Skying does for early '80s psychedelic Brit-rock what Primary Colours did for post-punk, and both are as satisfying with such goals as one can imagine. Can their '90s Seattle grunge tribute be far behind?

It's true the band has made a radical decision to turn down the volume on the wall of sound they've been building up since their debut, but in doing so they've turned up something else they've been fond of for so long: measured nuance.

More critically, though, is that Eye Contact works very well as a stamp on this band's original turn with Saint Dymphna: now that we know that a lot of their contemporaries were also going to turn in this direction, it's nice to see a band that was once ahead of the curve still working so hard to keep their sound this fascinating.

Sift through Are the Dark Horse and the sounds of the Beach Boys or Orbison can certainly be found, but the band has yet to learn the clean, economical songwriting of their influences.

These songs are enjoyable and beautiful and pure hip-hop --- glittering, hard diamonds that hopefully won’t get buried in the underground scene’s mounds of coal.

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

Wounded Rhymes' moments of true daring are few, but it's the first indication that Li's turning a critical eye on her own style-and that she's got a knack for reinvention.

Tryptych is something of a good trade convention, showcasing just how Demdike's samples become reborn with a strong modern edge. You feel like you're privy to seeing something here that's all set to sweep across the market.

Majesty Shredding is an energetic return to form for Superchunk, and they've retained the sound that made them indie stars on records like No Pocky For Kitty (1991) and Foolish (1994).

Sure, there’s no “Watermelon” or “Communism”, but Be’s wit presents on a grander scale than a dependence on sprinkled, chucklable oneliners would allow.

At its best, DJ Quik and Kurupt’s BlaQKout is a disarming and unexpected update of the West Coast sound made entirely and staggeringly relevant in a long post-Coast rap landscape.

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

while on a different album “Healter Skelter” might have been a wonderful bridge between some of the more structured stuff Shining used to do; on Black Jazz it’s just the most weird and interesting version of the same track we’ve already sat through three times.

Wild Flag is concise but jumpy, perhaps a party record in that sense.

This is the third album in a row where Snaith seems to have devoted most of his effort into submerging his own unique voice deep within the musical persona he's adopted, I just don't really get what I'm supposed to do with it. Like, should we get him some water wings to keep his head above the water?

It all adds up to blatantly catchy, deceptively simple wannabe-clever, can’t-help-but-be-cheeky art-punk.

Grinderman isn’t angry and it isn’t raw, just a careful concoction of licentiousness and braying disdain ultimately monotonous and unexciting after the first four cuts.

Not the first single (“Rockin’ That Shit”) or the second (“My Love”) but hopefully the third, the title track of Love vs. Money is the sole moment where The-Dream’s artistry is actualized through, how else, an epiphany of self-loathing and regret.

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.

She continues to prove herself anyway, again and again: here throughout twenty songs, and throughout thirty-five years and beyond.

With Black Noise the trance is too sporadic to even really exist, which does make it a much more appropriate record for a casual listen--but sometimes a listener just wants to get utterly lost.

Franz Ferdinand have slightly tweaked the neo-Brit-pop genre – mixing in funk, dashes of punk, and a bit of disco – and come out with a sophomore album even more confident and hungry for glory than their debut.

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.

That’s the first thing that’s striking about The Sunset Tree: the arrangements on this record are spectacular.

While previous records had some fascinating collaborations, perhaps Carboniferous hits so hard because it pares things down to the core trio a bit more.

LIVELOVEA$AP absolutely scorches from front-to-back; its author's ability to command a variety of sounds allows it to sound unified without drifting into monochrome territory.

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

This is the best music Jay-Z can make as a human--at least by my (his) definitions of what he (we) can do.

It's a rare thing how it manages to be both accessible and inclusive without giving in to any of the current trendy concessions, all the while demonstrating the practiced purist's taste for measured, genre-specific experimentation.

Pulling every sound to its limit, Adem’s debut is glorious in its scope, maintaining a contemplative stride through bare instrumentation.

It’s music that, outside of a live setting where one has the benefit of watching her assemble her loops, calls for patience, and it’s difficult to anticipate under what circumstances her techniques could lend themselves to something either more ambitious or longer in form or structure.

It’s still style over substance in a lot of cases, but it manages to be so exciting while being so listenable that I think it demands repeated listens -- even if those are at cocktail parties.

Like on that grand finale the production on Black Up is meticulous but furtive, always pushing forward, often unwilling simply to loop. And Butler's rapping sounds perfectly at home in this sometimes chaotic environment, kicking it amidst the kinetic verve of his beats.

As a Caribou album, this is mediocre. Not bad, but it's not much of a Caribou album anyway.

XXX is something much more complex, challenging, and rewarding than a dirty joke.

While B’lieve I’m Goin’ Down, at least as far as its words are concerned, is more interesting than it appears on the first few spins, that’s not quite enough to make it a memorable listen.

Tweedy's lyrics have recaptured much of their surreal, grammar-defying, sinister charm, and he has mercifully spared us the smug, privileged nihilism that Clayton so rightly lambasted in his review of Wilco (The Album).

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

Transgender Dysphoria Blues isn’t a perfect record, but goddamn if it isn’t an important one, and more worthy of your time than ninety-percent of the more fashionable sounds coming out of whatever Bushwick loft party the Times scopes this weekend.

Most of the songs show the band in top form.

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.

You leave Nine Kinds of Light completely unaltered, neither enlightened nor offended, simply having experienced a series of first-person statements: Adebimpe in his doorless (and not terribly interesting) tower of self.

As fun and crafty a debut as you’re likely to hear this year.

Overpowered is both impressive and incredibly fun, but fun in a way that "Ruby Blue" wasn't: you don't have to think here.

For East of Eden to be such an assured sophomore release, Victoria Bergsman has a kind of steely reserve to take herself further out of the picture on records to come.

The kid is hugely talented-his flow is tight and, in a pleasant change from the Dizzee model, about 90% intelligible-but in trying so many different things he never quite succeeds at any of them, and so he comes off as a bit hollow.

It’s a pleasant collection, comfortably consolidated and comfortably nice, despite the lack of anything earth-shattering.

The record builds a whole new feeling of intimacy, and it's a ravishing enough record to, in its final breaths, break free of its own confines.

There’s some really wicked ideas buried in the mud here, but between some humdrum instrumental passages and a lot of nu-metal lite-style singing and the general mess of sonics trying to pull them out is like forcing yourself to listen to Joe Satriani for the cool parts.

New History Warfare has enough range that it seems to have opened up a whole new fanbase that might otherwise have no interest in avant-garde music.

The seamless blend of cutting-edge textures and an obvious deep respect for the essential building blocks of classic techno make Sepalcure a pretty resounding success.

People have finally started to give this band its due attention, and with Future Islands’s virtually unmatched ability to make such a wide variety of lived experience sound unwaveringly electrifying, it’s no wonder why.

The disc is disjointed, lacks much in the way of cohesive musical character, and ultimately never really reaches to be anything more than a bunch of decent songs held together in the semblance of an album.

As is scene tradition, these three don't make it easy to find the proverbial diamonds in their artistic rough, but dispatches such as Imikuzushi make a frustrating journey seem that much more satisfying.

Woman King is the sound of Iron & Wine becoming a band; the sound of a singer-songwriter taking that all-important step forward; the sound of a group refusing to slip into the trap of staleness and homogeneity.

Might not be as mature as [Rejoicing] but manages to reach greater, more varied heights as a result.

What’s particularly interesting about Demon Days is not that they have half of a good record--there are plenty of albums that can’t even manage that--it’s that it’s so clearly the first half.

YT // ST is a record of violence and of harmony alike, both musical and otherwise. A record that explores the shifting terrain between "A Star Over Pureland" and the scorched earth of a lightning strike. A lightning strike of a record.

He’s on his way to building a grand monument to the craft he and so many before him have lovingly treated; he just needs to make sure each marble block is absolutely pristine before putting it down.

Teenage Hate is the kind of record best heard straight through, as it's hard to pick out and pick apart particular songs.

Favourite Worst Nightmare seems warped and contrived, bearing all the signs and watermarks of a band trying not to feel uncomfortable.

A truly rocking dance punk album that fulfills on the promise of a dubious genre; other artists in this so-called movement have only hinted at something this fun and dance-able.

A simple record to listen to under the sun that has a couple of knowing winks about going steady and treating your pals right, but nothing you need worry about.

The Monitor is ridiculously strident and frequently overblown, but somehow never slips into self-parody, which may only be true because it's obvious these guys are having a total blast indulging this hard. It's easily the most enjoyable rock record I've heard so far this year.

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.

The Renaissance functions as a representation that he’s never needed to say much of anything to be immensely enjoyable.

If "Woke On A Whaleheart" (2007) was the cuckoo clock, Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle‘s Callahan’s triumphant Renaissance.

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).

Human Kindness is interesting and it is, in a sense, an enjoyable listen because it manifests, right in your face, an emotion not often seen in music this heavy: sheer fucking exhaustion.

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.

Fade is approaching a late career masterwork, their strongest top to bottom effort since their mid-'90s peak.

The thing that lifts The Great Destroyer just above an album like Trust is that it is more spirited: there’s a hint of revival here.

The ubiquity of the Weeknd has saturated their latest mixtape, and ultimately Echoes of Silence struggles under that ubiquity.

This album sinks in, each listen dry rubbing the quiescent hums and lulls into the brain like a dream half remembered.

Fun and fresh enough on the first couple listens, it remains to be seen whether Vampire Weekend can find long-term favour with the listeners and critics so taken with them at present.

If only you didn’t spoil these tender moments that seem to make my heart want to burst out my chest by goofing around all the time.

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

Turns out that OK Cowboy is a good deal like the better house sets you’ll hear at a take-your-pick hot-house European club: pretty exhilarating, though once you’re licking the dry salt off your partner’s cheek you realize that only parts of it are truly inspiring, though all of it was pretty hottt.

A surprising record and a mess of contradictions--an okay band making a great record, classic rock songcraft made contemporary through sheer force of will, a quiet and loud album simultaneously, dancing along the lo-fi/hi-fi binary, a fucking record about Appalachia made by dudes from Portland!--that thrillingly, thinly, radiantly congeals.

Though it's fun, pretty, well-constructed, and hits the buttons, those very facets are in danger, in the absence of Cox's beautiful vulnerability, of becoming what this sound is all about.

It makes for a remarkable debut full-length-just don't expect to see any of it scoring some slow-motion spinning or pastel unicorns when those Pure Moods commercials make their inevitable comeback.

Anyone expecting the nocturnal looping he usually cooks up is in for a shock-Passed Me By is a jagged little tangent designed to make that warehouse seem spookier.

Despite its more fractured stylistic elements -- shoegaze smashing headlong into folk pop -- Writer’s Block emerges as one of the most complete and satisfying records of this year.

King of Jeans, for the most part, delivers compact, devastating blows--the tautest, in fact, that the band has ever dealt.

This is undoubtedly the way the songs should be heard, and the set certainly doesn't feel cheap or rushed.

Although these judgments point toward Slave Ambient being among the top records the summer of 2011 has to offer, the record's off-axis dichotomy, now favoring studio-assembled mellowness, steals enough of the bite and traction from these songs to keep it merely a contender.

Removing the formulae and sensual stimuli from the Party leaves little that’s substantive or innovative. Even the most cursory of examinations would show the group to be an “it” band and not much else. However, Bloc Party’s absurdly good at being an “it” on Silent Alarm.

Little of the album fails to impress in its striking melodic strength or its lyrical intelligence---which shouldn’t surprise Eitzel’s long-time fans. But the album does have one recurring flaw: overextension of its ideas.

Everything's Getting Older proving that, despite his wrinkles and back ache, Moffat's never going to shave his head/convert to Buddhism, and is still the scowling, contemptuous, but eloquent philanderer he was when he was tearing up the '90s--except now, he's a little more comfortable, and attacks using serene piano accompaniments.

The nearly impossible thematic scope attempted and deftly handled here is a tribute to Will Sheff's dexterity and range as a songwriter (if not a vocalist), and the band's chops for being able to keep pace.

The most intense moments in Past Life Martyred Saints are evocative enough to drag you back through your own most overblown emotional crises, but when the buzz fades, you are plopped back into the halcyon present, strangely empty.

It’s wild music, and it’s wildly musical, and, yeah, it’s probably the most wonderfully raw production Springsteen’s talent has ever been channeled through.

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.

Tonally and lyrically somewhere between L. Cohen, Aidan Moffett and David Berman, Berringer's cynical, world-worn love-letters and resigned croon work perfectly with the band's rock steady rhythm-section.