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

For those familiar with the music of Clogs, Lantern won't sound like much of a departure, but a definite improvement. The nuance of piano, the swelling strings that exercise restraint, the welling and wheeze of a crescendo – it all delivers.

While Oracular Spectacular has its sophomoric moments (you’d be wise to avoid the nasal whine of 'Weekend Wars'), a listen to 'Climbing To New Lows'--a catchy demo set from their undergrad days--will make anyone see what attracted the bigwigs at Columbia in the first place.

Music this agreeable and well-produced may not leave the most potent aftertaste, but it still makes for a sweet listen without veering into the saccharine.

AMOK might be a weaker, meeker product than the output of Radiohead, but its compact nature, its genre codes, and its context are what’s important here. AMOK sums up Thom Yorke as he stands to today.

For all its restrictions, Jazz Mind is a tasty little album.

While this doesn’t exactly add up to any profound reinvention of genre, Before a Million Universes thrives best without thinking.

However, palpable in the sound of hej! is the plastic production that in most PC Music releases obscures what severs real from virtual, superficial from sincere, instead exposing that the uncanny excess of the latter grounds the former’s dominion in our minds.

There isn’t a moment when Charli XCX doesn’t display the kind of wild, brash confidence that other artists take years to arrive at.

His delivery is low, wounded, yearning; despite the rockist structures, the keyboards and drum machines rattle in a pale imitation of the grandeur he’s seeking, like the last scene of Aguirre.

This album is ridiculously rhythmic.

On Komba, their beats are deeper, darker, and more powerful than before, pointing the way towards a new direction for the band and, consequently, their audience.

Transit Transit works like a best-of compilation, assembling the group's better efforts over the last six years while forgoing the mismatched feeling of such collections, a feat only a group as talented as Autolux could handle.

An intriguing album that grows both more complex and more likeable with each listen.

[It] finds her in fine form.

The only complaint about Knoxville is its length, although it's not so much a complaint as it is a curiosity about whether there is more of this live performance out there somewhere that didn't make the final edit. As with almost all Fennesz projects and releases, the listener is left wanting more.

The Rural Alberta Advantage's capital-E Emotions are rarely comforting, but they serve as a reminder that life, stark - and wintry - as it is, is worth feeling hurt over, that our petty, mortal passions are justified.

For going on 20 years, when Xiu Xiu have put out an album, it’s one of that year’s best. It’s no small thrill to see this trend continue.

The album pursues a house sound consistent with 2011's Ital's Theme.

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

Centipede Hz feels celebratory.

Gradually revealing its strengths, Arctic Monkeys have pulled off a rare musical trick of their own; they’ve finally made an album that grows upon consideration, a record that feels accomplished and complete.

It tends to, er, drag, but the producer's deft touch with wonky textures remains thrilling.

In short, Lux is exactly what one might expect from Eno in ambient mode, here manifesting with a blip of chaos in an opaque sea, like a drop of ink muddling a solution of milk.

Pitiless Censors is a sparkling album, a lo-fi synth pop masterpiece that manages to give endless aural delights while still being intellectually engaging, and despite having been caught at the center of a whirlpool of current movements, all of which reflect some aspect of Maus' style, he has only cemented his identity as a singular, unimpeachable figure.

Formerly a more stolidly post-punk outfit, their bread and butter on Remember the Night Parties are the kind of R.E.M.-meets-Superchunk anti-anthems of “For the Khakis and Sweatshirts” and “Return /of Burno.”

In a time where it is possible for acts who made their careers in that early-90s cauldron of independent creativity to reform and remake themselves, it seems a cop-out to make such a risk-free album, especially since Hatfield had full creative control. Fan-funding could liberate, rather than stifle, even allowing experimentation; there's no boss to please, only fans to engage. But that doesn't happen at any point on There's Always Another Girl. Just more of the same.

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.