While it's a rippin' windows-down Boss tune, the ragged production and especially the 30 second fadeout sound incongruent with the rest of the album's humming undertones. Despite that, the album still rides like a dream along the freeway and blazes forward on its own path more than it follows in the footsteps of the others.

Their latest album may not be quite as viscerally dark as that record's production (the haunted house bridge on "Mercury Man" hits closest), but Tare's solo claustrophobic musings still seem to be just as intrinsic.

They allow the horns to create a foundation for their extensive layers of baroque pop, which only elevates their tracks to something soulfully extraterrestrial or dark deco.

You can't help but move along to some of the entrancing, pulsing drones found on Ancient Romans; altogether, another epic, grandiose, striking LP from one of the best and most underrated musicians of the moment.

The missteps of narrative are easily paved over by the energy, power, and fun of the music. As such, rather than feeling constrained or overwrought, this is a concept album where you can forget the concept for a while and just dive right in.

All comparisons aside, Collapse Into Now is one heck of an album.

He has incorporated some New Wave signposts, with a little melancholy disco, constantly refining what might be the right kind of landscape for his deeply yearning, compelling vocal.

It may not be the crossover success that those who ride for Gibbs would love to see, but it doesn’t diminish this excellent record.

As Shulamith Firestone likely highlighted for Leaneagh, feminism can be vehemently expressed, but Poliça, through art and music, makes that expression charming and danceable.

Larry "Ler" LaLonde plays his complimentary role so well it's scary, Claypool has never sounded better, and Jay Lane jumps back onto the train before it goes a-chuggin' without him again.

With a lilting piano, soft strums, and the pats of a bongo at most, Once I Was An Eagle strips the art of Marling down to her barest.

You believe that the band feels this good, and given their creative freedom, escalating success, and near flawless discography, they probably do.

The Elected's pop sensibilities are in full throttle for 42 minutes of glistening '70s AM bliss that never sacrifice the thoughtful melancholia that has always characterized Sennett's lyrics.

This is the real deal, ripped from notebook pages, the torn, frilly edges still hanging on.

Over the course of some 18 months, Drake has become quite a novice in the genre, well on his way to mastering new and exciting ground.

The songs have more personal bite and emotional density. They have a soul.

The Men may not be hailed as the genre's saviors, nor should they be, but here they have done an excellent job as its purveyors.

Fiasco's quite skilled at making catchy what is inherently a message many don't want to hear. He's at his most blatant, though, when he mixes his unique voice for the truth with emotional sentiments.

Ware has the pipes to come out on top of a TV singing competition, but it's her control, style, and musical choices that make Devotion so interesting.

Mixed Emotions plays like a great debut.

It's a perfect post-summer pick-me-up that's hard not to listen to all the way through.

Backed by a live band, including a string section and backup singers, Adele brings the dramatics of her two albums to life, with a bit of humorous, cuss-filled banter in between songs.

We All Raise Our Voices to the Air is full of raw energy, a palpable, kinetic excitement in Meloy's acoustic strumming, Moen's thundering drums, and especially the impressive low end of bassist Nate Query.

In just two years, Ceremony has leaped aggressively forward in its evolution, and Zoo captures this over 12 tracks that reconfigure the group into something unique and vital.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is all about mood and atmosphere, and the duo have provided more than enough.

He's got it all here: fun pop trifles, moody love songs, masterful opuses of mourning and love.

Now, he's removed all high concepts and stripped both the music and his voice bare, and Skelethon makes you feel that vulnerability and emotion--it's real stuff.

It swirls and it combusts, it annihilates and it soothes; best of all, it's the perfect balance between retro and modern-day sensibilities.

Here he is, outdoing one of his idols by modernizing sounds that inspired him in the first place.

It’s the ideal sophomore LP: Blake emphasizes and magnifies his finest assets (the croon, the dark romance) for the sake of a better song.

Influence-dropping aside, Dom excels at their particular brand of synthetically nostalgic, lyrically self-aware ear candy, even if they're not covering new ground.

More Light sees Primal Scream returning with a more exciting, adventurous outlook, no doubt fueled by re-teaming with DJ and producer, David Holmes, whom the group first worked with on parts of XTRMNTR.

As an artist, the mystery man of a thousand songs experiences quite the growth on Sleeper, shedding the enigma in lieu of his most honest and human recordings yet.

A wacky, emotionally resonant collection of songs with the best kind of musical ADHD out there.

It's a progression that largely works.

The meandering phrasing alongside the slew of instruments all work together incredibly well, resulting in an album that certainly is no soundtrack to a sunny day but is perfectly suited to a contemplative night alone.

The 19 tracks burn and rampage, sure, but they're sure to leave you standing there, mouth agape, begging for more.

They play compulsively listenable '60s garage rock draped in black lace and a sneer. Whatever they don't offer in originality, they make up for in commitment.

Over 13 tracks, McCartney proves he’s a better Paul than 2007′s Memory Almost Full, a more romantic Paul than 2005′s Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, a more inventive Paul than 2001′s Driving Rain, and a more nostalgic Paul than 1997′s Flaming Pie.

On Record, they bring a sharpened tune-smithery to their noise-punk.

By taking a few risks that work and doing what they do best--but doing it better--The Coathangers have given us their best album yet.

Instead of guitar worship, Active Child's generation of fey Romantics have suckled on synthesizer worship, more varied sounds, and a post-"Planet Rock" planet where electronica and rap/R&B music interweave constantly.

The voices are interesting enough, but it's the lush instrumentation, arranged by Scratch Your Back's John Metcalfe, that is the key to New Blood's success.

And while logically such vast variation should produce a choppy outcome, the album proves to be quite fluid on the whole.

Gary Numan is easily poised for a comeback, even though he never really went anywhere, and Splinter is easily his strongest album in years.

Underwood and Costelloe have explored their broken hearts in a way that strikes at the core of all of us.

Her newest release, Pain is Beauty, takes listeners to the highest of highs, all thanks to Wolfe’s willingness to get low and descend even further into the gloom-hole.

It’s Friedberger’s lyrics and delivery that unite these various touchstones, as fresh and distinctive as ever, incredibly poignant and powerfully aware of her self and the signifiers that surround her.

On Safe Travels, even the band's purely fluff cuts are much stronger.

As a whole, the album can amount to aural overload. If there's an album that calls for a breather between listens, it's this one. But, taken individually, this is an unbelievable collection of songs that will be finding their way onto mix CDs and iTunes playlists for a long time to come.

It's a less unified effort than its predecessor because of this, but more importantly, Krell treads new grounds.

Delta Spirit's breadth still demonstrates a natural quantum leap from their earlier work, and the band itself is stronger for it.

Her style is subtlety at its finest.

The electric camaraderie, chrome riffs, and crisp production make for a record that not only kicks, but shows how fun it can be to make music with your friends.

With little (if anything) to fret about, Desire Lines is as breathtaking as its inviting.

There's a little something for everyone on In Limbo, and all just a little off from what you'd expect. For a debut album, that's a massive accomplishment.

Tegan and Sara have known this for a long time, but with Heartthrob, they fill the canyon with great meaning and melodies--enough to Flashdance from one end to the other and back again.

His strength rests in an ability to blend the social and the political with the romantic and the coarse and not come off as self-righteous or phony.

Where the harsh, cold production of drill echoes the harsh, cold sentiments, Chance’s voice and the multi-faceted production are all about change, examining any little moment that might provide some fun and relief.

Although The xx parallels are undeniably forthcoming, London Grammar’s innovative combinations of vocal and instrumentation are a unique, necessary progression.

Buzzo will be Buzzo, the Melvins will be the Melvins, and we will all have to either love it or stop caring. But with more consistently impressive performances like this, it'll probably be the former.

For Jay Reatard's followers, this is a great chance to look back in the past and discover where his music started and, with the benefit of hindsight, see how it evolved. It may not win over any new fans, but the ones who followed Reatard's career should be pleased with Teenage Hate/Fuck Elvis, Here's the Reatards.

Van Etten has all the right tools to make a great album.

Pterodactyl's sound most figuratively Spills Out. Drink up and enjoy.

Slinky, sultry, sophisticated--the multidimensional Dengue Fever will make love to your inner indie rocker.

OFF! is the godfather of hardcore punk churning out another stellar example of the genre at its peak, an album that kicks ass musically, confronts the listener lyrically, and then kicks ass again.

Ultimately, you’ll get as much out of On Oni Pond as you put in; you might find yourself putting it on as background music, then letting other tasks fall by the wayside as you try to decipher how these little ditties pack so much punch.

The distorted piano and vocal loops and simple drum patterns do tend to bleed into each other, and the songs run on the short side, but together they're a mesmerizing set.

Overall Dolby proves his keen ear and impeccable taste for arrangements.

The Glorious Dead isn't necessarily a saving grace as much as a solidifying grace for The Heavy.

It’s a very large world, but one stocked with charming character, tasty pop, and enlightening lyricism that shines like an electric heart through the android framework.

For such a young band, Twin Sister has crafted a work of real emotional depth, and molded lots of interesting musical bric-a-brac into a record that will stay long in the memory and longer in the heart.

While the band’s dichotomy is uncommon, it works because, no matter the ratio of Crutchfield to the band, the emotion’s always pure and unfettered.

Sound Kapital exemplifies form mirroring content and vice versa. The electro-industrial synthesizers and drum machines convey the Handsome Furs' lyrical convictions better than the band's earlier, less bombastic combinations of synths and guitar.

The panicked sensation of Nootropics gives way to catharsis as the surrealism intensifies to the point at which change is inevitable.

Father, Son, Holy Ghost succeeds thoroughly at nearly everything it does, expanding Owens and JR White's palette beyond the scope of the duo's debut without going too far out on a limb.

Building on the alluring guitar solos and gorgeous harmonies that anchored Dawes’ debut album a half decade ago, Taylor Goldsmith & Co. deliver plucky vocals, wry cultural jabs, and inventive time signature shifts to craft a record that is distinctively modern.

Rotten Thing to Say delivers the band's scathing reports with a vastly improved level of clarity from prior efforts while retaining all of their trademark grit.

Like triumphant, tragic heroes of classic literature, Sanderson and McCarthy rose.

While their latest transmission isn’t the easiest to receive, upon success, it can be the most rewarding piece of science fiction in years.

The real takeaway from this record should be that his band is officially worth the hype they have generated, and are capable of a whole lot more than we ever anticipated.

It's this combination of contemporary and old school that makes the album so successful.

While Karlsson and Winnberg continue to assert themselves as two of the most accomplished producers in contemporary music, Happy to You does well to prove they're just as good on the other side of the mixing console, showcasing the furthest extents of their own considerable talents for the second straight album.

Olympia’s aura pervades the listening sphere Austra has fabricated for their second LP, transcending the frozen cave of their first to the upper echelons of atmospheric dance-pop.

What True Hallucinations does is reupholster a genre that's long shown its signs of wear and tear.

On the Line isn’t a breakup album, a death album, or even a “fuck-you” album, but one that encompasses all of it, ambitious and introspective, focused on embracing the mess and mistakes made along the way.

Stay Gold isn’t going to change the world and it won’t kickstart a new rock revolution, but it’s a terrific pop rock record about boys and girls in America.

The songs on IV are massive, cosmic things, beautiful in their own right, even if the synths can occasionally sound a little cheesy.

These woozy explorations don’t always result in anything more than a pleasant 10 minutes or so, but taken together, they combine to form one more data point for the argument that Kurt Vile’s artistic trajectory remains, as always, on an upward slant.

With grander production and spacious echoes, + – is Mew’s most calming take on stadium anthems.

It may take a few listens to soak in all the vitriol and venom, but it’s worth the effort.

Tonally, they hit the same nail on the head more than a few times, but each strike lands true and strong.

Krell steps out of the shadows on his third album, but of course he hasn’t let go of the sadness that’s colored the project to date.

It’s not a shift that feels like a cheap grab to keep up with changing times, but rather a confident statement from an artist who had utilized the chance to grow on his own terms and craft his strongest work to date.

Ultimately, Hour of the Dawn is a relentlessly happy record, which makes it hard not to enjoy, and with her deft song-crafting, Goodman proves that not all good art has to come from pain.

Whoop Dee Doo is a statement of consistency. It might be more of the same, but if they’re not pushing their sound forward, they aren’t losing pace.

Backed by production from Murda Beatz, Purps, Cardo, Zaytoven and Nard & B, co-pilots Quavo, Offset, and Takeoff sustain the hubris, excess, and immediate gratification adored by fans of gutter rap machismo while somehow bottling the very particular charm necessary for them to capture the hearts of pop-loving teens across the globe and carry rapping children’s lit live on the radio.

He made sure Sauna is a trudge through comfort, discomfort, fear, and acceptance, a completed revolution that leaves us flat on our backs squinting to make out what’s on the other side of this boiling steam.