Definitely a bit more hit-or-miss than some of his past work.

As always, Can Cladders is immaculately-produced, with an airy feel that emphasizes the breezy songs.

Dip is sort of an awkward sidestep in a new direction for Moffat, but it's still rewarding in places if you have the patience.

Loney, Noir is an excellent little album and a great precursor to spring that seems so far away right now.

An excellent third album from the Swedish trio, Writer's Block should make sure that the group remains in obscurity no more.

Although it's definitely a bit bi-polar, Cryptograms still gets high marks for offering up a slew of great tracks and actually gaining strength the longer it goes on.

WIncing The Night Away as a whole is both inconsistent and even odd in sequencing.

Downright awesome in places.

[The] longer track... just completely derails what would otherwise be a fairly solid and concise album.

A knockout of an album.

Despite the inconsistencies, Hello Everything is one of the best things that Jenkinson has done in some time.

There's still not really anyone out there creating music quite like this, but unfortunately The Blood Brothers have made better albums than this.

At times enjoyable, at other times somewhat bland, And The Opera Circuit is a somewhat inconsistent follow-up release from the young artist.

Over quiet, shuffling drum machine beats, the two spill out woozy guitars, vocals, and organs into slightly off-kilter pop nuggets that sound like they could have been made at any point in the past thirty (or more) years.

Human Animal certainly isn't something I'd want to pull out on a regular basis, but there's some beautiful evil I can appreciate on this one.

Dense and substantive, Return To Cookie Mountain is a nice head-trip to take.

Even more engaging than their debut, So This Is Goodbye is another amazing album from Junior Boys, and one of the better releases of the year.

In the end, Varcharz feels like an in-betweener album, where the duo hasn't quite figured out which direction they want to move in next.

At times outstanding and at others a bit frustrating, Slappers is a bit too uneven to be essential.

As a whole, The Body The Blood The Machine is a bit more inconsistent than Fuckin' A, but at the same time has some of the best songs in the group's discography and some of the better arrangements [as] well.

Like his debut, it could use a bit more focus and some editing, but the basement hits feel is part of the charm with VanGaalen.

When they keep things a little more subtle, Silent Shout is outstanding, but in other places it's just sorta there.

Radiohead fans will obviously want to snag it up, but if you’re looking for melancholic electronic pop, there’s much better to be found.

A highly entertaining album, and perfect for blasting during hot summer days.

Despite her pushing slightly forward with her unique sound on this newest release, Son just doesn't engage me as much as I thought it would.

Free jazz fiends and fans of the first volume will find plenty to love here.

Instead of exposing any weaknesses, the group has highlighted their strengths by stripping things back to their essentials for A Vintage Burden.

A highly enjoyable album that doesn't beg to be parsed too deeply.

Something like the Polyphonic Spree might sound if they decided to freak out a bit more, Danielson is a whole load of friends getting together under the banner of having a good time and creating some enjoyable music.

An outstanding debut album, and easily one of my favorite releases of the year so far.

The main problem haunting Denies The Day's Demise is the same one that holds back several past releases from Daedelus. While the release is cohesive and fairly entertaining, it could have used a bit more editing in terms of overall running length.

There are several places where the disc seems to lapse into very familiar territory, and at other times it definitely feels like it's coasting a bit.

This album is a great deal of fun.

Despite some tracks that take immediate hold, it's another album that takes a little bit of simmering to really sink in.

Fans of My Morning Jacket will most likely love this release, and I'm sure those who followed Carissa's Wierd will want to hear what half of that band has been up to since calling it quits.

Push The Heart is easily the most developed batch of songs from the group, easing through ten assured tracks of soft orchestral pop.

This is nicely-conceived pop music that keeps things concise and interesting.

There are moments where the two seem to sync up nicely and really unveil something beautiful and unique, but there are far too many other passages where the pairing doesn't quite seem to fully jel.

If you like instrumental hip-hop and don't mind a few tracks with vocals (most of which are quite well done), Soft Money is worth checking out.

The Humbucking Coil doesn't really tread any new ground for Fleischmann, but it's another enjoyable and solid little release in his discography.

Even though it's downright schmaltzy at times, Sun, Sun, Sun is such a warm, inviting record that I've found myself going back to it time after time.

Arriving somewhere between the newer work of Styrofoam (on Morr) and The Postal Service, Electric President mainly dabbles in melancholy-tinged tracks with a couple bursts distributed through the album for good measure.

At times, the album gets a little too sappy for its own good, but it's never enough to derail things.

One could argue that it sounds like a different group on this release, and technically it is. Still, if you like the last album from Rogue Wave, I can't imagine you going wrong with this one.

A glorious, noisy, melodic, celebratory release from the ever-inventive group.

It's not quite as engaging as Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, but in a pinch it will do.

Cinder isn't an album that wallops you over the head at any points, but wins you over with steady and solid songs.

The album is almost all hooks, and like most albums of said variety, it's a load of fun but doesn't always stick to your ribs.

In places, the group seems like they're being almost willfully difficult, and yet it often makes for darn good listening.

Yes, the almost nonsensical, stream-of-consciousness lyrics are still there, but the sense of songwriting, melody, and even depth of instrumentation has been expanded upon.

A lot different than the release under his own name, Audion is enough to make you sweat a bit whether you use it for dancing or as a soundtrack for *ahem* other activities.

They take their rough charm and run with it, continuing the giddy momentum they hinted at on [their self-titled] EP.

It's something that could appeal to everyone from fans of Can to Fela to Kompakt. This is inspiring stuff.

It's not quite along the same lines as the ultra-drastic change from Start Breaking My Heart to Up In Flames by Manitoba/Caribou, but it's a somewhat similar jump.

All of the interesting parts of his music are still here, he's just written an album that plays up his strengths in more measured ways. The result is easily his best release to date.

Although the album isn't groundbreaking, it does contain several new wrinkles in sound for the group, and most of them work quite well.

Imagine a highly narcotic Shins with even more subtle instrumentation and you're getting somewhere close.

Good, but not outstanding.

While these experiments don't always quite work, at the very least the group isn't falling into a rut.

Stevens is simply one of the most talented artists creating music right now, period.

[Ounsworth's] weird quirks do grow on you, especially because the music backing him is so solid most of the time.

We Are Monster is one of those fun albums that sounds great whether you're in the mood to move or just sitting down and listening on headphones as you ride to work on the bus.

The album just doesn't have the innovation that previous albums from Hebden have shown.

Fans of each respective artist may scratch their head a bit when first hearing 13 & God, but it will mostly make sense after awhile. If it doesn't, it's probably not supposed to.

On first listen, it's not as immediately accessible as Up In Flames... [but it] reveals itself in several listens and contains yet another batch of fearless tracks from an artist who simply refuses to sit still.

If you haven't discovered the group yet, by all means snap up this lush slab of synth pop.

It's a melodic, pop album that doesn't pay attention to any typical structures or formulas, and Adam Pierce has pulled off another winner.

If you were a bit let down by the last Bright Eyes album (as I was), this is a release that should get you excited again.

There are times where the release feels like a transitional effort, yet it also contains some of the best songs that they've ever done.

Let Us Never Speak Of It Again is at the same time better than Street Dad in several ways, but also much more indulgent (sometimes in bad ways) than its concise predecessor.

Although there are a couple tracks that are a bit more padding than needed, but overall this is a career compilation that's definitely worth having.

Wind In The Wires just feels a bit more hesitant than Lycanthropy, and while there are some great tracks, it doesn't quite have the same energy that his debut did.

Contains some of their best work, as well as some of their most indulgent.

A remarkably efficient album that zips by with plenty of highlights and begs for a press of the repeat button.

It's nice to hear him breaking free of the contraints that he's laid out for himself thus far.

All the tracks are spotlessly performed by the group, but don't differ from the recorded tracks all that much except in a few cases.

If their last album seemed like a drastic change to their longtime fans, then Outside Closer will seem like more of a logical succession of sound.

Bird seems to have really reached a stride in terms of his overall sound and the result is one of my favorite albums of the year so far.

With the new directions in sound, there are a couple places where the group stumbles just a bit.

There are several songs on the release that are easily among the best that the group has ever done, but by the time the 15 tracks and well over an hour run length are over, the release feels a bit on the long side and many of the shorter tracks simply feel like sketches that weren't fully fleshed-out.

In the end, it doesn't really matter that it's the soundtrack to a video game that I'll never play. It's a new Amon Tobin album (and a good one at that), and that's all I need.

While all the songs are nicely performed and recorded, they simply don't capture the amazing qualities of Case and her band.

At times touching and at others completely silly.

In truth, a couple tracks could have been cut to turn this into an epic single-disc release of huge proportions, but it's still the best work that Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds have done since Murder Ballads.

While it makes a lot of musical leaps (it's probably the most "experimental" work he's done), not all of them work, but there are still some great moments for fans of his work here.

I actually find it kind of funny that the group has managed to land on a large label with this release, because even though it's a bit more polished sounding than anything they've done before, I simply can't imagine anything on "Crimes" playing on anything other than college radio.

The quiet/loud, quiet/loud thing has been going on for a long time now, and while Mono has things in common with everyone from Mogwai to the aforementioned groups, they're definitely one of the better bands I've heard doing this in a while.

Overall, the album doesn't show quite the range that some of his previous works have done, but if you enjoy Waits, you're definitely not going to go wrong here.

If you're a fan of work by the Animal Collective, you'll probably want to check this out, but keep in mind that you'll need a little patience.

Your tolerance level for the group will probably mostly have to do with how well you can stand the rather light vocal stylings and the sometimes lighter-electronics programming.

If I were to have just heard the first half of the disc, I probably would have proclaimed it the best of the year as well.

It still doesn't quite have the emotional grab of some of their older work despite the addition of more vocals and a slightly more glossy sound.

The group takes the term "clinical" to new heights, yet this newest effort still sounds more loose than their last effort.

While it might not be a full exclamation point ending to their career, it's far better than a fall on the face.

While they have incorporated new sounds into their palette, the sonic experiments don't quite work all the time and the album suffers a bit in places because of that.

[A] lovely debut album of hushed folk that may be one of the best things in this sort of genre that I've heard in some time.

Take some metal and stir in some prog, sludge, and psych rock and basically you've got yerself Comets On Fire.

While I don't think that it's quite the groundbreaking release that many have given it credit for, there are definitely moments during the 12-track release that I feel like the group has cracked into something unique and downright amazing.