It sets up the tension between the often gentle voice and its malevolent surroundings, and this, his third collection of re-arranged traditionals, oscillates between the sweet and the almost apocalyptic, often to great success.

This attention to economy marks these records [I Don't Rock At All and Man With Potential] as two of Swanson's most digestible and re-playable releases to date.

If there is one thing that might be wrong with this album -- besides an uneventful last third -- is that the album might be too tailor-made for music critics worn out by music fatigue, hype fatigue, and irony fatigue.

Generally speaking that's good enough, especially since trying to find specific meaning in this kind of music is a largely futile exercise that I and others at CMG still occasionally agonize our way through against our better judgment. Perhaps the appeal of this music lies in nothing more or less than how painstakingly moulded it is, and in that respect Hecker will probably always release really impressive records.

The narrative of David is not quite as cohesive as Fucked Up think it is, the lyrics too cliché, but if writing a rock opera was the impetus required to push them to produce an album as gloriously overblown as David Comes to Life, then it's worth a thousand dead Veronicas and even more mopey dorks to mourn them.

Despite its big, dumb rock ‘n’ roll template and primary color lyrics, albums like Lost in the Dream can be as restorative of faith in old metaphors and storytelling tropes

Although The Mysterious Production of Eggs lacks the gleeful variety of Swimming Hour, it is obvious that Bird has created his most cohesive statement to date.

While the Knife seem to have outlined a much clearer vision for what they were trying to achieve, they do so, crucially, through experimentation starting outward from their own comfort zones, and with almost zero lyrical element.

A surprisingly quality recording of an incredible set, The Odessa Tapes plays like what it is: a miracle shrouded in modesty, and an ephemeral moment in time.

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.

Neko Case has made tremendous progress here as a lyricist.

Easily the most cohesive and consistent album of his career, and one of the first great albums of 2005.

A punk band with a Steely Dan fixation they most certainly are not, but in their best moments these kids do rouse something as opulently degenerate and self-destructively lax as the Dan's cleanest work.

Portishead seem to be playing against intuition at every corner.

This record has a way of making you feel alone and alienated even in a crowded room.

Late Registration really wants to be an album album, which makes all the more frustrating and undermining the fact that it mirrors the flaws of its predecessor: the glut and the stilted sequencing.

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.

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.

Robin Pecknold's well-chronicled bout with writer's block and three years later, Helplessness Blues has arrived, and the good news is that it unquestionably sounds like a Fleet Foxes record-which is to say: warm and exquisitely pretty.

Mezmerize works as a synopsis of the most effective weapons in the band’s arsenal.

His rhymes are intelligent and image-packed, his drums are classic, and his inspired sample choices come together to make a striking aesthetic statement.

Street Halo shows his commitment to his music both by tweaking it and sticking to the formula. It still makes him capable of bridging the brutal and the delicate. Only experienced crisis negotiators can say that.

Is it their best album? Maybe not. Is it still the best pop album of the year? Of course.

Dose’s clever, rich, image-gorged writing is at that forefront more than ever, and, mercy, does he ever slam down the goods.

The 24 songs... are characteristically and uniformly excellent.

Those who lovingly caress their copies of Tilt have probably already jumped in its trenches, liking what there is to like, and there is much to like about this album, even if it doesn’t maintain the consistency of that masterpiece; those who find his voice annoying have already set up sniper posts across the field; everybody else is standing in the middle wondering what the fuss is about. The Drift won’t change that.

They've rapidly become the standard bearers for the funkiest of instrumental soul, and III suggests they could keep doing this thing for several albums before it even begins to approach boring. We should all be as similarly stoked.

Poised as hyper-indulgent fellas, Smother is a startlingly controlled album, one that's exactly as smooth and smoldering as its moniker posits.