There are no throwaway songs about weed, women or cars here, just 11 separate streams of consciousness, each with subtle lyrical and instrumental nuances.

It seems that this band really is fresh and only, for it has music brimming with originality via masterful combinations of genres.

The album churns away on a mid-tempo path throughout, ethereal harmonies skimming past and back to Adebimpe’s yearning lead vocals being the main thread through it.

Still Corners' debut is full of the deceptively simple and the intriguingly confusing without straying far from its cinematic sound.

Tremors makes it clear that he has plenty of his own material to work on. His reliable vocals lead us through the enjoyable confusion that the album establishes, ever cool and whole-hearted, with a genuine sense of emotional investment.

While Bish Bosch may not be the most easy album to digest, it doesn't lack for talent or shock value.

Happy, nature-oriented psychedelic pop that bring to mind images of sprawling meadows in mid-summer.

Electronica bands run the risk of entering an ethereal, psychedelic realm and never leaving, but Little Dragon always maintains its tie to the tangible world through Nagano's voice.

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra’s proto-punk only gets better with age and maturity, but Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything believes that today’s youth are everything for tomorrow.

As this particular summer winds down, Family Of Love will provide a comforting soundtrack as it gets chillier on those late-night smoke breaks.

While Mean Love is his most experimental album to date, it’s also his most precise.

At this point, Marshall is one of the most naturally gifted songwriters on the scene, and 6FBTM is solid evidence of that.

For now, it is refreshing to hear a band mining the searing sounds of ’81 as a cold breeze that kind of shakes you awake rather than making you want to run back indoors right away to cower under your own fears.

While each song on the album seems to tell a different story, together they tell one: Some things may have changed in that six-year interim, but those changes have only worked in Lewis’s favor.

An album that, musically, strikes a gorgeous balance between restraint and cosmic expansion, but vocally suffers from just too much control.

Root For Ruin is the best synthesis of its pop and oddball sides yet, with flailing, manic surges serving as comfortable bedrocks for solid melodic hooks.

The music is still driven by the same conceptual forces, instrumentation and voodoo tradition that Orchestre Poly-Rythmo has always been known for. Contonou Club is not only a symbol of the group's reunion; it marks the continuation and growth of a West African musical revolution.

Not necessarily a great narrative rapper, Monch's lyrical strength lies in his ability to flip phrases maniacally and tease out tangential theoretical connections through his staggered, pile-up rhyme schemes.

With a sound that comes off as natural, Warpaint represents a much needed departure from the ubiquity of synth-pop, and The Fool is a welcome detour.

Deerhoof Vs. Evil is a stylishly composed work done from four gifted musicians who are more than happy to be sarcastically snarling at you the whole time.

While less in your face than his work with the Fresh And Onlys, the album stands its ground and ends on a powerful note.

The biggest caveat of this album is that the retro aesthetic mars Grossi's attempts at emotional connection--it tries to resonate, but by tapping into our memories of heartstrings and not our actual heartstrings, it falls short. But as production goes, it's a success.

David Byrne and Annie Clark (and to an undetermined extent, St. Vincent producer John Congleton) achieve a remarkable symbiosis on Love This Giant.

It's less bedroom, more band-centered than his previous work, but the music still feels uncomplicated.

The band plays it safe here, but after going way off to left field on its last release, this isn't a bad thing.

It's the motion of the album that compels you through it, leaving you with a need for some resolution in what the next track will bring.

If you were someone who felt stood-up by Yuck’s follow-up to their self-titled debut, Cheatahs will follow through on the promise that great rainy Saturday afternoon shoegaze isn’t all gazing into a rearview mirror.

For Mogwai, it works; the sound's grandiloquent and goddamnit, loud.