With Major/Minor Thrice have stripped away unnecessary studio production, added instrumentation and pretention to offer simply a great rock album.

Apparently Cartwright exorcised his punk rock demons with Desperation, as Shattered is the band’s most accessible record yet.

Shook’s unerring insurgence and commitment to the cause are admirable traits, proof that edge and attitude never go out of style.

Lanegan doesn’t need someone to make him great, he does fine by himself and it shows with the anthology of his solo work Has God Seen My Shadow?- An Anthology 1989-2011 (Light in the Attic).

Weird Little Birthday is one of those albums that sounds like nothing much the first couple times you hear it, before you begin to lock onto the war between musical ease and lyrical dislocation.

Yellow & Green documents the evolution of Baroness from great metal band to great band.

With U feels fresh, new and mysterious.

If Hit Parade doesn't get Nourallah on more folk's radar well, their radar is done busted.

Far from nailing down who he is or what he’s attempting in this second self-titled album, Ty Segall seems to be trying all different things. Good for him.

Temple Beautiful is the product you expect from this highly original and creative artist.

As always, Russell's articulate arrangements embolden the material and give them the grit it deserves.

America, is the most fully formed and thought-out of his albums, perfectly joining his concept of a free-form punk mentality with classically influenced structure and arrangement.

The album is not flawless; there are one or two songs that don’t quite hit the high bar Atkins set for herself with this outing. But songs like the drinks-in-the-air sing-along “It’s Only Chemistry” and the instant classic “Sin Song” more than make up for what you pay for this album.

With Grief’s Infernal Flower, Windhand goes from strength to even more strength, taking doom to the next level by refining tradition, rather than radically altering it.

The Lookout doesn’t make any waves or upset any expectations. If you want to be surprised, look elsewhere, but if you like beautifully turned melodies, set in soft, enveloping arrangements that keep every instrument clear, this is another good one.

Wide Awake will have to respectfully play 3rd place behind Sunbathing Animal and Light Up Gold, as those are the ones to beat.

Here in his first solo full-length, he sands down the edges of the jazz-man’s axe, denaturing the sound until it evokes rather than presents itself. Almost all these songs have the drifting, half-heard, hard-to-pin-down sense-memory quality of music drifting in from other rooms, long ago.

What he has done here is more than a lark. He really loves what he’s singing, and it shows. And he has a lot still to teach us about the joys of music.

With Animals reminds me of Lanegan’s work with Isobel Campbell, more acoustic, less bombastic, less ready to take you by the throat than his solo albums, but nonetheless quietly revelatory. It’s hard to tell, really, where he leaves off and Garwood steps in, but that’s because they’re so well matched and equally focused on a singular, spooky vibe.

There are new elements here, but they've been brought into a foundation so strong they cannot help but fit in on only on Yo La Tengo's terms.

While some of the beats seem recycled from Thursday or House of Balloons they still sound good and don't detract from the songs [here].

Beautiful stuff, strange and arresting.

Gentle introspection--instead of the outright melancholy he often exudes--paired with sway-worthy melodies make Parallax the most listenable Atlas Sound album to date.

The bold artistic statement that is this record will have people talking about it for years to come.

Examining the duality of our motivations and emotions elevates Parquet Courts above most of their peers. Not only do they avoid the Vinyl-style embalming of their source material, but the songs transcend the romanticized hipster baggage that the city--and Brooklyn in particular--currently carries with it.

Once again, The War on Drugs have crafted an album of the year, built not upon flash or novelty, but a new take on traditional rock and roll that is always pushing forward.

With Easy Pain, the trio go full fang on this fourth LP, harkening back to the most extreme aspects of Louisville loudness.

It’s a gorgeous, unreal place that Mount Kimbie evokes on Love What Survives, but dissonance leaks in through the crevices.