Early Grass Widow gems like the haunting "Lulu's Lips" suggested a band that was really going to deliver one day. Past Time confirms those suspicions with firm resolve.

He continues to chart new territory, using his latest album to highlight sonic textures and what they seem to suggest about a metaphorical city. Working within those constraints, he's captured the nuance of living in many real cities and, in so doing, has crafted one of the stronger releases you'll hear this year.

It's a joy to hear him in such audibly great spirits, even if his most cognizant album effort in decades isn't some kind of miraculous knockout

Unlike the hyper-specific storytelling of some of Bottomless Pit's indie rock peers, the band unravels general truths slowly, through cloudy, opaque narratives of love and loss, of time and fear and happiness. And they do it so fluidly as to appeal to even the most discerning music fan (or critic). Rarely does something so interesting appear so effortless.

Listeners looking for a long-term relationship are advised to look elsewhere or lower their expectations for love.

On The Suburbs, their third album, Arcade Fire sound more like a band than ever before.

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.

Where The Messengers Meet subverts all the imagery suggested by the group's very name. It implies something incendiary, something rebellious, something explosive. And though there's evidence of a knowledge of all those things in the record's landscape, the path it takes proves a safer one, a trip to be had in good company.

Imagine my surprise to discover that Teflon Don is not only not atrocious, but it may also actually be one of the better rap albums of 2010.

I've rarely heard an album that wields so many weapons--not effortlessly, but with such painstaking mastery that it's almost arduous not to be won over.

The Long Shadow of the Paper Tiger cements their place at the forefront of contemporary dance music. The songs are funky and immediate, but display a global consciousness that puts them in a class of their own.

MAYA's many false starts and dead ends also place M.I.A. on shaky ground aesthetically, and with no coherent message to fall back on, the album feels alienated and disconnected, perhaps ironic for an album attempting to evoke the hyper-connectedness and sensory overload of culture in the wake of iPhone and Google.

Too much of Disconnect From Desire is an interchangeable muddle of middling drum programming and Teflon Liz Fraser vocals.

Sir Lucious is all but hiccup-free, exceptionally consistent in its mad musical mission. Each track on the record is an explosive standalone statement within a greater unifying framework; it's an album, but these songs are pipe bombs.

Expo 86 puts up a good showing. The best songs are catchy as hell but complex enough to stay sharp even after repeated listening.

I want to say “you’ve gotta hear it to believe it,” but there’s too much good music out there to waste your time on the bad--let alone the bad that knows it’s bad.

So let's put it simply: With Recovery, Eminem has misunderstood everything that once made him great as thoroughly as anyone else ever has.

It's fitting that Mason reserved his first official solo album for his best work since The Beta Band. The results prove well worth the wait.

At its core, Total Life Forever is a good dance record: something you could leave on at a party and not stop moving to until its full 50 minutes have finished. But as much as it tries to run away from that, it isn't a whole lot else.

Obstinate, prickly, and elusive as ever, Crystal Castles seem poised for more of the reckless aggression they've become known for.

Lacking the hooks and spirit of subversion that framed most of their previous efforts, the songs of Shadows require patience and understanding to reveal oft-hidden strength of voice within.

On an album that quite simply comes up lacking in spots, they provide a healthy dose of the same brilliant elegance found on "Furr."

There's nothing supremely bad about this record, but there are no surprises either. It's just--well, there.

Before Today is the best collection of pure pop songs released this year, and the experimental odds and bits only add to its considerable charm.

Temple and co. have obviously taken a big left turn that at the very least indicates a commitment to motion over stagnation; they're pushing themselves and their listeners somewhere.

What's frustrating is that beneath the surface of LP4 there appears to be the basis for a great record. But its execution is too rote, too much the result of being so entrenched in the band's Ratatat-ness that the material is suffocated.

The record can at times feel static and repetitious, revisiting the same structural devices numerous times and using a lot of the same timbres and ambient sounds on every track.

Splazsh evokes mood on a larger scale than Hazyville, increasing possibilities by stepping up production technique and stylistic variety, but it continues to focus on music's effect on the mind by allowing technique to undermine and contradict itself.