The album's distinctly lacking in structure or direction.

With Creatures of an Hour, Still Corners prove that they can progress beyond this ubiquitous predilection for visual evocation.

Ultimately, High Places have succeeded in doing something that, on paper, seems an impossibility: they've managed to make an album that is undeniably focused around rhythms sound like an absolute slog.

Biophilia the "Bjork album" stands with the best of them.

Now, on On the Water, they've paced themselves, slowed down the tempos, and left room for ambience, such that the album's fevered points hit much more poignantly.

A flimsy and disposable album.

Stridulum was just a warm-up for Conatus, giving Zola Jesus the opportunity to gain confidence in traditional song forms so that she could burst out with a compositionally and emotionally varied set next time out.

While Franciotti's work is far from unique in its revival both of lo-fi synth panoramas and of ambient experimentalism, the combination and alternation of the two allows Forever a certain originality beyond other musicians mining either one or the other vein.

There are certainly moments of well-crafted, spaced-out music, but West is not as overwhelming as it could be. And to be honest, even after several listens, all the songs in West still sound pretty much the same.

Violent Hearts manages to tread the line between familiarly catchy and refreshing throughout.

On his latest, How the Thing Sings, Orcutt summons from this compromised thing a droning, sputtering blues that is utterly personal, theoretically rigorous, skeptical of tradition, and completely enthralling.

The shorter form of most of the songs (none longer than five and a half minutes) means that you rocket through The Hunter at what feels like breakneck speed, strapped to an intergalactic, pyrotechnic rollercoaster of awesome.

2011 has yielded precisely one TyM release worth your time, and this is it.

In the end, then, it's not that The Devil's Rain is a bad album, but it's by far the weakest link in the band's catalog, and coming at a time when faith in the group is at an all-time low.

It may not be exciting, per se, but it speaks to the ultimate appeal of Work (work, work); even in its drugged-up, mournful state, it holds your gaze.

Composed by two musicians at the height of their craft, the album reveals itself, thus far, as the apex of a limited genre still forming and as one of our finest contemporary acts of remembrance and ascension.

Wilco are just doing what they do best, and doing it better than ever.

The more you listen, the worse it gets.

No matter how likable all 10 of these songs may be, there's something missing here.

Despite these compelling, fidgety positives, those who bugged out to last year's On Patrol (i.e., everyone) will be forgiven for experiencing a sense of deja entendu.

Twin Sister ultimately make music seemingly wired to appeal to our most intrinsic pleasure centers, and--as befits the album's title--it's nothing short of rapturous.

As good a distillation of pop's best qualities as I've heard all year.

It's an agreeable listening experience with moments of catchiness and beauty throughout, and hints of an evolutionary path that leave future expectations open-ended.

Sadly, there aren't many moments on An Argument With Myself that register strongly.

It's Nurses' funky dance pop album, and thankfully they've also conjured up some irresistibly catchy melodies to complement them.

There is no sense of nostalgia here, only pure awkwardness and honest decadence that take the definition of 'kitsch' to unexpected artistic levels.

As the album unfolds, there is a genericness of atmosphere that, while not unpleasant, fails to blossom into anything more

The album tries really hard to be the soundtrack to both your trip to the disco and your trip down the rabbit hole, but doesn't offer any particularly compelling reasons for why you should make it either.