If dubstep is dead, then Burial is some magnificent tower of dust and light built on the remains.

This album is a knowing genre-piece and incessantly listenable effort from one who some were beginning to suspect had become lost in a desert of his own vision.

CUD aren’t the first or best among many, but what you can hear when you listen to Boca Negra--in addition to a really excellent neo-jazz record--is the sounds of a band improvising while actually not really improvising. They’re unconsciously pulling from something rich and energetic and fundamental to the way we appreciate music.

And while every song contains allusions to forgotten surf rockish guitar chords and Duke Ellington violins, the real fun is in the way the Pipettes play off each other in harmony.

Parallax Error Beheads You improves upon [his previous] albums’ strengths--wide-eyed eclecticism among other things--managing greater coherence and scope than anything he’s ever done.

Genuinely affecting, and fun, pop music.

When I say “melancholy masterpiece” I mean “beautiful, melodic progressive pop bombast with realistically contemplative lyrics," not “Damien Rice."

The sobering after-party to Wolf Parade’s debut.

The fact is that Black Cascade is half victory lap and half turf statement: it hones in on their strengths without sacrificing originality; it pays off magnificently on all the chances they’ve taken in the past; it is fucking brutal; and it is another high water mark in the band’s catalogue for the New Wave of American Metal.

With a Cape and a Cane sounds almost nothing like its predecessor; the songs ring a million times clearer and the hooks bite far harder.

This is what we’ve been waiting for; we always knew they could do it.

A Vintage Burden’s embrace is still emotional, still heartbreaking, still sad, and at times still chilling, but somehow, it’s less of an exercise to wrap your arms around it.

Comparing The Dirty South to the last two Truckers’ records is like arguing over the merits of the first two Godfather movies. Either way you win.

What we’re left with, speakers humming with aftermath, is the possibility of a real and significant realization: that between Hecker and Mountains, 2009 suggests a sea change--and I can’t think of a more appropriately grand term--in which ambient music may just enter a post-Eno peak.

High Places is an indie dance album about rhythm rather than dancing, that’s danceable without pandering.

CYHSY’s songs ring of The Bends-era songwriting, but loungier, more playful, more comfortable in their own skin.

The Loon is nothing short of an incredibly focused song suite, minus all the extraneous frivolities that you’ve gotten too used to hearing from an "incredibly focused song suite."

Sometimes, in the wrong mood, Tomboy can come across as eleven great songs chipping away at each other.

Teen Dream is just such a fantastic pop record because it never seems to try to be: it’s almost as if the duo had intended to make another mopey shoegazing affair and accidentally stumbled upon something transcendent.

Miguel De Pedro has instead delivered an oeuvre that plays like a stream-of-consciousness narrative of his growth, and of his many, many tangents, as a musician.

It’s an approximation of what perfection might mean, which is: precise, lean, deliberate. There’s not a wasted moment here, and not one moment overstays it’s welcome, which from a bunch of aristocrats (I get) is pretty frickin’ rich.

There is not a bad verse on it.

It's in the zealous craftsmanship of doing just about everything right and causing that aggregate rightness to harmonize in vibrant song about trying to be better that the truth becomes evident: this band is for real.

Looping State of Mind both conquers and surpasses the only-so-many-pieces-in-the-box standards of most traditional dance forms by appeasing those crescendo/break/denouement expectations in name only.

There’s a lot to be impressed with here, but it’s the emotional intimacy that the songs establish even at their most grandiose that makes the album great.

The album is imminently listenable, providing a brisk background as easily as it rewards a close listen.

Odd, joyous, and wonderful.

Sexsmith’s got a knack for melody, and Froom’s got a knack for bringing it out.