Maniac Meat births a few new wrinkles, but it's the same old Linus blanket: comforting, yes, but worn and approaching threadbare status.

With its blend of classic Jurado themes and a new sonic palette, Saint Bartlett serves not just as an encapsulation of Jurado's career, but as a promising indicator of where he's headed.

These fine-detail improvements are what make This Is Happening LCD’s best work to date, though mumblings about how Murphy might be repeating himself a bit remain valid.

Infinite Arms is a confusing, schizophrenic work. Several of its earlier tracks find the band clicking like never before and exploring fresh ideas while sounding more aerodynamic than ever. But so much else seems to have been haphazardly thrown together, as if the band never even entered the same room during the recording process.

Brothers is the least stuffy record The Black Keys has put out, and it's by far their strongest.

It all adds up to something that is far less than a great record, but those who approach Distant Relatives can expect at least a handful of keepers for the summer months.

Harvey Milk never quite match the achievement of their canonical works, but, nevertheless, they've succeeded in stretching the running joke without dissolving into self-parody. Or perhaps more aptly, they've delivered on the promise of self-parody with a record of genuine insecurity, unsettling pessimism and inherent, indisguisable humanity.

By embracing immediacy and toning down the navel-gazing, The National have finally created an album deserving of all their earlier acclaim.

The result is an absolute monster of a closing track that caps a seductively repeatable album, which speaks miles to the effort on Holy Fuck's strongest album to date.

Admittedly, no track on Taking It Easy proves as woefully intimate as the ukulele and accordion lament of Pride's "Wolves," but "The Mermaid Parade" somehow rings just as true for all its simplicity.

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/cocorosie-grey-oceans

His good intentions are largely undone by the occasional ideological confusion. The enjoyment offered by the instrumentation is unmitigated, however, which ultimately makes Li(f)e something of a positive-sum venture.

So maybe Nothing Hurts won’t be a record at the vanguard of a movement. But it certainly moves.

Though more consistent in tone than in quality, Relayted is easy to criticize but difficult to dismiss.

Warm Slime; it's just solid, thick as a brick.

Over the three preceding records, the band has built up a loyal following by creating dark, gritty, but tuneful music. This album slots in nicely to the band's catalog as yet another release with undoubted new wave pop sensibilities fluttering amongst more damaged, foreboding vibes.

Stuck On Nothing is a boozy, lusty hug of a record--an album so loving and large-hearted that its virtues essentially cancel out its flaws.

While it doesn't quite hit with the immediacy of 2008's Imperial Wax Solvent, Your Future Our Clutter has already proved to be quite the grower, with complex lyrics (Smith grappling with his recent medical issues and overall mortality) and penetrating aesthetics.

They may have traded in a certain sort of urgency and sprawl, but there's a certitude to the whole affair that makes the album go down easy.

Cosmogramma is futurist in form, rather than content. Reliving the future's past through a constellation of references to cosmic jazz, psychedelic funk, hip-hop, and techno, the music of Flying Lotus never fixates long enough to crystallize; any groove that spontaneously emerges is quickly subverted, churned up in favor of a creating new maps and new vectors.

While it does have moments where the listener is reminded of why they love power-pop, Together ends up sounding too vocally divided as an album and at times too top-heavy with orchestral arrangements.

Unlike Patton's previous forays into the experimentalism of John Zorn or Merzbow, Mondo Cane delivers a more conventional set, heavy on romantic strings and swaying nostalgia.

Due in large part to Herring's undeniably affecting vocals and lyrical laments, In Evening Air is a record that sticks. It is one for autumn, for spring, or for any moment of your life that is vividly tainted with love and all its trappings.

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

Trans-Continental Hustle is an honest effort, but one that pales a little when compared to the Technicolor explosions of Gogol Bordello's back catalog.

As far as products go, B.o.B. is, at the very least, highly marketable, if not terribly satisfying. The Adventures of Bobby Ray, like bubblegum, loses its flavor after about 15 minutes.

This release feels freer, though--not easier, necessarily, but delivered with a clarity of purpose not quite as muddled, consumption-wise, by sheer weirdness as was their previous LP, Tears Of The Valedictorian, for instance.

With Swim, Caribou has transcended the confines of indie pop and electronica.