Not every song/experiment sticks, but there's enough sheer courage and musical inventiveness to merit back-to-back listens (and alienate swaths of hip-hop purists).

Midway through Heavy Mood, Tilly hits a lull; "Hey Rainbow" and "I Believe In You" just don't pack the eclectic Tilly punch.... The pace picks back up with aggressively positive ender "Defenders."

The lyrical and musical content of IV Play doesn’t stray far from the Top 40 standards of mind-numbing repetition and stories about getting high and having sex.

Earth Sound System is structured with actual musical tracks interspersed between organized chaotic electronica. The attempts at the two different approaches to this type of music come off as undecided and incoherent, yet there is merit in the tracks that actually offer stable grounds for musical exploration.

When it works, the noises are strange and exciting, like discovering a dead animal as a child, all over a danceable groove. When it doesn't, it just sounds like a drunken jam sesh over fucked up Casio drum loops.

While it is nice to see MNDR's vulnerable side on slower tracks like "Stay" and "Blue Jean Youth," she is at her best with tracks that keep you moving like "Faster Horses," "Fall In Love With The Enemy" and "U.B.C.L."

Those with some patience will eventually get a smattering of the heavy, grainy goods on This Song Is Over, Warble Womb‘s tellingly penultimate track. This certainly doesn’t make the album a wash--the swampy tunes are still fairly enjoyable. But it does change the formula for the band.

Indie Cindy delivers a relatively gratifying 12 track-journey that, at the least, yields some classic-sounding Pixies tunes.

When Smith gets a little feistier (his last resort), the songs feel more ambitious; but it’s the more minimal, quiet ones that hit home emotionally.

Paralytic Stalks isn't an Of Montreal album stuffed with steakhouse jingles. But therein lies the charm.

A New Testament is a charming, compelling and overwhelmingly genuine piece of work from an artist who seems determined to confound expectations.

Neon Icon is the weight the internet has left us with. It’s a much-delayed product of Tumblr art, Big Brother reality TV, corporate worship and urban fetishism. Or, maybe it’s pushing against these things. I dunno, whatever, at least it’s pretty fun.

In his honest debut Id, Chris Laufman, the mind behind the joyous noise-pop project Wise Blood, nobly outlines the neurotic impulses of those of us who don’t have a seat at Miley Cyrus’s lunch table.

With a mixture of electronic guitars, field recordings and slight percussion, the album is extremely peaceful--maybe a little too peaceful.

As its title implies, the record is full of a dynamism that sometimes sets it apart from others out there, and will undoubtedly show listeners a good time.

It’s a darker, angrier album and it shows that the duo is adventurous, but the experiments don’t quite cohere.

By the time that the closing track has concluded its schizophrenic barrage of drumming, the album has exhausted and enthralled its listeners, who will be ready to press rewind and live through it again.

There's a lot to enjoy in the Gringos' second effort, but mostly if your musical tastes never got past 1969.

[A] rock-inspired electro-alien world that Lindstrøm has carefully crafted.

The Big Pink has put out an electro-rock album that does not exactly redefine the future of music like the album title may suggest, but it does redefine the Big Pink.

Derivative without bringing anything new, Not Nothing is lo-fi at a mediocre level.

Ra Ra Riot's third LP, Beta Love, is a lot like a colorful box of candy--a bright and infectious collection of songs that hooks you on first taste.

You may find yourself cringing along to these missteps, but the album also a pretty fair split between between good and bad.

Despite its inconsistencies, La Liberacion undoubtedly mixes it up.

This may not be as exciting as people expected, but it’s detailed, coherent, and worth a spin.

On record, there is an irresistible sprightliness in the songs that says these guys haven’t worried once about their near-tribute sound.

Jarvis finds his stride when singing about the uncomfortable.

Forming an identity is a difficult task, and Reasons To Live is honest about the painful and revelatory nature of that process.