Eclipse is not a record for everyone, and Twin Shadow’s older fans probably are justified in their dismissals. But in terms of emotional texture, Eclipse represents a return to form.

It is a strange softness that contains all in a luminescence that exceeds it.

Nine Suns, One Morning is unpredictable without being arbitrary.

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

A finely observed, immaculately produced work, full of diversions, hooks, and charm.

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.

Lucifer - Latin for "morning light" or "light-bearer" - is an unabashedly blissed-out affair, composed of expansive dub grooves and enough good vibes to fill an entire summer.

The Outsider screams to be downloaded in sections by fans of specific genres.

As close to perfect as a noise album can be.

Throughout Emerald City, Vanderslice uses his celebrated producing talent to control feedback and mold it into an instrument as vital as the guitar and piano that are so central to his music.

All the idiosyncrasies which either drew you to Waits or repelled you from him are present, and many songs hold a resemblance to past gems.

Taking a step back and struggling with that always-expected "hot band" dilemma, Why? is coming to terms with his career as a musician. Judging from the quality of these eight songs, he appears to be handling it well.

The Terror may be The Flaming Lips’ most concise statement to date.

To the outsider, this album certainly feels like a defining statement, one that has considered each and every molecule that this abstract marvel might assume.

There is just something so appealing about such guileless, honest music, music that sounds like it was easily made, and that makes it look so easy to do.

These are songs that should be performed on a rare cabaret stage in a slum.

As something along the lines of throwing an old Pink Panther soundtrack in a blender with a copy of Reason 3, every track on Denies The Day is a scene from a different film you can't quite remember seeing.

ANTI is folk music played in a video-drome circularly projecting a 360° image of sprawling, semi-wilderness on fire as a compassionate, loving apocalypse. It’s a charged bleeding heart of sponsorship and exclusivity thrown into the throat of Yosemite. It’s a white horse galloping fiend-like across the continental divide, with a hoof-print-tire-tread that could pull the land apart.

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.

The album’s subtlety and abstract tendencies prevent it from becoming solely a work of stock collage or pastiche appropriation.

Rock music is ultimately about a wild feeling, and Milk Music are delivering it in just the right place.

Despite expectations, it’s an utter joy to listen to--a simple display of what 21 Savage sounds like when he’s having fun rapping.

All My Heroes Are Cornballs serves as an electronic manifesto for his fans, guerilla warfare of the auditory kind. Umberto Eco would be proud.

Good Sad Happy Bad is ultimately an optimistic record; it tries to bring out the positive in some of the most negative sounds around.

Pan Am Stories is an early masterpiece for Knight, an ambitious photographic travelogue constructed out of the raw materials of bedroom psych-pop.

Throughout, ego is rightfully extended through the sheer material force of his content generation. The listener must ultimately face their visceral love or hate toward his character, or, at least, observe how the majority of any given subway ride is in their feelings with his music.

There's a swagger about Dents and Shells unseen since Since.