With their self-titled debut, Fleet Foxes have attained this and have delivered one of the best albums of the year.

The album’s majestic brilliance reveals itself through subtle perfections that appear with repeated listens.

Magnolia Electric Company is a watershed album, an artistic breakthrough, and the first album to fully realize Molina's potential.

The xx have made a debut that sounds utterly flawless; it's the kind of album that bands take years to create.

To be succinct and frank, Boxer is superb. Not only did The National create a startling, astonishing work of genius but they also crafted an album that is one beautiful piece of art.

After all those years that people remarked and possibly, tried to shut him out, Stevens has returned with what just might be the best music he has ever crafted.

Through the different flavors of ice cream on here, The ArchAndroid: Suites II and III remains a proudly boastful album. It should be discussed by a lot of people and the love it's receiving is no fluke either: this is a skillfully talented artist.

This album is not only the band’s most solid and consummate release to date, not merely one of the most veritable albums 2007 has delivered to us--but also, truly, one of the top albums in the past five years of indie rock history.

Confident, daring, regal, and altogether incredible, Bows & Arrows knows its bounds and casually out-steps them; simply put, it is the best record released this year.

Everything is here: melody, harmony, great lyrics, smart instrumentation and pure emotion. It’s book ended by two of the best songs of the year and everything in between is music gold.

Once the blissful excitement of 'Brain Burner' closes the album you will realize that with Nouns, No Age have not only delivered an intense blend of experimental/noise/ambient rock but they have very clearly delivered, arguably, the best album of the year.

This is music to celebrate life with and to joyously fashion because it's certainly amazing.

This is a winner in so many different ways; the music is impeccable, the sequencing is seamless, the production inhales and exhales life and the overall sound is killer.

Even eleven years after their breakthrough success, their music still sounds as fresh and exciting as ever; we are truly lucky.

The focus may be tighter and the refinement may be a little more obvious, but such things don't hold the band back on Antenna; rather they further the progress that has been showing itself with every Cave In release.

Catchy yet intense guitarwork, intricate rhythms, soft and hard moments, and layers of Shehan's amazing voice - it all combines to create one amazing album.

Yeezus is the complete affirmation of an artist willing to try new endeavors and wholeheartedly nail it.

The eleven original songs all sound distinctively unique and yet, uniquely familiar all the same. And even when Oldham covers a song, he is able to make it sound like one of his own.

What’s more important is that Merriweather Post Pavilion is not just one of the finest things you’re going to hear in 2009 but that it should sit well next to albums like Kid A on lists of the best music made in our time.

This record is a composite of everything that is good about modern music.

A stunning achievement and the first exceptionally great album of 2006.

With their trademark of talented musicianship, beautiful story-telling and unique brand of rock and roll, Drive-By Truckers are unmatched in every sense of the word. This is a remarkable album and one that is downright near perfect.

The National are such a powerfully gifted band, they need no theatrics to deliver an absolutely stone-cold beast of an album. With the music that is on here there is yet another thirteen songs to savor and salivate over until the next batch of songs comes about.

I think it’s safe to say that Weber is putting his strengths into fine use and, with Black Noise, it’s utterly fantastic.

Jay has stepped through the mirror to the other side to bring us Slow Dance, and he has triumphed like the best pop idols, engaging our imagination while being simultaneously cool and strange, tender and tough, arty and poppy, traditional and innovative.

This is a really special record.

May be the perfect pop album.

You will not be able to tear yourself away from this album. This is no daringly outrageous, Kid A-esque “progressive” music that nobody really enjoys listening to. This is rock 'n roll.

Everything on Heavy Ghost is a work of pure genius; this is the music of your life and it’s the kind that needs to be rewarded in any possible way because truthfully, honestly, sincerely, it’s something endearingly special.

Brother is to Son is a genuine pop triumph, the perfect execution of conceptual complexity and musical audacity, tied together with the timeless expression of one man measuring the motions of his soul.

The Meadowlands is absolutely essential.

All in all, for The Clientele this is another great album in what’s getting to be a long line of great albums.

Like every other album, there are the trademarks we've all come to grow and love from the band and by the end of this, all of the most loving adjectives one could shower on an album will be spread all over The King of Limbs.

Like no other pop album you've ever heard.

With engaging songwriting, creative instrumentation and melodically special music, not only is Actor everything we imagined it would be but Clark has redefined the definition of pop music.

At the root of all good music is a dying cause to tell a good story and Future Islands take that kind of attitude to heart with In Evening Air; there is nothing dismissible, or close to it, on here.

This is a matured and musical hip-hop duo and whether it is the fine contributions by Tom Waits and Tunde Adebimpe on separate songs, Ant’s soulful and majestic music, or Slug’s illustrious and poignant story-telling; it’s all superb.

With Rook they have fashioned an album that is melodic, tender, outstanding but above all, captivating. One thing is for sure, this is one of the best albums of the year.

It’s with his latest masterpiece, 808s & Heartbreak, that he has demonstrated, with impeccable skill, that he is supreme, yet again.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this album and on the contrary, Grizzly Bear has clearly made the year’s best album.

The album is packed with impressive musicianship, a great attention to detail, melodic lines backed with beautiful harmonies and countless powerful moments.

It’s no mystery that the band’s most focused, intelligible, and pop-oriented record is also its best.

Everything on Lay it Down is gorgeous, memorable and absolutely stunning.

It's exceptionally crafted, it's gorgeously composed and it's remarkably rendered by a band that might just be the very best we have today.

Remember those old days when everything was perfect, when you were happy and all was right in your world, The Stand Ins achieves this.

A dark, moody, hypnotic monumental masterpiece with songs that unfold subtlety from one elaborate texture to the next so that you almost don't notice the marvelous hooks until they have dug their way beneath your skin and buried themselves in your soul.

His careful attention to detail and masterful use of vocal harmonies are unparalleled in modern indie rock.

All Harm Ends Here is undoubtedly the band's defining release, a true gem of understated songwriting and melancholy rock.

Destroyer has clearly picked up where it left off and the music on this eleven song album is utterly exceptional.

Innovative as it is satisfying.... It’s hard to imagine a more realized meld of hip-hop, electronica, and post-rock.

He’s resonating some true beauty here; entirely lost in his nostalgic feelings and openly retrospective about where he has been, Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle is absolutely beautiful.

Simply put, you need to own this record.

The attention to detail Bevin is known for sounds invitingly open on Kindred and the ending fruition is a thrilling success.

The Renaissance is arguably, the best hip-hop album of the year.

The Decemberists have always had a flair for the dramatic, but it's refined and realized more than ever on their amazing new album The Crane Wife.

Absolutely stunning... One HUGE startling success.

A brave, commanding, astonishing LP that shatters all notions of what modern rock music can, or for that matter, should be.

Stay Positive is a true testament that good music will always prevail. One can only hope that a band like this will continue to make music for years and years to come because we desperately need it.

Whatever it is, The Suburbs is nothing short of extraordinary; it's Arcade Fire's moment of clarity where everyone can stop and take notice because in the most frank of terms, this is also nothing short of a masterpiece.

The album is ambitious as it is daring, and it's the most refreshing piece of new music released thus far into 2005.

It’s seamless in its construction, poetic in its songwriting and moving in its aesthetic impression.

I’m New Here is an outstanding album and one of beauty and substance and for the first time in fifteen years, Scott-Heron is back.

Flying Lotus has made the strongest album to date with his amazing collection of sounds, beats and instruments; as good as you felt after hearing the sheer brilliance of "Los Angeles."

It's best to purely take in the dissimilarity of this exceptional new album in contrast to Hospice--it's downright astonishing on its very own.

It’s a remarkable debut by a tremendous quartet. Not only does it have the raw emotion, but also the intense, glorious musicianship, absorbing hooks and grandiose arrangements to leave you utterly breathless, drained and wanting more.

Fields sounds commandingly assured with songs that ache and bristle with lush convictions.

The best complete work the band has offered to date.

It’s the kind of album we critics tritely refer to as a return to form but with the massively remarkable beast that ...Like Clockwork royally is, never has the phrase been more fitting.

Each song is impactful and memorable, with a fantastic approach to songcraft that focuses on minimal gestures, mixed with tremendous layers and layers of sounds.

While the material is at times uncomfortable and discomfiting, one can't help but be fascinated - and a little touched.

Everything comes together in a melting pot of rock and pop that is both delightful and intriguing. It has melodies, smart and quirky lyrics, and the band features some unique musicianship that is executed well.

Nothing much is different with their latest triumph, It’s Blitz!, a sprawling, eclectic set of dazzling new music.

As reunion/comeback albums go, Time on Earth is outstanding.

Due to its extreme use of repetition and electronics, it forgoes much of the curious, daydream-esque dynamic which had dominated previous Collective releases, but what has been assembled here is an astute, entrancing deconstruction of pop music. Highly and happily recommended to all.

The Baltimore-based band’s fourth album is layered with songs that are faultlessly executed from top to bottom. Although the lyrics are somewhat simplistic, their direct marriage is welcomed.

It’s not prog rock. It’s not punk rock. It’s not emo. It’s not indie. It’s just music, and it will incinerate your mind if you let it.

This is a gorgeous pop album that deals maturely with a wide range of emotions and ideas.

Bruner has elevated his game into something worth noting and more importantly, worth following.

Vampire Weekend's penchant for throwing an occasional obscure reference into their work doesn't change the fact that Contra is an obvious early contender for one of 2010's best.

What sets The Real New Fall LP apart, however, is the consistency of its greatness. Every Fall album has had a bum track or two since 1984, but this new record really doesn’t.

With the rocking tunes, energetic vocals and those smart lyrics, Accelerate is a true return to form for a band that really needed it.

Dear Science is a stirring addition to their ever proliferating catalog; a stalwart continuation of the band’s hooking groove, and easily one of the best releases of the year.

Slow Focus is a tremendously gifted album; one that remarks on what electronic music is still capable of, while knowingly realizing that the sky’s the limit.

Through all of the musical intricacies and variances, Rossen and Nicolaus have truly created one of the best albums of the year.

Weaving together themes like mortality, the universality of mankind, and the cyclical eternality of life and not having it all come out as a pretentious mess of self-important prognosticating and vaguely simplistic truisms places Elvrum in the rarified air that few outside of Brian Wilson have ever attempted to reach.

What is truly magical on Silent Alarm is how it astutely grafts the accoutrements of wiry post-punk austerity to pop hooks fortified with soulful melodic intent.

Some of his melodies are so easily memorable they make The Thrills sound like Rammstein.

An excellent album graced by the kind of clever hooks, lines, and sinkers that color Malkmus’ best work, be it with Pavement or the Jicks.

Even at its most intense, Everything Ecstatic combines percussive aggression with warmth and vivid emotion.

Stellar and superb, The Electric Lady is a fantastic journey filled with impeccable works of modern flair and skill, power up indeed.

Springsteen does more than just an adequate job; it’s difficult not to get swept along by the infectious energy of his performance.

On Metals Feist combines the sublime magic of her voice with songs that feature equally strong compositions to render an album that is easily one of the best of the year.

The National seems to have settled into a fine balance between the hungover brooding of Leonard Cohen and the more mellifluous tendencies of Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen.

The brilliant new album Dark Light Daybreak sees Now It's Overhead mixing the smoldering and beautifully layered guitar sounds from 2001's self-titled debut with the haunting synth-pop beats from 2004's Fall Back Open and taking them a step further by including more intricate melodies, polished arrangements and even grander guitar-scapes.

This is a revelatory album for the Mountain Goats and the listeners; both Darnielle and the audience find new strength in his open vulnerability.

It’s with his newest album, Years of Refusal, that Morrissey has delivered one of his finest albums to date.

A coherent, moving album that cements its place in listeners conscience.

It is easily the band’s most accomplished, interesting record, a record that will simultaneously alienate stodgy diehard “fans” and attract a new group of listeners to the band.