There's still plenty of glamor and atmosphere in the Crystal Stilts' aura, but with this EP a significantly clearer sense of structure and purpose.

Hazed Dream is the perfect place for you to tune in and turn on.

The album is chirpy, playful and transitory, dispensing 10 songs in 31 minutes.

Quieter and striking a more somber tone than their Grammy-nominated first record, it sounds as if the band went out of its way to tone down the catchiness of their initial offering. But the softer focus put the lyrics front and center and that’s, in part, what separates The Lumineers from the slew of bands that came after trying to replicate the success of “Ho Hey”.

Not a far stretch from 2011's Reptilians, Miracle Mile is, sonically speaking, lateral to its predecessors. But it holds enough well-crafted tunes to make for an enjoyable album.

The sound is a little too familiar, and--like a lot of Scandinavian music makers--the Deer Tracks are more style than substance.

Fennesz also instills a similar dichotomy with his score, as beautifully melancholic passages on grand piano and guitar interweave and flutter through the ether of his static-encrusted digital ambiance over 15 compositions of unsettling serenity.

What they’ve found, is pop perfection, and Fifth is a contemporary gem.

The weakest element here is Hawks' voice. It's not distractingly bad, but at times it sounds like he's attempting to sing better than he may actually be capable of. But overall the effect is a good one.

The shift in sound is subtle at best, and only the most astute listener will sense any real progression. At times it’s lovely to listen to, but all in all it best serves as somnolent sounds for insomniacs.

Wholly enjoyable, but nothing revelatory.

The album is not a total departure from previous work, and their admirers will be elated at this crackerjack effort and the opportunity to live music the Strange Boys way once again.

Dreams Come True will certainly appeal to anyone who enjoys their new wave artful and avant-garde, both of which are delivered in spades across this exceptional LP that will surely be lost on many Grizzly Bear fans looking for an extension of their sonic safety net.

These songs may not scan perfectly or make much objective sense, but they feel very real and relevant and uncalculated.

The production may be a little cleaner, but the same knack for great fuzzed-out ditties is still there... a pretty good album.

Hexadic is a dramatic shift for Six Organs of Admittance, lurching into noise and abstraction with hardly a nod to guitar folk or psychedelic rock.

Lyrics are hard to fathom, and, apparently, mostly improvised, but snatches of words suggest the same general mindset as the music.

Happily, The Ghost of the Mountain succeeds in every respect, an album that sounds like the product of a group rather than simply a collaboration between like-minded associates.

It’s tranquil, amiable and very familiar.

With a sympathetic producer in Don Was, who worked with Ryder in the 1990s with his own Motor City band Was (Not Was), Ryder is able to make a late-career statement that stands tall alongside anything he's ever done.

Young Magic transform their emulation into a transformation of a style that's like nothing else out there.

These 12 songs can work individually or as a whole, depending on your mood and in the end they’ve done it again, one of 2014′s best.

Danzig in the Moonlight represents a bold step forward.

Bruiser is an entrancing album from start to finish and a promising peek into what The Duke Spirit's future holds.

Their latest full length, Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Your Anger, is another dozen or so satisfyingly original tracks by what could possibly be your next favorite band.

While Memoryhouse might be demographically marketed to the youngsters, there's something in the retro-alternative beauty of The Slideshow Effect that aging Gen-Xers raised on the golden age of college radio might appreciate a little more.

He still has plenty to communicate, his music not losing any creative potency over the years.

There's plenty more good and bad.