Tussle have sharpened their edges, sawed excess fats and driftwood from their bloated frame, and end up sluicing waters--at least some of the time. It’s the most cohesive decision they’ve made yet, but one wonders what Cream Cuts would have sounded like had it been unbound rather than streamlined.

this is nothing amazing but after the understandably sombre "Margerine Eclipse" (2004), the studious "Fab Four Suture" (2006), and Laetitia’s cerebral study into duality of the self on "Monstre Cosmic" (2008), it is refreshing to feel the joy.

A few duds aside, the album succeeds as an ecstasy pop update on the Blood Brothers’ delirious chaos and nobody who purports to miss that band should ignore it.

This variation in the songcraft amid absolute adherence to a predetermined aesthetic attests to the band’s ability to craft a well-paced, engaging arc, an album as much attuned to its coherency as it is to being a springboard for a few spectacular singles.

It’d be nice to hear something a little more rousing (album closer “Musee D’Nougat” drags on a sleeping synth-string progression for 14 unnecessary minutes), but like its vastly underrated predecessor, Earth is worth getting to know.

What you do get is indie prog impeccably performed by musicians at least as talented as Mars Volta but with better taste.

This album is a textbook grower, not just because it demands repeated listens, but also because the pieces all start similarly and take their sweet time to reveal the individually entrancing things they are.

The best songs on Music Tapes For Clouds And Tornados feature just Julian and banjo.

His flow is, as always, commanding, effortless, and unrelenting, making it hard to grab individual lines when each is intricately related to the next.

Newman’s work here demands high praise, especially with his resume.

Mothertongue oscillates between the comfort/terror of singularities and excitement/terror of potentialities, but the possibilities this duality affords for Muhly’s future work are frankly exhilarating.

Azeda Booth achieve with their style one of the best and most exciting grafts yet of pop with electronica.

Maybe that’s the real spiritual value of the album: rather than impress their personal convictions, the band acts as a conduit for all these forces to combine and radiate like a prism.

Yttling and Epworth have succeeded in making the Scream enjoyable and vital again, hardly a sure thing after the embarrassment of "Riot City Blues."

The problem with Stay Positive is that all the great songs subtly exhibit a kind of fin-de-siècle exhaustion, while the obvious attempts to break out of the old ways fall flat.

Object 47 does an excellent job of making a leap toward the avant-pop side of the pop/punk wire walked by…uh…Wire on "Chairs Missing" and "154."

The concept of a modern type of guilt is probably supposed to imply the effortlessly achievable comfort and depressed humility with which much of the album is sung. Perhaps ironically, the best way to enjoy Modern Guilt is with blinders on to this sort of temporal perspective.

Thankfully, these are just two misfires, album-cripplingly sandwiched around a triple whammy of floor fillers.

The Baseball Project is one of those “why the hell hasn’t anybody thought of this before?” ideas that is carried out exceedingly well.

It’s rather difficult to describe the feelings and aural excitements wrought by Blood, Looms and Blooms, but suffice to say it’s the work of a powerfully brilliant and individual artist.

It’s 1980, honey. It’s always 1980 in here. Enjoy yourself; let yourself go.

For just over seven minutes, Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust may be the most wonderful, jubilant listen you’ve had yet this year, and, within those two songs, Sigur Rós’s fifth proper album plants the most exciting, empirical stipe of artistic direction the band has forged in over six years or so. The elation doesn’t last.

It may be hell for him, but it’s compelling listening for anyone smart enough to shitcan the Kanye comparisons long enough to sit down and give this record the attention it deserves.

Lookout doesn’t have the feel of a major step forward for the Silver Jews: sonically, it falls pretty comfortably between "Bright Flight" and "Tanglewood" and doesn’t have the sort of big events that marked those two records.

At Mount Zoomer is a tremendous success.

It is, more than anything else, the sound of a band having too much fun being good to try being great.

Evil Urges furthers the reveal with confident and imaginative strides, now with 100% less burning kitten jokes.

Though wrong and stupid kinda work (in a good way!), Tha Carter III is more a balanced, self-conscious synthesis of everything viably great about Lil Wayne, hyperbolic or not, than the penultimate statement of the MC’s “legendary” status.

This music can be difficult, but through its brooding emotional core and sophisticated, understated arrangements To Survive is also one of the most satisfying albums of 2008, melancholic and unloveable though it may often be.

Assured in its fastidiousness, with enough schizophrenia to make whiplash a factor, Los Angeles cements Flying Lotus’s status as the best producer in a burgeoning scene bursting with talent, categorization eluding whatever scene that may be, whatever it means to be a producer.

I can’t help but feel that this album wants to have it several ways, but the net result of following all those paths means it plays out only one way.

Exotic is witty, literate, and charming.

Even if this time around the music takes a more prominent role, it’s this delivery that gives ExitingARM a sense of unity.

Velocifero‘s flaws are mostly minor, stylistic quibbles that could be leveled at any one of Ladytron’s other three albums—namely, that each song could stand to be about thirty seconds shorter (more easily forgiven on the dance floor), and that they have a tendency to repeat the kicker far more often than necessary (same).

Worth mentioning about Rook, as something of a corollary to its ostensible punch-in-the-gut dynamics, is how creatively put together it all is.

Prejudices be damned, this is the best hip-hop record this year, and if that doesn’t satiate your hype-riddled appetite, then you would be well-served to shut off your computer, removing yourself from the power of the web, and throw this in your car stereo.

For all its maximalist glory, DISCO is remarkably nuanced, minor elements seamlessly shifting in and out of frame behind the compositions’ vibrant foregrounds.

They may not seem on-point at first, occasionally wandering into vaguely tangential realms like a professor who’s a few dropped chalks away from the retirement home, but eventually the genius of it settles in.

Seriously, if there’s one thing on No Way Down that doesn’t at least momentarily hook you, even in the basest, more familiar way, where do your roots go and where do your loyalties lie, eh? Maybe in that sub-dermal nostalgia something about this EP truly resonates, well beyond its frugal runtime.

The record attempts nothing: it doesn’t stretch or break a sweat but celebrates its easy victory ecstatically, like some asshole Olympic sprinter racing against a middle school track team.

No shocking directions or paroxysmal about-faces, but Lie Down In The Light is still some glorious stuff, expectations met and mettle once again tested.

So, no, this isn’t groundbreaking sound art, just really good dream-pop, as pleasant as this music can get without being--don’t deny the thought you indelibly harbored--cloying; that’s a space that we need bands to fill.

Although flawed, Rockferry holds a startling amount of promise.

Here is a great band putting out a just pretty good EP whose existence is really only justified by its brilliant title track.

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.

Portishead seem to be playing against intuition at every corner.

In many ways, Kensington Heights is what maturity sounds like, done right: too young to relinquish their punk energy and too experienced to let it limit their songwriting, the band has combined their twin urges into a single path.

The inherent awesomeness of Boris is essentially intact.

Flight of the Conchords ultimately succeeds apart from its parent television show because it’s a modest comedy album.

But the real appeal remains Zedek’s humbled insights, a worldview informed by an affirmation of our common suspicion that “there are some things you can’t see / with a roof over your head,” and, having lived as such, her solitary cold comfort: “if you don’t like the answer / maybe you shouldn’t ask.”

Ultimately, Vantage Point will not shock or surprise you with the same exhibitionistic ferocity as their debut but it will engage you with its emotional range and scope.

Of course it’s cheeseball, as we all were at that age. But that’s ultimately what makes this accessible, highly-listenable album a reinvigoration of both catalogue and genre.

So, while Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is a pretty good album and as characteristically lip-smacking as Cave is capable, it’s only engaging in the details which, unfortunately, are hard to hear because Cave’s screaming something about vulvas over top.

It is true that many may balk at the lack of outright pop or that some of the songs are too sparse or that Steve Albini’s production is bottom-heavy, muddy, and lo-fi but there’s just too much to love on this album for any of that to get in the way.

Foals are a tight band with hook-laden grooves. Not worth the hype, but definitely worth keeping an eye on.

If straightforward pop songs are what they seek, tightening up the rhythm section is absolutely essential, though here they’ve overstepped the line between “tightening” and “dumbing down completely.”

Sings Live! is clearly an offering from Colin Meloy to his devoted fans who have either especially enjoyed his shows or have never had the opportunity to attend them. In that respect, this live collection achieves its (hardly lofty) goals, and for that Meloy should be applauded, perhaps not as raucously as at his shows, but, y’know, a golf clap would be appropriate.

It is Noir’s skills for arrangement and sequencing that allow the narrative to successfully play out.

The way In Ghost Colours exploits my affection for synth pop and empty, detached vocals, I should be knocking down Dan Whitford’s door trying to get a strand of hair, but the album unfortunately loses its resonance on subsequent listens, its sheen lessening to a duller shade with each closer inspection.

In a nutshell, Neptune is a bit like Grace Slick fronting the Bad Seeds but not as good as it sounds.

It’s not [her] strongest performance so far, and that comes basically down to song choice and production.

It’s simply R.E.M. finally making a concerted effort to sound like themselves, and realizing that’s not such a horrible idea.

There’s not much to be said about an album that exists exactly as it should, satisfied by its own completion and purpose and really looking to nothing else for motivation or worth or whatever.

Parc Avenue often strays too far into excess and departure for departure’s sake to enjoy the brand of a songwriter’s tour-de-force.... But as a fully realized and lovingly sculpted aesthetic, there may be few stronger full-length debuts waiting in this year’s wings.

The destination is certain in the screamer’s mind: he asks his band to draw up the new maps, and they do. On this level, 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons may be the most satisfying record the Silver Mt. Zion project has yet done.

This means that even though Get Awkward starts at a frenetic pace and pretty much keeps slapping you about the face for the next half hour--there’s hardly a song that goes above 2-minutes-30--it doesn’t feel like an assault.

It’s the instant gratification--the sheer consistency of fun--that makes Midnight Boom so irresistible to begin with. It is what it is, basically.

Trouble has its highs (the second chorus of “Rivers,” all eight minutes of “Shooting Rockets”) and lows (“The State,” a messy rocker that all but collapses in upon itself), but the band’s prowess and Bejar’s vision makes the songs an impressive, if jagged, piece of work.

It’s just the fucking jam, like some pulsing late-night bliss-out in front of a detuned television set whereupon everyone just sits on the couch exhausted but loving it.

Together they make the fat sound lean, make the mean brighten up and the past (i.e. Fatlip) feel a bit more relevant than it should.

Like singer Zooey Deschanel, Volume One is endearing and unpretentious.

Long and Kroeber deserve sizable praise for avoiding the pitfalls of such practices, even with some inevitable shortcomings that are to be expected from a relatively young band with big aspirations.

Alopecia exhibits impressive growth and an admirable attention to detail that places yet another unique stone along Yoni Wolf’s fascinating career arc.

The honesty of Bozulich and her band is striking, their creativity voracious.

To me this sounds like clear-headed music for lovers of straightforward disco pop--an unblemished set that asks haters and the insecure alike to wait behind the velvet rope where they’re most comfortable while the rest of us throw a cloth over the lampshade in the living room and put on a really great record.

The Jicks do an incredible job of coming into their own as a band, channeling Malkmus’s sarcasm and foolery in a less controlled setting brilliantly; they just can’t, because of the immediacy of the album, tease out the full quirkyness.

Musically the most important aspect of this collaborative effort is that their voices work so nicely with and against each other.

Quaristice--the band’s 9th full length, with about as many EPs--is probably the best album Autechre could have created at this point in their career.

Born Ruffians are as eloquent in their summation of today’s indie rock style as any other likeminded band; in that sense Red, Yellow & Blue is as literate and aware as its title’s reference to primary colors implies. But knowingly limiting one’s scope to temporary fun predictably keeps the band from turning out something with lasting power.

The record is a virtuosic display of talent (I don’t even know what sounds I’m hearing on the chorus of “Juliann Wilding”) but it comes across both too eager to impress and too self-satisfied to edit.

Jim White’s latest collection of songs has a humanity about it that is too multifaceted to categorize in broad terminology or flowery descriptors and is quite possibly beyond adequate summation; overthink or undersell as much as you please.

These seven songs (eight if you count the intro) sound great in the car, are loaded with Hammond organ and Fender Rhodes, and Miller’s throaty bellows are higher in the mix than on the first Howlin’ Rain album

Simple as that: this, their sophomore release and first for Sub Pop, is shamelessly gorgeous, totally in control of every threatening exigency and bombastic color.

Nearly 1700 words and I still feel like this record's left me speechless. That's an epiphany to cherish.

Devotion is a delicate, often gorgeous listen that flows remarkably well, though I can’t help but attribute its coherence to the utter lack of variation among its eleven songs.

This is not just music that I believe, in the sense that it is credible, but this is music to believe in.

A sure-footed assertion of the artist's individual talents and landing it a spot among the best folk records of 2007 has to offer.

It is a slender, limber album, blissfully aware of itself and not daring to overstay its welcome.

Yan and Hamilton manage to capture old clichés in new ways and that, filtered through their weirdness and idiosyncrasies, the sentiments seems new (or at least more original).

So Hot Chip have built a very admirable sound. What confuses the issue with Made in the Dark is that it presents so many glaring kinks that still need working out.

Nearly everything else on Old Growth consists of middling blues-rock with impressive soloing but negligible heft.

Women As Lovers is a beautiful masturbation, and a little death for us all.

Hey Venus! is like a really good haircut: it's brisk, light around the ears, and after so many 'do permutations it's bound to get some compliments about how civilized it looks, how grown up.

In the Future is a great second act, a consolidation of strengths, better songwriting and more ideas.

Excessive length aside, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark constitutes a solid rebound from the overly scattered A Blessing and a Curse.

One could dwell on the poetics of Vermont’s lyrics if they were more understandable; despite a high-flying voice, she enunciates with a marble-mouth worthy of Michael Stipe. Even Bejar isn’t invulnerable here, tacking on guitar solos to cover holes in the songwriting walls.

Despite its painfully obvious flaws, Distortion isn’t bad in the sense that it lacks gratifying melodies or does not possess a certain nostalgic charm.

'Superstar' boasts a sanguine hook and a sophisticated mess of rhymes about fame and backlash and fandom and such. Unfortunately much of the rest of the record lacks this clarity, and while the first part of that “sophisticated mess” description remains valid the second part becomes dominant.