It's just fun and fresh and, as a whole, good pop music.

With 17 tracks, Kozelek proves that he in fact can write a song under the five-minute mark, can be bright and bereaved in equal measure, and can even have a little fun doing this whole music thing.

Listening to Field of Reeds sometimes feels like taking a test and forgetting everything you thought you studied for. At the same token, its gorgeous production, control, and vision make it hard to turn away from.

Love Will Prevail is a curious exhibition of raw materials churned into mysterious and haunting rock that constantly evades easy labels – and one that's combination of range and drive will duly reward repeat spins.

Tres Cabrones is yet another example of the Melvins’ mischievous musical enthusiasm and ability to triumph over the rock star flare-outs, reunion cash-grabs, and stale maturity that have plagued other veterans of the Seattle scene.

On Sleeper, the tracks with more of Villain are wholly better than those with less.

Swearin’ have reached the point where they’re almost too good at what they do. Surfing Strange boasts impeccable museum pieces, but its scuffed edges are what draw in the deepest.

It’s a frenetic blend for sure, but Lustman’s final product is anything but muddy.

There are some moments of fresh maturity here (particularly "Shameless" and "Life Fantastic"), but none that top the mature moments on the last album ("Poor Jackie" and "Whalebones"), as well as not producing any fun jams as good as the last album's.

The band didn't set out to create a hit-laden album that repeats the successes of their past. Instead, they've crafted an album full of beautifully lush melodies, intricate patterns, and soaring vocalizations.

Dirty Gold is plenty inviting, sonically speaking, with patches of rock, EDM, and pop. It’s problematic, however, that the album zones in on those genres with about as much specificity as those designators have.

Kweller does what he does best-mesh all the influences we've all heard a thousand times (The Beatles, Dylan, Beach Boys, Neil Young, Tom Petty, Etc.) into a bunch of three to four minute easy-listening pop songs.

Despite the volume, 13 is a return to form--if a somewhat obvious one--and an example of perseverance.

Love from London can be thought of as a gallery of bright watercolors with more portentous shades nestled in the background, or perhaps looming just off canvas.

Weird Work is less synthesized and more nuanced than their previous works.

While a word like “twee” occasionally threatens to overpower Tricolore’s little world, the solidly built layers of a song like “Train Tracks for Wheezy” shift focus to craftsmanship.

Something is exactly what Chairlift fans asked for.

A creative and fitting nudge out of the comfortable shadows and back into the harsh spotlight-where Lanegan belongs, at least some of the time.

While the album’s rustic first half simmers the songwriter with the myriad Jeff Buckley and Justin Vernon comparisons, it’s the last seven tracks where Henson embraces the exploratory nature of a second album.

The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here revels in being just a record.

It’s bleak music conjured from machine rather than man, but Norvidde succeeds just as wholeheartedly as his friends and countrymen as conjuring the bitter darkness that’s coming to define the region.

Water Liars’ songwriting has been compared to veterans such as Dawes, Grizzly Bear, and even Fleet Foxes, but their sophomore effort, Wyoming, has more mental meandering and grit than all of the above.

Wye Oak should be highly commended for expanding their already strong sound. Let's just hope they leave in a tad more of their younger selves next time around.

While neither reinterpretations of the past nor genre hopping are unique in the world of pop, it's the effortless way that Kimbra does it all that makes Vows a compelling listen.

This seeming juxtaposition of entirely retro leaning, concise pop sensibilities and massive, atmospheric tendencies shouldn't meld seamlessly, let alone adjoin each other, yet Hauschildt repeatedly finds a way to fit the pieces together.

As with its predecessors, Julia With Blue Jeans On forges new ground for the prolific artist, both musically and aesthetically.

For all of its glorious string flourishes, vivid visual allusions, and bursts of choral splendor, the best parts of Rome are truly left to the imagination.

Even though it's not quite his best album, Computers and Blues catches the Streets at the best he's been in years.

This album is pure indie pop sunshine.

It digs a little deeper at the lofty topic of love, creating an intense album with rhythm, heart, and plenty of horns.

There is plenty to enjoy as you push and shove right to end of the album.

Old Ideas, however, succeeds in largely keeping the music subservient, buoyant enough to keep things moving but not distracting any attention from the lyrics, the true star of the show.

While there’s a lot to love on RKives, as with any postmortem compilation, it runs the risk of lacking cohesion and coming across as a jumble with no common threads.

It might be tempting for some to initially dismiss Planningtorock as weird for the sake of being weird, but W exposes an artist who is experimenting with musical conventions, with bizarre and often captivating results.

The Black Angels don’t meander or mince words, and Indigo Meadow is a testament to that ideology.

More than an impressive musical step forward, Gallows does the band one better by showing their true colors.

The party might be coming to an end, but at least Negativity gives enough of a hint that the band might be better off for it.

Beyond the best-foot-forward songs that the riff-mining Allen and drummer Brandyn James Aikins soak themselves in, the sci-fi, pulpy tracks stretch far across a relatively small spectrum.

Rolling Blackouts doesn't move away from what the Go! Team is known for. Instead, this is a snapshot of a band both honing their skills and creating a fun piece of music.

Singer Nate Ruess’ sincerity and youth anthems fuel Save Rock And Roll.

While some of the tracks don't exactly have the staying power of the record's haunting opener, this is a solid collection of songs from an artist who has been making these things since his childhood.

The atmosphere is the master of Between the Times and the Tides, and Ranaldo pulls things together powerfully to that end.

Clarity (albeit relative) sounds surprisingly good on Chippendale, and one has to wonder how far he’ll continue to push his tribal weirdness in this direction.

It’s pretty uniformly vintage-soul stuff--barreling horns, wafting backing vocals, single guitar chords on the upbeat--but it never sounds antiquated.

While this sense of restraint feels deliberate, it does raise hopes that the band will fully go off the deep end the next time around. Nevertheless, Veronica Falls is an overall engaging album of contrasts.

There is plenty here to admire, leaving the feeling that this is an album to grow to love.

It’s a loud record, but everything’s all there. It shakes, it rattles, it rolls, and that’s sort of a nagging issue.

It's a strange album, for sure, but the merging of the two musical styles creates something that's rather unique, and should be sampled by any electronic music fan.

The Double Cross captures the band at their best, with well-written, catchy, and smiley songs that still hold a lot of depth to them, but seem tailor made for summer listening with the top down.

Le Bon maintains a careful balance with her scattered ideas, presenting an album rich in curious charm.

Second self-titled albums are always interesting decisions, but The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT truly does function as a rebirth, a re-debut of a band that blatantly refuses to contain their creativity and innovation.

This is a rarities comp, so the duds are forgivable. The remainder is a tight package of nine unreleased tracks.

Rebirth's greatest reward is the proof it provides that the reggae master hasn't lost touch with the spirit, attitude, and sounds of the music that has long since made him a legend.

This EP isn’t the best starting point for Hansard’s music, but for fans of Rhythm And Repose, it’s a welcome followup.

When the record keeps from overcomplicating things, it's a pretty unique trip.

It's important to have moments like this in a concept album that's meant to be taken as one massive 52-minute expression; doing so gives the listener a break and focuses on momentary satisfactions in order to properly digest this cornucopia of solid rock goodness.

Whatever they’re reaching for as Bosnian Rainbows is far more exhilarating than what either party’s put to tape in recent years, specifically Rodríguez-López.

As in real life, the party songs are more fun than the hangover.

All told, when the worst thing you can say about an album is that it falls underneath the band's grand shadow, you know you've still got a pretty solid record.

With Lytle still crafting his wonderfully tweaked tales of dour dystopia, Dept. of Disappearance makes a convincing argument that they [Grandaddy] never really left.

A confident and promising debut that will leave you wondering where Brad Oberhofer and his cohorts go from here.

O’Brien, or Villagers rather, succeeded in creating an album rife with adventure and tragedy, made even more addictive with each listen.

His iTunes Session displays the Jacksonville (North Carolina, y'all) native in fine form vocally, but he leans back a bit on his influences once more.

is fans might not be down with with the more mainstream sound, but the attitude he's recently adopted is infectious.

As Above So Below tells a pretty basic love story, but soaks everything in dreams (though calling Azure Ray "dreamy" this far into their career is borderline cliché).

For all of the down and doubtful lyrics on Charmer, Mann has never sounded like more of a natural.

These basement-dwellers alienate themselves, and--like the great lo-fi bands that came before them--their unlistenability is their charm.

The Good Old War (whose name comes from each of its members' last names) have certainly improved their banjo and mandolin-driven sound on this album, and the current musical landscape is the perfect place for it.

Ark’s sonic palette has broadened to encompass both ethnic instruments and contemporary sound effects.

Nothing stands out too much, though, and that's a trait it shares with the rest of the band's ouvre. Nonetheless, this is another good effort from a great band who are coming close to veteran status.

Allelujah!'s defiance of strictures of classic post-rock cinematic crescendos, or extended kraut-rock grooves, or popular musical modes and tonalities are what makes it work more as political album than it does as a traditional emotional one.

The Year of No Returning is another batch of the finest written tunes you could ask for, though it just doesn’t have the same unified world as the masterful Mysterious Power.

Although Everybody's Got It Easy But Me is notably less frenzied and raw than the band's past decade of output, The Intelligence has not lost their edge, despite some of the slower, acoustic-based numbers.

Music for Theatre frightens upon the initial listen, but ultimately stuns.

She has a tone that melds well with silky background vocals and just enough pedal steel.

Nevertheless, Vacation is an all-around solid effort, undeniably fun and would serve nicely as a soundtrack for the rest of summer.

It hearkens back to that timeless quality, to the special kind of rock 'n' roll that's neither tied to a decade nor defined by one. Judging strictly from II, Nude Beach are within arm's reach of that unique spirit.

Everybody Loves Sausages exceeds every expectation for a covers album, especially one so far into a band’s career.

There's a positive, loose, and improvised feeling that runs throughout, but altogether, C.A.R. can feel a little unfinished in parts.

Despite the personality problems that would soon force the original lineup to split, the mountain of tracks that make up this release show how well the band functioned as a professional unit. If you’re a fan of the Smashing Pumpkins, or a fan of rock history, Aeroplane may not be an essential document, given how inordinately packed it is with extras, but it’s certainly a telling one.

By tying together new ideas with some old string, Change Becomes Us builds on the band’s iconoclastic tradition, further ensuring that the energy it’s put into producing one of the most challenging, curious, and appealing catalogs in the underground rock cannon hasn’t been for naught.

This is just more of Black Francis doing exactly what he wants to do. There are more orchestral flourishes than one might expect, but the core is the same old Francis: guitar overdrive, thunderous drums, epic, mysterious lyrics full of obscure references.

Willits + Sakamoto deftly guide the listener through their world, invisibly prodding you along the dark river to the "Completion" that closes the album.

The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy could be the comeback for a band who deserves to be recognized as something much more than a mid-'90s punchline.

Paralytic Stalks is a fascinating listen, for both old fans and new.

Toward The Low Sun may not be as raw or brooding as releases like 1998's Ocean Songs, but it's just as thoughtful and redolent of both location and mood.

Zeus has become more focused and, in turn, more enjoyable; this is the one that'll bring the band's sound into its own.

The even-keeled approach stands tall on this mixtape, validation of the years of wisdom and brilliant intent under his youthful exterior.

Old Blood offers a glimpse into the world of Richard Buckner that serves as an ideal starting point for new listeners.

This kind of tribute doesn't come about often enough, and they've nailed it, letting the lyricism and emotionality ring out.

Interstellar may not bring something wholly original or novel to the already crowded scene of like-minded, nostalgic, ethereal pop acts, but its 32 minutes are simply too sublimely crafted to ignore.

For those who respect The Mars Volta for continuing to evolve after all these years, their latest offering will continue to inspire hope in the band's future.

Another Self Portrait is highlighted by songs we’ve heard before but present here in different versions.

Florence and the Machine's second album is certainly a move in the right direction.

Shallow Bed is solid, but it's not quite on the same level as something like Helplessness Blues or even Sigh No More.

Though Big Talk doesn't deviate from the trusted rock-pop path with a few bluesy stepping stones, it's a satisfying listen in which this drummer-turned-front man holds his own incredibly well.

Tragedy & Geometry is an emotional, slow-burning, hour-long journey that tests the limits of how captivating an exploration via ambient repetition can be.

It’s a haunting and sometimes convoluted narrative, but what Dawn lacks in clarity, she makes up for in sheer force.