Even though After The Disco lacks some boldness and experimentation, the record most definitely has its strong moments and, like its predecessor, it’ll please fans from either party who will most likely feel content from the first listen.

Kinshasa One Two's myriad of styles and motley participants never cease to criss-cross and collide, sublimely blending earthy tones with sleek production maneuvers to create one of the year's most unique records.

By relying on their talent and confidence, the fivesome takes the listener to a futuristic setting, one where '60s British pastoral music fuses with electro in order to fill a hole in the musical landscape.

With few exceptions, these are a solid collection of dance-rock songs and rock-dance tracks-Zonoscope represents the evolution of a band that knows what it's doing.

Half Of Where You Live sidesteps the dreaded sophomore slump by staying true to the impulse that guided Gold Panda’s initial recordings: honesty.

Ontario Gothic is an amazingly precise, contextually aware work that’s very easy to listen to as just beautiful music, but it’s also an album that asks the listener to try for more.

After a year-long medical hiatus, the band returns with Outside, an album that shows the group putting much more effort into melody and song construction but holding onto the same energy and dark mood as before.

If Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was the band hitting its stride, then it’s likely that Bankrupt! is the music playing during its medal ceremony. It’s not a radical step forward but it’s not a regression either.

In addition to sharpening the lyrical content, Soft Will has some of the group’s complex and multifaceted bits of rock assemblage. There’s a confidence and control to the playing on this album.

It’s altogether more synchronized, an album that pulls you along into its wonderfully mixed-up world without getting lost.

Even with Mixed Emotions' tumultuous gestation, Emm and Cohen have overcome, with a lean, lighthearted LP of which Toto would be proud.

Within what the Black Lips claim is the their most rootsy release are sly, glam-tastic details dished out with a sometimes laggard energy. It makes for an album that digs in deeper with each listen, like cool new boots trudging through mud.

Like many psych-heavy records today, the album doesn’t say much lyrically. The lack of deep lyrical content is an easy detail to overlook due to Pond’s complex execution of instrumentation.

By blending past and present (and future), Daft Punk has created an album that speaks not only to the movie it scores, but also to the evolution of music that has allowed them to create the album in the first place.

Having developed feelers on both ends, the partnership's combined strengths via production chops and band practice really lend to the record's debut maturity.

That's the type of music that the band knocks out of the park: music for lovers to do romantic things to. On Codes And Keys, those lovers are encouraged to be happy-an emotion that sometimes has evaded Death Cab.

Deer Tick shows off a level of versatility on Divine Providence, making for a record that will please long-time fans and newcomers alike.

Most tracks on Larceny aren't exactly catchy, but the band's incessant enthusiasm and punchy delivery show that there's more to good music than earworms.

By existing at their own preferred pace, PHOX’s wonderful inability to conform to anyone else’s standards is what forces listeners to slowly digest their subtly multi-layered sounds. PHOX may be self-sufficient enough to do without your love, but it certainly deserves it.

Elephant Stone is a thoughtful and concise album that showcases not only precise musicianship from all members of the band but a distinct growth in songwriting.

Simply put, their sound has organically reached a more developed state. Each song brings something new to the table with few tunes just bleeding together.

This certainly isn't music to hit the beach by, and it's also not as concerned with maximizing texture as chillwave is, creating some of its most intriguing moments with negative space.

[Beware And Be Grateful expertly fuses] the complex rock of the band's early EPs with elegant, polished pop.

Although GB City was powerful in its own way, the self-titled displays an impressive attention to detail that helps bring out some of the sound that was lacking in the group’s early work.

Though the production value is still high, the songs found here are less assertive than the tracks that were considered album material.

It's a brand of nostalgia concocted from listless energy, a wandering jumble of drums, soothing, eyes-closed croons, sighs and elastic vocals that recall different influences at every turn.

Bobby is sleepy and hypnotic; elements that guarantee a hauntingly enjoyable listen.

For the most part, the album stands as one of the stronger reunion records in a year that’s been practically overrun with them.