with great ideas, I’d prefer if he reined them in a little more tightly on his next release.

Post-Nothing is convincing in its candor to the point of exhaustion.

Although still a strong album, YACHT would do well to better marry its aesthetic with the famous DFA beat factory, instead of giving it such clearly separate airtime.

A slightly boring rock frontman adopts a pseudonym to make a solo album, and it sounds like his main band, recorded in a just-passable studio.

While the album shows the band refining their sound, it also carries the threat that their future might be too refined, too polished and neat.

If one stripped away the halcyon, indistinct haze and the open-road aesthetic it furthers, you’d be left with precious little, save 10 unobtrusive, well-executed sleep aids. New Universe is its archetype--nothing more, nothing less.

While Nurses’ adherence to pop construction might not do them favors when it comes to standing out from the pack, it also means that their music is potentially more durable than many similar blog-hyped acts.

Whereas The Fiery Furnaces used to suffer from a lack of restraint, they suffer here from having too much.

Riceboy Sleeps is an elegiac set of powerfully evocative songs, functioning at its best as lovely background music while flipping through the pages of the art book it's bundled with. Listened to unaccompanied and in its entirety, the experience is frustrating and unpleasant, and its bloated feel renders a lot of it impotent.

Their distinct blend of shoegaze and Americana sounds more natural than it should, while remaining, at most, vaguely reminiscent of other bands. Once the clarity of their songwriting matches their musical vision, there won’t be any need to keep peppering praise with regret.

It’s just a solid album that, like the title implies, holds onto its historical surroundings as much as it moves beyond them.

Full of craft and purpose, enchanting and creative, Rites is a promising tease of better things to come.

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

The guitars are jangly and questionably tuned; the drums are doused in whiskey but always manage to keep the train moving; and the vocals are passionately out-of-key but always a perfect companion to the aesthetic and historical world they float within.

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.

This game of literal musical chairs completely cripples The Most Serene Republic’s musical aims to the point that the album’s 40-minute runtime feels 20 minutes too long.

For fans of some of Broderick’s earlier material, then, these qualities, combined with the relatively narrow range of instrumentation and short duration of the album, may prove somewhat limiting and not as immediately immersive as some of his best work.

Taken as a whole, Embrace is an enjoyable album. It’s predictable in places, at times even a little cliché, but it’s executed competently enough that these qualities are forgivable.

For as spare as her pallet is (many of the songs consist only of Fortino’s single or multi-tracked vocals accompanied by her own acoustic guitar), there is a staggering diversity in tone and feeling throughout the album.

Rarely will one find a detractor when it comes to Cage’s sheer talent, but--thanks to sterile production and the replacement of hip-hop beats with rap-rock thrashings (“Beat Kids”) and corny, overdramatized hooks (“Captain Bumout”)--Depart From Me demonstrates an immaturity that will render Cage’s career difficult to reconcile.

Bowerbirds continue to show great potential, with some truly beautiful music along the way, but Upper Air’s most interesting tracks ('Bright Future' and 'Crooked Lust') are the ones that deviate from their core sound.

These Four Walls is a consistently exciting album full of memorable songs, and one of maybe five records this year so far that I would recommend unreservedly.

While the latter two discs have their moments, they’re all too predictable when held up against the first disc’s ambitious blend of noise and dance.

On Catacombs, as always, McCombs stands as an unfashionable maverick who plays on his own terms, and if that is not good enough for the mindless millions, then tough shit.

Wilco (The Album) isn’t a failure--not by any means--but when a band has become so attached to the notion of change and then stagnates, it casts a heavy shadow that’s hard to escape.

It is Moby’s right (as well as his wont) to repurpose the same songs, the same structures over and over again. It is my own right, however, to choose to listen to something else entirely.

It sounds dismissive to say that Farm is, undeniably, nothing more than another Dinosaur Jr. record. Yet it is, and if that assertion carries with any ideas of complacency or stock “rock action,” it should also denote the superb craftsmenship inherent in Mascis, Barlow, and Murph’s work.

Octahedron isn’t a representation of the best The Mars Volta are capable of, but it is a glimpse into the power they possess when they better harness their capabilities.

Whether Dragonslayer is as great as any other work is almost irrelevant; it is great and it is grand, and it is all too welcome.

Travels With Myself and Another is the best thing this crew has ever made. It’s got all you could ask for: hooks, riffs, volume, wordplay, razor-sharp absurdity, and Jack Egglestone’s incomparable power drumming.

Yes, Ambivalence Avenue is an album that defies expectations, and it is also Bibio’s most creative and penetrating release yet.

The lyrics here are sparse and, as with most of the album, indiscernible. It’s rare that a rock album could be so enjoyable without a great presence of the English language, but Person to Person certainly is.

While still retaining that exacting focus that has made Dirty Projectors the unplaceable enterprise that it is, Bitte Orca is merely the sound of an extremely talented group of musicians tweaking and, to an extent, reinventing their approach, stepping a little further away from left field.

The Eternal is accessible, listenable, and all the rest: another consistent album from the consistent rock band Sonic Youth.

Rainwater Cassette Exchange is another reason to head down to your local cassette exchange and a great nightcap to polish off one of last year’s strongest albums.

More often than not, Chung’s tireless attention to his work is well-edited, and even the most chaotic and boisterous tracks are riveting.

The very thing that animates the structure begins to ferociously explore, digging beneath its creations in order to observe itself. It is unclear whether the exploration of the structure’s depths is motivated by curiosity or by a need to undermine itself and to challenge its own creation.

Fans of Iggy Pop would do well to give Preliminaires a spin, since it showcases a side of the artist not readily visible in his other work.

It’s no "Donuts," but it’s definitely another solid entry in the Dilla canon and a reminder of how lucky fans are to have another beat tape this valuable in the absence of the man himself.

Far from the naval-gazing, self-conscious banality one might expect from such a young artist, Moondagger is filled with moments of philosophical prowess and intelligence.

The result is a piece of art that had too much pressure ascribed to it, that found its creators trying too hard to make a masterpiece when they could have followed a more natural progression.

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

It seems to have brought a band who had so long mired itself in total darkness into the cleansing light of day, and in both cases, the results are awe-inspiring.

While the center of Blackshaw’s compositions will likely always be guitar, he has shown with this album that he can write music for several different instruments and do so incredibly well.

As a debut full-length, City Center shows much promise and can rightly provide the soundtrack to a strange summer.

This is expertly crafted music, but perhaps too intent on being discomforting: the music intentionally aims to unsettle you.

Scattergood’s voice is the star, but it can be utterly distracting, a vessel for an expressive, prolific writer who may be too afraid of the revision process.

Unfortunately, the goodwill that Eminem builds up with these engrossing and macabre Mathers family confessions are too often torn down by his tedious turns as a goofy court jester.

It’s Frightening is far from a bloodless copy of a more vivid being; it is, rather, a living, breathing creation, one that is only dubiously theirs.

On the whole, Manners mostly evens out into a consistently listenable experience, the joy of one absurdly successful track spread out in variations and reformulations across the entirety of an album with inevitable dilution in the process.

Anyone who dug Beam’s official albums will likely enjoy this odds-and-ends release.

Although Commuter is nearly musically indistinguishable from a Grandaddy record, it feels comforting to have Lytle back, to hear him working through his issues with new music.

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.

Yesterday and Today, the sophomore effort from The Field (nee Axel Willner), can be easily understood as part of the tradition of moody follow-ups a la In Utero: a pairing of a signature sound with willful experimentalism.

It’s certainly an enjoyable collection of pop songs, but, unfortunately, it’s mostly innocuous and not as remarkable as past efforts.

For Herren devotees (a group in which I would place myself), this album will appear as a necessary, blissed-out, and relaxing installment in an ever-evolving musical saga. For others less familiar or only interested in the Prefuse aesthetic, La Llama may leave them feeling adrift.

Booze and Reynolds maintain a consistent level of awfulness throughout, but really bring their A-game to songs like the bludgeoningly-repetitive 'Sparkly Sweater,.'

All the riffs, drums, and lyrics seem to struggle against the current of a constant drone, with odd sounds bubbling out of the muddy puddle, yet remaining stagnant, as it were. There is nothing remarkable or striking about this mirror’s explosion.

It feels as if Smith is drawing from long-gone, innocent, pre-fame events in his life, but as they recede, his stance becomes more wistful and increasingly confused. The music, unfortunately, follows suit.

It’s catchy, committed, prehensile punk rock.

Divided By Night has few worthy moments and a whole bunch earmarked for the couple of "Fast & Furious" films. The guys still have the goods, but this album will not be well-remembered.

It is the right kind of unsettling to get your feet and heart pounding with the full power of your soul in total awareness of the moment. Embrace the darkness and appreciate the light.

While Actor’s best moments may not reach the same high points as Marry Me’s, it’s an even more cohesive effort, and one that I haven’t tired of after countless listens.

Not only, then, is Spoils a splendid introduction to Alasdair Roberts’ repertoire, it is also a fine way to get your feet wet in the British Folk kingdom.

I doubt they’ll be circling back to the sound I felt so strongly about, but even the mildly frustrating Set ‘Em Wild, like all the band’s records, has songs I’ll be listening to for years to come.

Essentially, the band only seems to have bit off a little more than could be chewed, and Outside Love feels like a slight misstep.

If the too-often twinned strands of listener preference can be unwound, hopefully it will be remembered as the most-heard Isis album, not the greatest.

It hits just as furiously and sloppily as all the old Markers standards, no matter its label, run time, or production quality.

Each offering here is meter-perfect and crafted instinctively to flat-out destroy the boundaries of rock music.

Craftsmanship sets him apart, and allows Insides to be as incredibly moving as it is and always will be. It will easily be one of the best electronic albums of 2009.

There’s an extemporaneous feeling to A Ways Away that persists amid its clear recording quality and allows O’Neil to sing quietly as though she’s unsure of herself, while still underscoring a natural sort of confidence--she doesn’t have to sing loudly.

A companion album to last year’s Ghost Rock, Invisible Cities again finds the group in fine form, refining their sound and moving gradually further from revivalist afrobeat into a style all their own.

Dylan shirks responsibility; he puts the onus on us. Fortunately, the impetus the album provides is all we need in order to define its brilliance.

An effective collaboration tempers the rougher edges around both artists and allows them to combine their own artistic strengths synthetically.

It’s fairer to say that this album fails me because these 12 tracks are simply not interesting enough, especially for a band that was always so visceral and engaging.

The stakes are low for Super Furry Animals, with their dedicated fanbase and slim commercial prospects, and the music reflects this. They’re a legitimately great band, but sometimes one can’t help but escape the feeling that all of their dedication is in service of a joke.

For Art Brut vs. Satan, the band didn’t need Frank Black to give them an edge; they needed a mentor to help them focus on their real message: changing the musical landscape. Satan may have won this round, but don’t count out Art Brut. Not just yet.

My Maudlin Career may not be the kind of album that breaks new ground or does anything particularly forward-looking musically, but what it lacks in that department it more than makes up for with intelligent pop hooks and some of the loveliest string arrangements of recent memory.

Cryptacize have made an album that sounds welcomingly familiar for fans of Cohen’s aesthetic, but it won’t likely gain them a much wider fanbase.

Telepathe may not be superstars yet, but with Dance Mother--an album short in length but simmering over with ambition--they are certainly on the right track.

The entire first half of Eagle shows Callahan as a much more evolved and mature musician. He appears more comfortable expanding his musical space, and he exercises tasteful restraint with Beattie’s strings.

You Can Have What You Want is an insular recording, but it invites us even as it turns a shoulder toward us. And that insecurity is what makes it compelling.

The Future Will Come blooms incrementally, driven from the ground by the grittiest keyboard performance heard on a dance album in some time.

While definitely not an ideological Plan 9 soundtrack, it’s not an unearthly eyeful either.

If they decide to get serious about being a band and not just a project, maybe next record they could take us to their own personal woods, instead of just telling us about boring generalized woods.

The joy of "Fur and Gold" has vanished and taken some of Khan’s potential with it. This is request for their safe return, no questions asked.

The songs on Begone do not unfurl, nor do they climax.

The result is an exuberant, almost joyful record brimming with sly cynicism and a newfound fondness for whoa-oh refrains and handclaps.

These tracks are lifeless, and the multitude of sounds turns to mud, eventually eating itself.

Repo runs out of ideas so quickly it starts to appropriate its own ideas.

Vs. Children is a pleasant but uncaptivating album, and I’m inclined to believe, especially when confronted by his album’s deliriously enchanting highlights, that Ashworth is spreading himself a little thin at his current pace.

Helena Costas and Danger Mouse combine the former’s folk pop proclivities with the latter’s penchant for hip-hop and psychedelia, and the results are mostly awkward and cumbersome.

As enjoyable as it can be, Telekinesis! is only good enough to make you wish it were better.

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.

Its complete lack of anything unique just reeks of someone in the background, someone with a suit and a cigar, shaking hands with these fellows and telling them they’re “gonna blow up.”