In and Out of Youth and Lightness is not going to be an album for the impatient. A few listens are needed to soak in every layer this album has to offer.

Though Ty Segall often seems like he makes records at inhuman paces, Sleeper indulges his very human impulse for a good wallow, and proves that there’s more to the man than the distorted ripping guitars would make you believe.

When it's all said and done, I have a feeling Jaar's solo career won't be the only thing he's known for, as Psychic has put Darkside up there with some of the best groups making music today.

His propensity for pushing boundaries is carried over onto an album that devotes more than a third of its runtime to previously released songs. Terje took the remainder of that time and expended it on bold, successful new iterations of his aesthetic.

The best thing about Lenses Alien: its incessant begging for you to spin it again.

Ultimately, though, regardless of whether Hansard is cribbing moves from his own country's heritage, or from one of the biggest rock stars in American history, he manages to make it all his own thanks to the quality of his songwriting and the passion behind his performances.

The album never gets stagnant and avoids the pitfalls of sticking to the same sound or mellowing out with age and ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead have quite a few albums in them yet.

The complexities and dense topics still remain on Dinosaur, giving the album many layers for the listener to peel apart. Basically, My Dinosaur Life is the fusion of the best moments of Motion City Soundtrack's previous three albums and expanding on that, while maintaining all the uniqueness and quirks that fans love about the band.

Known as much for their rambunctiousness as their literate ways, Steel Train have managed to take all the hallmarks of their sound but pushed them even farther. And yet never once is their sound compromised.

Overall, The xx have created an album that is just as interesting, attractive and sexy as it could possibly be.

It’s dynamic and unpredictable while also being Into It. Over It.’s most focused work.

The album represents a triumph for Have a Nice Life after six years of mostly silence, and is a more-than-worthy follow-up to Deathconsciousness.

If you just want another batch of Torche tracks, some of which stand up to the best in their discography, then Restarter will prove to be a worthy addition to the Torche catalog.

It sprawls and can feel tenuous, even precipitously close to collapse under its own weight, but the moment of calamity never arrives. It stands instead as a monument not to the person who has erected it, but to the multitudinous influences that brought it into being.

Universal Themes has the makings to be one the year’s most intriguing collections of songs yet.

The Big Deep shows that The Sleeping will not be pigeonholed into one genre, and the track that best sums this up is final track (and lead single) "Young Vibes...Don't Run Away From Me." Still full of the urgency you've come to expect from The Sleeping, but it also incorporates all the progress shown throughout the album, thus creating a nice balance between the old and new.

I will simply say, if you are a young person who is unsure or drifting by in any way, give Holy Shit a chance. Scream along. Feel better. Live your life the way you find most wonderful.

Failed States is the band's best release to date.

Showcasing the very best of Archambault’s lyrics and the band’s musicianship while channeling more post-rock-esque breaks along with diverse shifts in pacing and tone into their brand of hardcore, Abandoned is undoubtedly the essential Defeater release and gold-standard for hardcore in 2015.

Nothing Was The Same is the best Drake album yet.

With The Wild Hunt, Swedish maestro Kristian Matsson once again constructs lively, emotional pieces with nothing more than his strangely authentic Southern drawl and nimble fingers. The lyrics are beyond superb.

Seahaven lost themselves at sea (figuratively) and emerged with the most surprising and refreshing album of 2014.

Their talented musicianship signals they are out of step with their peers experimentally as grindcore architects; likewise, Darker Handcraft will trap you easily in frenetic whiplash mode.

No one really knew what to expect out of this project, and I think it's safe to say that Permanence exceeds expectations.

As long as they keep crafting albums as fresh, loose and fun as Remedy, chances are they’ll keep this truck roaring for another two decades.

11 tracks of stick-to-the-roof-of-your-eardrums music that sounds all at once immediate and laid-back.

It's a very satisfying record, and it's the type of album where every song will probably be your favorite at some point, and you'll almost certainly have each of them stuck in your head at some point in the next week.

Just Be Free is a wonderfully functional album, displaying Queen Freedia at her very best.