Unfortunately, There’s Me and There’s You is a precipitate more than a catalyst, a document far less persuasive than a documentary about its own creation would be.

Skeletal Lamping is by no means a bad album; rather, after such an organic and fully realized career milestone as Hissing Fauna, the difficulty of finding a new direction is a creatively arduous one, and of Montreal’s experimentation here is notable overall.

It’s at once simple, colorful, and cozy, but, if examined closely enough, can be appreciated on another level entirely--one that’s both casually sophisticated and quietly intelligent.

It's hip calcified, transformed from posturing into legitimate and exciting experience; it's the channeling of well-defined musical expressions into a more powerful, unified direction.

Parts & Labor are exciting, both on a gut level and an aesthetic one, but the shift to a more sedate sound hasn’t pushed them in directions that emphasize this enough, at least so far.

It’s a soothing cushion of chaos, like a bloody valentine, a buzzing saw, and an amazing star exploding into particle dust.

As a whole, Black Ice is a mess of tired conventions shoved noisily at the listener, as though just getting them all on record was good enough.

With Little Honey Williams has once again assured her fanbase that she is incapable of releasing an album that is anything less than collection-worthy and wholly listenable.

Although LaMontagne fans will surely lap up this new offering, the album doesn’t have enough quality content to really sustain the interest of new listeners.

There are no embarrassing stabs at pop crossovers, no bitter jabs at the record industry. Just tuneful and accomplished, if somewhat anachronistic and faceless, BIG MOODY ROCK.

The other two tunes here, the instrumental 'Ponce of the Flaming Peace Queer' and a once-again-relevant cover of 'Fortunate Son,' work fine, but, coupled with the album’s brief tracklist and tossed-off nature, they make Peace Queer little more than a focused stop-gap between proper albums.

Who Killed Harry Houdini?, the band’s second full-length release and first on major-label affiliate Mute Records, continues the group’s tradition of making happy, light-hearted pop music that’s simultaneously fizzy and sticky.

Religious Knives’ latest recording doesn’t implore repeat listens the way "Resin" did and still does.

As a whole, Reefer has proven its capacity for producing sunshine hits, but only time will tell if it will be able to push itself past the spaced-out beaches of Maui and towards more diverse soundscapes.

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

Dark Developments is another remarkably fine album from a musician who has been around doing what he does so long that he’s often unjustly neglected.

That is part of Lambchop’s charm--irony might be the hipster flavor for the time being, but you’d be hard-pressed to find less ironic and more modestly beautiful sentiment than on OH (Ohio).

It shouldn’t offend, but it might be slow to engage.

You can add this record to the pile of fun, entertaining albums that is sure to get people moving at any party, although it offers little else.

While keeping the same mix of hushed beauty and spooky old-time feel, Holland seems much more direct and confident, a forwardness that risks losing some of the mystery, but instead ups the awe factor.

The resulting record plays like a soundtrack to a non-existent film, skeleton-framed and dramatic.

That she is able to incorporate these technical talents into solid songwriting is what makes This Is It the success that it is.

The organic lushness should please indie-pop fans reluctant to embrace synth music, while the emphasis on sound instead of structure holds appeal for fans of loop music who’ve grown bored of its now-familiar tropes.

This is music at its most carnal.

Despite Andrew Barr’s attempt to develop new rhythmic ideas in every song, the tracks tend to bleed together, impairing each song’s distinctiveness.

It’s his intensity of focus coupled with an impressive range of motion that gives this album its real strength and maturity.

Props are due for not recycling the same album over and over again--something he could probably do for awhile before anyone would call him on it --but, unfortunately, the new approach results in Bianchi’s most banal album yet.

It’s no mistake that the title of this superbly fun album ends with an exclamation point; El Guincho has created an album that’s relentless in its ferocious rhythms and beats until the very last track.

This is not going to appeal to a wide swath of people, but DJs who take advantage of the late hours of a petering-out dance party to play dubstep and spacey ambient techno will surely appreciate the vibe here.

Elverum is reveling in his honest moment of awe. In doing so, he has sloshed away the Norwegian frost with a mittened hand, a frost that kept these songs so chilling.

Black Forest (tra la la) is a nice little record made by an ambitious group of musicians from whom I expect excellent things. Three or four songs here are downright wonderful, and the rest, at the very least, aren’t entirely unpleasant.

It’s the endearing uniqueness of this coupling that give Catfish Haven an edge over the plethora of contrived Americana wanna-bes currently littering the musical landscape.

The laid-back feel of White Van Music ultimately hinders it from being a truly creative and distinct work.

Every track on Women serves a purpose to the overall stereo image, resulting in a debut that sets the bar very high.

Koushik effortlessly summons the hazy feel of running around stoned at noon on a summer day in hot pursuit of a grape soda or some other ridiculous craving to be satiated.

Drawn In Basic is an enjoyable electronic pop record, one well-suited to late, sleepless nights. With echoes of a distant club resounding in its subdued beats and hushed vocals, this is a dreamy record of lullabies for the dance-floor set.

Aside from these conceptual assertions that it evokes, Feed the Animals is a good record. Though it’s broken up into 14 tracks, it functions best (and as Girl Talk intends) as a single 53-minute mash-up.

Using a combination of brilliant textures and powerful, atypical chord progressions, Mogwai paint a picture equivalent to an auto-stereogram, popularized in those Magic Eye books 15 years ago. You almost need to loose your focus to let the music really sink in.

Dear Science is all the more satisfying for providing a sense that the next leap will be just as rewarding.

It manages to captures our curiosity without giving away too much, gently nudging us to explore.

To the band’s credit, the album does warm-up to the listener with consecutive listens, but Blitzen Trapper will have to play some reputable live shows in order to distinguish themselves from the indie rock masses.

Brightblack Morning Light retain a signature, singular, salient sound and still refuse to nudge their songs forward at anything but a crawling pace.

Earth Junk’s parts are greater than their sum.

Albarn’s thirst for musical adventure is commendable, but unless you’re obsessed with his every move or have been dreaming of the day a former Brit pop king fuses the sensibilities of Eastern opera and Western pop, Monkey just doesn’t warrant your full attention.

The album’s an impressive document of Barrett’s talent, but I don’t hear the hooks that similar acts like Belle & Sebastian built their name on. Without them, The Pica Beats remain an also-ran.

It’s not an incredibly remarkable record, but when a band is this consistent for this long, it’s hard to fault it.

Paperwork is a definite step forward, and though it’s possible that those who loved volcano! before might find this more "conventional" album less exciting, I’d be surprised if anyone called it less rewarding.

Eyes At Half Mast seems to be, on one level, an exploration of the horizons of the style of music that Talkdemonic themselves invented, but a lot of it retraces steps already taken, albeit with a noticeable upping of the proverbial ante as far as energy goes.

It’s a trippy album, but it doesn’t trip into too many psych clichés, or perhaps it has fooled me simply by tumbling into all of them.

Freedomland is frustrating because it documents possibly compelling works by a band whose performances captured here were probably compelling, too. It just doesn’t reach the standards of prior work, so I’ll just keep waiting for their next studio album.

Carried to Dust is a fine entry Calexico’s discography that both evokes a much-loved sound from the past and yet looks at the sun fading into the west, turns its horse towards the dying light, and carries on into the future.

Though Sheff’s lyrics can be too earnest sometimes, there’s no doubt he’s one of the most exciting songwriters of recent years, and The Stand Ins is another fine entry in the band’s discography.

This is what ultimately makes Alphabutt a top-notch kids record: that it was recorded by a woman so in love with her kid and with being a mother that you’d happily let her babysit for your wonderful little creature.

The Kadanes have released their third full-length, a self-titled release best appreciated as the culmination of the Kadane’s experience of playing together since children in Wichita Falls, TX.

If the songs weren’t quality, it would be easy to write these guys off, but the tunes on Living on the Other Side are enough to make me consider charging a few tanks of gas to the credit card and seeing the ocean. And that’s saying something.

If you like gorgeous folk, then this album is for you. If you don’t, well, The Hold Steady released something not that long ago.

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

Maybe Now or Heaven isn’t an awful record, but it’s certainly one that strips away everything I felt was compelling about the band to begin with.

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.

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

All The Way is quite good; let’s hope Growing defy their album’s title and live up to their own name by pursuing their clever ideas even further on their next release.

Wilson continues to rehash southern California culture with increasingly less perspective, further eschewing the untamed adolescent aesthetic by including stuffy musical theater elements and a top-down point-of-view that’s more clumsy analysis than sincere memoir.

The Recession, then, is a portrait of the artist as an over-his-head young man.

Shall Noise Upon succeeds in fits and spurts, but as a whole, it lacks the continuity that is an essential ingredient for a career-defining record.

Though proVISIONS offers some playfully charming moments, ('Can Do,' 'Out There,' 'Increment of Love'), the dark center of this album’s middle is telling.

Youth Novels serves as an entertaining, but ultimately inadequate introduction to Lykke Li.

Chemical Chords is a fine album by Stereolab standards, even if it does nothing to improve upon the band’s by now all-too-familiar sound.

Jaguar Love inject a vicious vitality into their neon-hued rock, and the idea of a dance punk with real fury behind the party is appealing. But in order to avoid being merely irritating or simply diverting, Jaguar Love could benefit from fully unhinging, with an increase in wrath.

It’s impossible to fully return all the way home again, but You & Me is the next best thing.

Luckily, for most of its duration, Where You Go I Go Too manages to assimilate the more enjoyable elements of both of these alternate possibilities into a seamless and engaging whole, with only a few moments of awkward uncertainty.

Unless you’re already a Music Tapes fan, chances are you haven’t experienced anything quite as exquisitely raw, effortlessly transportive, and charmingly distinct in a long time.

While enduring a few accidents, the group’s fresh folk approach shows promise.

It’s not that 31 Knots aren’t succeeding in flexing their musical chops--they just don’t know where to take them.

The Genius’ latest full-length Pro Tools is no different; while its power as a long-player doesn’t hold up very well, random dissection brings out tracks destined for analog and digital freaks alike (in case that title--and the sparse cover--had you worrying).

Although they have a ways to go before establishing their own musical identity, The Uglysuit have more than enough talent to make it plausible that they’ll get there someday.

Not enough of Farmer or Poor Richard. Not enough sweat and gunpowder. They are intent on a tent shakeout, but no one’s pitching it.

It’s one of those beguiling albums saved for times alone, times when nothing else would seem quite right.

As an album, London Zoo is simply more engaging. Kevin’s production is intense but club-ready, and the lyrics are righteous and relevant.

Here, obsessed with his own mortality, Conor isolates himself from what stirs his best writing.

It seems nothing can stop them from releasing a good-to-great album each ear, and Preteen Weaponry is another sensation that will likely be taken for granted.

As fresh as the Re-Up Gang keep their rhymes and beats, much of the album has a cheap feeling--a "We Got It 4 Cheap," cheap, that is, as nearly half of the album is comprised simply of freshly mixed tracks from "Volume 3."

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

Waiting in Vain captures the modest landscape of America’s backroads and countrysides.

What’s important is confirming that you haven’t completely lost it, that you’ve still got the inspiration that made us listen in the first place--Donkey, however, is in danger of making us forget.

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.

Arrowhead is unfortunately not among the stronger things he’s released.

Stay Positive offers up plenty of reasons to let go and believe.

Object 47 is not a horrible record; it just isn’t all that good. It has none of the flare found on the band’s trilogy of classics and is never quite able to free itself from not-so-desirable labels like bland and unchallenging.

Ultimately, Nas’ decision to sacrifice lyrical and aesthetic sensibility for controversy, hype, and pop-appeal exposes the commodification and hollowness of his artistic voice and vision.

2008 requires more focus and more grace. Modern Guilt delivers both.

LP3 is a rewarding listen, and you’ll have a taste for it if you enjoyed the less powerful moments of "Classics" or Evan Mast’s previous textural work as E*Vax. Just don’t expect to find yourself headbanging and air-guitaring alone in your room.

They’ve become one of the most prolific staples of the American underground. And it’s there that Nude With Boots is a sound and welcome contribution.

I listened to this CD quite a bit, and it took some work for it to grow on me. I’ll admit that it finally did, but I’d say Knapp and Koster’s experiment was more failure than success.

Three 6 Mafia’s aspiration to evolve seems to have manifested itself on Last 2 Walk, from production to sound to lyrics. Having taken their novel sound to its lofty limits, it is time for the group to change and progress towards another musical frontier. However, their aspirations of progressing by melding Hollywood and the hood have largely failed.

Yet as much joy as you can hear in Hercules and Love Affair, it’s impossible to separate the melancholy from the mix.

Things just go from mad galloping gobbledigook to spongy sentiment.

It’s for the Pabst crowd, not the trendy crowd concerned about looking the part. It’s this honesty that permeates everything Escovedo does.

In the end, Ribot’s considerable talents are sadly lost among 12 disjointed tracks that range from out-of-place cacophony to irritating cliché.