As always, Berman and the Silver Jews work best in their classically sharp, witty song stylings and deftly produced Americana constructions. And most of the songs here exhibit just that.

Coldplay’s all about elongation this time around, and if you couldn’t tolerate their dramatics before, Viva la Vida will do nothing for you. Don’t get me wrong; to my ears, this is the group’s strongest offering yet, but since this album is the same old naive romanticism theatrically propped on a pedestal, it’s not really saying a lot.

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.

It’s breathtaking, it’s assured, it’s a perfect finale, it LIVES UP TO THE HYPE.

As they stand with Ice Cream Spiritual, Ponytail have captured an ample document of their instrumental majesty without losing a lick of their live energy.

This album will please Supergrass-adoring simpletons merely looking for a new album by their favorite band, but to everyone else it should be considered a major disappointment.

Picking up where "Z" skidded off, Evil Urges is like a carnival, like life (after all, My Morning Jacket is in cahoots with The Band), like cigarrons, discarded cigarettes dredged from the Cimarron River, and cinnamon sticks in a pot of boiled apples on the stove.

Off to Business--released eponymously by Guided By Voices, Inc.--is the ultimate product of this trend: an album full of ebullient mid-tempo rockers, ebullient pretty guitar parts, and ebullient power drum fills.

Now, equipped with the stylish, but too-often substance-less Tha Carter III, Lil Wayne seems poised to flip the script on the “rapper racists” (radio stations, MTV) by evolving into the “biggest” rapper alive.

Not as sprawling a set of riches as "Never Hear the End of It," this new album is more in the pop juggernaut category, where each song pulls the listener along in head-bobbing succession--but there’s no less dynamism for that.

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.

Despite what they’d like us to think, The Red Album sounds like every one of Weezer’s misfires since "The Green Album": a few songs that work and a whole slew that flounder completely.

@#%&*! Smilers walks its own path as a uniquely beautiful addition to Mann’s already impressive catalogue.

Although there is much to like about the album, it can be difficult to differentiate one from another.

The songs here tend to go nowhere for a quiet couple of minutes before bursting randomly into tightly composed melodrama, which could be mistaken for actually going somewhere.

The lack of a reliance on the electronic merging with folk is the most interesting aspect to There Were Wolves; whereas it is essential to the appeal of Genders’ Tunng gang, The Accidental plays it straight, using those ever-present vocal sounds on top of primarily unadorned acoustic numbers.

All jokings aside, this record is downright GNARLY despite its hang-ups, impossible to wash from the soul and probably the thickest, grittiest substance you ever did see.

Although it remains, at its foundation, an exploration of themes that Pierce has long explored, Songs In A&E becomes more than the sum of its historical variants by directly placing emotional vulnerability at its focal point.

Although Mudhoney aren’t shaking things up too much with their established formula, The Lucky Ones shows no signs of the band mellowing out, and their bloozy, fuzzy rock action still sounds pretty damn great after a couple High Lifes.

Arm’s Way is a detailed, richly-rewarding album. These are undeniably melodramatic AOR songs--but they’re nuanced in form, graced with melody, and any obvious tropes are usually subverted.

It’s rare for musicians to age so gracefully (and regardless, no one in Joan of Arc is really old either), and yet here one finds the band mellowing a bit from the over-exuberance of their early output while still retaining the ability to engage and be inventive.

Ultimately, Inherit is neither a great nor terrible album. Although it certainly sounds like it was a hell of a lotta fun to record, I don’t think even die-hard fans will get overly excited about it.

Narrow Stairs is the sound of a band falling in love with the concept of sound; as such, Gibbard’s stately lyricism largely takes a backseat--although his voice has never sounded more different and varied.

This album will please a lot of people looking for a more “punk” twist on past minimalism, but while that’s great, my ears are on a search for something fresher.

Couples proves that Kate is no Jarvis, and, more importantly, The Long Blondes are no Pulp.

Equal parts 007-intrigue and spaghetti western-histrionics, this is music at its most cinematic.

Nouns sounds as homemade as something released on a Warner Music affiliate could be. It’s crafted with a sense of pleasant haphazardness, gelling into one of those rare situations where everything that is thrown at the wall sticks.

In synthesizers, Matmos have found their hearts; through old Cluster records, they’ve created one of the most pleasant surprises of the year.

Where other reborn acts seem to revel in the sheer formal reconstruction and forget songwriting entirely, Costello gets it backwards and winds up with a listenable record as a result.

Ultimately, what we’re left with is an EP built around a great pop song, two good ones, and a throwaway.

Third is a carefully rewarding record with enough inspired turns to entertain throughout.

This is the least fashionable album I have heard in ages, and all the better for it.

Kensington Heights matches up each spectacular moment with an equally mundane one.

While Smile may be inarguably more accessible than their previous releases, it still has enough cloaked treasures to keep the diehards interested.

Though Langhorne Slim has its delights, one would be remiss not to note its flyover country.

Elephant Shell has it all if you’re looking for youthful mistakes from a well-meaning (but again, young) band that really, really, REALLY shouldn’t let the hype go to their heads.

This album is a nice collection of songs for our fans.

We’re given a de trop of horrid synthesizers, only to be outdone by worse choruses and banal refrains.

So, if you're with indie-pop’s backward-gazing contingent, or if you prefer it when ‘achingly beautiful’ actually aches, or if you want an example of style-versus-substance as a false dilemma--then get this record.

Pyramids would serve as a helluva soundtrack to a dream I once had, a lucid dream around age 10 wherein I woke up within the dream, realized I was in a dream, and acted accordingly. Super accordingly.

The only thing keeping The Death Set from being remarkably original is the repetition of Siera’s beloved drum machine.

I’m deflated again, as all Gonzalez does with this blank canvas for electronic experimentation is cycle two chords over and over with a little synth sprinkled on top.

Where Newcombe’s music once sounded fresh and lively, his political message both controversial and effectual, on My Bloody Underground his music is neither fascinating nor engaging.

While Pfeffer’s lyrics are engaging, they’re sometimes inaccessible in delivery. Despite this, So Embarrassing is an interesting personal take on prog rock’s roots, and therefore quite a step in the right direction.

On Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, rock, country, blues, and post-punk rhythms meld with Cave’s lyrics on sex, death, God, and America to create what could be one of his most perfect albums yet.

Ghosts I-IV is a clear step forward while still managing to stay true to what NIN traditionally ought to sound like and represent.

This album is an embarrassment of riches.

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

Do It! is rarely dull. Uninspired? Yes. But it’s never dull.

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.

This album is a must for Decemberists’ fans and even a fairly pleasant diversion for casuals, but Colin Meloy Sings Live! is exactly that and nothing more: a few interesting veers among a bunch of Decemberists songs stripped of their playful pretentiousness.

The result is a cache of songs that are somewhat transposable with one another, but they’re undeniably well-crafted pieces of music, let alone psych-pop.

R.E.M. do sound like a band again, but they don’t sound like a band very much apart from their peers.

So, caveat auditor: this album is deep and often rich, but it definitely wants, even requires, you to pay attention.

So, while this compilation retrospective may be aimed at completists, there is plenty going on here to satisfy even the most casual listener.

Let it also be said that Jemima Pearl’s voice has improved in a myriad of ways; throughout Be Awkward, she wails, rally-cries, and (especially on 'Becky') croons with a range of emotions that were bereft in previous recordings. If there’s one thing Be Awkward has in common with BYOP’s first effort, it’s the fact that it runs a bit long.

A bit more polished, a little more cohesive, and a bunch more bizarre, but all still an attempt at reinventing rock ‘n’ roll from the inside out.

A Mad & Faithful Telling, however, comes off as their most focused and researched work yet, incorporating traditional and pop culture aspects without getting cluttered or seeming like they’re trying too hard to find a niche.

Sure, Street Horrrsing doesn’t overtly delineate any new sonic set, but its execution and relative brevity reflect highly on these two venerable artists.

The Teenagers have not made a great album, but it is better than many will want to admit.

The songwriting is capable, it’s just somewhat predictable, and the lyrics are cheeky.

Every song is serrated with pixel edges, and Alice Glass’ sometimes morose, sometimes lilting like a Valley girl vocals vibrate with such catchy and violent gloom that it’d send any human/marmoset/sentient being into an epileptic dance session.

Through it all, Green’s show tune-y vocals are at center stage, and though the compositions are often too busy and can detract from his rolling lyrical intricacies, Sixes and Sevens is a very good record, if still a step short of great.

Alopecia, their third full-length release and second as a full band, is a darkly tinged juggernaut.

Lackluster sound quality, predictable track construction, and the utter absence of emotional push and/or pull yield a record that comes off more like a product placement than a work of art.

We get tiny tastes of levity, but scarcely the sort of wit we’re used to.

Bozulich has amassed a band and baptized it with the name of her last record, and together they careen through a broken itinerary of radiant darkness.

Even when the album gets really flaccid, as in the clattering breakdown of the turgid story-song 'Hopscotch Willie,' Malkmus is still annoyingly good at writing stuck-in-your-dome-piece melodies that keep you humming the tunes you don’t like just as much as the highlights

After many detailed listens, the record feels like their strongest yet, a bold statement considering the importance of their previous works.

Pemberton’s lyrics can be long-winded, but on the whole, they display a postmodern reflexivity that is profoundly mind-boggling.

I’d rather be listening to Magnificent Fiend’s antecedents.

These United States sidesteps what could have easily been part of a superfluous boy-and-his-guitar genre by folding classic standards and varying its instrumentation and pop arrangements enough to create a warm and subtle structure, making for an altogether fresh and uniform interpretation of railroad folk introspection.

Sea Lion is a delight.

Shots isn’t a perfect record by any means.... However, by the time the epic closer “Ghost Blues” enters its nasty twin-guitar breakdown, you’ll want to pour yourself another drink and hit Shots’ high points anyway.

It is a welcome return home to a band that had been on quite the bender.

What is most impressive about New Amerykah is that Erykah simply breathes life into these tracks.

Devotion has that same opiated warmth that left me lying in a bed of rose petals for long stretches last year, and though I would have preferred a bigger growth spurt from the Baltimore duo, they shot up at least enough to warrant a new pencil mark a half-inch/inch above where I placed them in ‘06.

Press down on the ambiguities of Lust Lust Lust as much as you want, and you’ll still be trapped in a world of surfaces.

While the band have shed much of their aggressive musical past, they are able to bring an edge to a wealth of genres that otherwise struggle with balancing a new audience with an older, AOR-accessible set.

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.

The most subtle incorporation of drum machines, horns, and vocal effects transforms Bon Iver’s music from the quiet afterthought that characterizes much of today’s indie-folk into a sonic landscape of moods and nuances.

Each song has a distinctive quality that stands on its own. However, when you back away from the album as a whole, you begin to see that all these individual elements unify to make a greater holistic product.

They play a very recognizable breed of avant-rock or indie-rock and are doing something that has been done over and over again in New York City.

But even with Brooke’s uncharacteristically romantic epiphanies, The Grand Archives still occasionally tends toward predictable sentimentality.

Ghost Games is nothing so profound, but it certainly is something to bring out of the closet once a year or so.

The fact of the matter is, despite lesser numbers, they have demonstrated progression as artists.

BSP aren't going for a concept album here (or concepts at all, really), but you'd be forgiven for expecting one given how beautifully the collection of songs coheres into a singular piece of work and retains momentum through its movements.

Hot Chip sound like such a broad swath of pop music on this album that you can’t quite call them out for biting any single obnoxious influence too much, even when they do get so hyperactive it’s annoying.

For the first time, Dead Meadow have created something for everyone, not just fans of one aspect of their sound. While that might piss off those very same fans, it is for the greater good.

Except for the admittedly awesome surf-rock instrumental 'Reflecting,' there’s nothing done on Circular Sounds that you can’t find done better on old vinyl, battered mixtapes, and (shudder) Counting Crows albums.

They try their best to make a staggering number of genres their own, but ultimately prove themselves to be jacks-of-all-trades, masters of none.

The Bedlam in Goliath is an exhausting and overwhelming effort that fails to leave any tangible impression.

By the end of the album’s blissful, sparse, empty-Saharan-landscape closer 'The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance,' perfection doesn’t seem to matter much anymore--especially when your mind’s too preoccupied on starting Vampire Weekend again from the beginning.

The songwriting of its back-half just doesn’t stand up to its front-half or the rest of the band’s catalog.

The Helio Sequence have finally produced not just a collection of songs, but an album.

Unfortunately, what starts off like clockwork ends up as predictable as the inevitable passage of time.

When all these cuts add up, we wind up with an album’s worth of pleasantries.

Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard it before... it’s taking drugs to make music to take drugs to, or something. But it’s still pretty damn fun, and Black Mountain do it with a higher idea-per-song ratio than most of their fellow fetishists.