Tommy is a kind of maximalist musical confetti, a mostly instrumental amalgamation of jazz, hip-hop, folk, and laid-back electronica. Disparate ideas flit in and out of these songs, often before the listener really has a chance to get acquainted with them.

It's the fragmented experiments that keep Undermind from being a straightforward batch of songs, and they ultimately provide a much-needed balance.

It’s utterly consistent, simply arranged, and scrolls through the bad ideas fast enough to make them forgivable.

I guess whether or not Elevator is worth picking up for you depends on just what you want from Hot Hot Heat. If you liked Make Up the Breakdown, still like it, and want more of the Hot Hot Heat you've come to know and love, then knock that rating up another .5 or so and walk briskly to the nearest record store to buy it.

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.

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.

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.

The Menham Street Band realizes the vision of No Time For Dreaming, with Brenneck at the helm. More Memphis than Detroit, they're always present but never pretentious.

Harmonicraft is a short, sweet collection of pop-metal confectionery, irresistible if not unforgettable.

Very straightforward Interpol-lite.

There are hooks, and as usual Pink has an uncanny ability to worm his 80s-worshipping melodies and one-liners into your head whether you want them there or not, but the grand effect of Dedicated to Bobby Jameson is that of a restless mind finally beginning to slow down, settling into its patterns rather than excitedly seeking new ones, and struggling with one of the most unavoidable, stinging realities of being alive: disappointment.

While the instrumentation gives the impression of self-bricolage, made up of materials from Mac’s own private collection under a particular washed-out filter, the lyrics derive from common property, things like fragments of old clichés and easy rhymes.

In Between still contains its predecessor's youthful spirit, if not exactly matching its energy. It's evident that replacing those muddling walls of noise with a cleaner, distinct, and more organized approach to songwriting hasn't affected the band's knack for capturing the melody and feel of early shoegaze.

Sex with an X is a clear case of The Vaselines boldly going where they have gone before - most of the record more than stands up to many of the nuggets in their tiny back catalog - but maybe that's okay; maybe it's better to have them as they were than to not have them at all.

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

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.

(k)no(w)here is a really good, enjoyable record that this band has already made twice before, if a little more unevenly in the past.

32 Levels is a line in the sand, rather than a high watermark, for Clams Casino and the genre as a whole; a fertile growth outward, rather than a zeitgeist-recapturing album.

If you've enjoyed Gomez's musical direction in the last six years, you're sure to take pleasure in listening to Split The Difference.

His strengths are all being restrained, but you can tell they're struggling to get free.

Level Live Wires, is almost a pitch-perfect continuation of 2005's "Burner."

12 Desperate Lines takes tried-and-true radio rock tropes and imbues them with enough life to make them feel fresh.

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.

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.

Fishscale is a confusing journey: far from a disappointment, it breathes new life into the legacy of Ghostface without blowing too hard, and for that we should be thankful. But to champion his latest as equal or, god forbid, superior to past albums in any way, shape, or form is laughable, as years-removed and repeated listens will bear out.

While McEntire’s aimlessness feels honest and satisfying in its questing, it also makes for an album with plenty of movement but less, perhaps, in the way of progress.

The Cave Singers, though hobbled by their overly-familiar nature, make sweet, sentimental music. Welcome Joy, despite its rockier bent, is no exception.

The earth will remain unshattered by this release, but that's okay; there'll be time enough for rocking when we're old.