A rich, rewarding showcase for a woman whose voice, spirit, and energy have not faded.

This is evidence of a group that has really come into their own and while they were at it, refined their skills. It’s to the point that I feel this album is head and shoulders above any of their erstwhile releases.

Now, with Love vs. Money, Nash has been able to not only add a worthy addition but if this isn’t the best album the genre has seen and heard in the past year, I don’t know what is.

It’s symphonic, seductive, resolute, yearning.

Here We Go Magic certainly sound fantastically magical on A Different Ship. It's a definitive kind of feel and one that deserves proper recognition; they've delivered a remarkable album.

Be Still Please is the best work of McCaughan’s career.

Milk Man is representative of just about everything the band does best: the melodies soar, bend, and crunch; the verse seems interminably driven by its own internal logic; and the band’s members still play with a near-telepathic singularity of thought.

Sounds come and go but the inspiration and wherewithal to realize your own goal in tone is paramount. Women seem to know exactly what they stand for and in presenting it they've entirely outdone themselves, again.

Honestly, there is no precedent for this album.

There's enough diversity amongst these 11 songs to showcase the band's unique talents.

Eighteen years in the making, An Appointment With Mr Yates is The Waterboys actual masterpiece.

One could go on for hours about the qualities of each individual song, but it is the way they coalesce as a whole that makes Blood Mountain an incredible listen from start to finish.

Superb album in every facet, it is the first time in a while I have been able to emotionally engage in an album right from the get go.

It's her cathartic, invigorating voice on the never-miss Jukebox that aids in delivering one of the best albums of 2008--already.

Where the Aislers Set really create a distinction between themselves and their contemporaries is through the unpredictably imaginative arrangements, bolstered by Linton's truly enigmatic melodic sense.

A great album from a fantastic band.

Vastly rich... Ocean's voice is a thing of beauty – clear, crisp and almost, divine – he speaks of truth in an unabashed manner.

The songs on Bankrupt! all still feature scintillating synths, gorgeous melodies and soaring moments of transcendent skill but with more of a flair for the dynamic tense of music.

Quiet, diligent, and touching--this could very well be These New Puritans’ masterwork.

Segall takes us on a tour de force that is short and succinct in nature and delivery: the music swells with an infinite amount of pulse and drive and supported by Segall's remarkable ear for melody, it's simply another winner in his long-standing discography.

A vital, winning album.

Arguably the best album in their career.

This may be the kind of album that turns on a new generation of fans to the beauty of folk music, while approaching it from a modern perspective.

The band resorts to an 18-set record simply because everything is indisputably necessary and furthermore, solid gold.

This is the finest debut hip-hop album I’ve seen since Aesop Rock’s.

The best kinds of albums are the ones that capture that fragile balance between great music and pairing lyrical wordplay. And Tronic is an album that fans of both the lyrical side and production side of hip-hop can love.

With Crystal Castles’ infectious, eclectic music, this is easily one of the highlights of the year and a great addition to the super-genre that is electronic music.

This kind of hunger, this kind of uphill battle and this kind of gritty determination leaks out onto Monomania with tremendous results; the ending fruition is another gleaming winner for Cox and Deerhunter.

It’s the rarest type of album: one that exceeds every expectation you may have, branding itself in your mind forever and constantly surprising you with how amazing it is.

As the result of their impassioned musicianship and disciplined songwriting, this band has always had go-to credibility; with C'mon, they've raised the bar higher still.

There isn't anything remotely 'neat' about The Monitor. Instead, it's a rocking, joyful, epic beast of an album that rattles with energy and pulses with the heart of a raging bull.

Saturnalia is easily the best album I have heard this year and will undoubtedly be included in many a year end list.

The easy, carefree atmosphere is extremely effective; the songs’ warmth of proximity makes each better than it would be if heard alone, resulting in an album that somehow transcends its simplicity and becomes something of remarkable beauty.

A strong early contender for Record of the Year.

Mogwai’s newest offering, Rave Tapes, is a brooding masterpiece of a record.

Static Tensions is the fourth album from Savannah, Georgia metal mavens Kylesa and it may well be the best damn album the band’s released and one of the finest of 2009, metal or otherwise.

Wrongly cast as a chicken-fried version The Strokes after 2003’s stellar Youth & Young Manhood, on their latest, Aha Shake Heartbreak, The Kings prove that they’re a band of significant depth and originality.

Continuing to mystify audiences with ethereal, oft-experimental electronic music, Shackleton delivers one of the finest jewels of 2012.

A consistently heady and visceral shot of classic Mudhoney: angry, fuzzy guitars, propulsive rhythms, and sarcastically-jaded lyrics.

Exhausting, enthralling, disorientating, celebratory, and contemplative, Sufjan Stevens has delivered another album that will keep us listening and educated till Christmas.

It may not be as enigmatic as Silent Shout but if nothing else, it is a fantastic album on its own accord.

The music is consistently fresh, fascinating, and evocative... the band’s best album to date.

Melodic post-punk rarely sounds as beautiful, exciting, or emotionally connected as it does on Two Thousand.

This is certainly a breath of fresh air in what was a slow year for hip-hop.

Those without a stomach for a little humor in their music will surely thumb their noses, but for everyone else, this is essential listening: a whip-smart band of originals, living with death, throwing coconuts at the rest of us from greener pastures.

It’s so intriguing that I continually find myself tuning and listening to it over and over again.

This new EP is a terrific welcoming of fresh, new thriving music from one of electronic music's leading men.

The way the EP grows from song to song--with a seamless flow inherently added midway through creation--Silent Hour/Golden Mile never ceases to impress.

Multiply is not just the year’s most adventurous album, it’s one of its most melodic, soulful, and engaging as well.

Band of Horses is ethereal, otherworldly, and completely inimitable, and listening to Everything All the Time is, in the truest sense of the word, an experience.

Remarkably consistent and almost infinitely enjoyable.

A phenomenal noise record.

It’s hard not to like The Thermals, and Fuckin A, while maybe a bit less lo-fi than its predecessor, is a stellar album.

Sublime.

Overgrown continues to build on a fantastic reputation: one that much like his music is aided by layer and layer of calculated additions that all together showcases one of music’s most gifted composers.

If you get one psych album this year, make it Valende.

The Secret Machines’ Now Here is Nowhere seamlessly fuses nine tracks and crafts a brilliant and sometimes trippy path colored with a tapestry of melodic motives and fragments of reverbed guitar.

A lush post-rock masterpiece.

It's an excellent album. It might be the best album released this year. And it proves that Funeral was not a fluke.

Ultimately, it ends up being one fantastic follow-up that brims at the sides with vehement energy.

With Women as Lovers they have created one of their more accessible and cohesive albums to date.

This is a just an amazingly pretty and graceful album.

As usual, Mascis' guitar--a stirring strength, charming and expressive, a poignant power, is the star of this show--and as a whole unit, they haven’t sounded this good in about sixteen years.

Even as someone who knows very little about electronic music, this album is affecting. You will never get the urge to skip a song and you will desire and covet every sound that’s emitted from this album because they make up one tremendous, collective entity in Untrue.

Everything about Midnight Boom is impeccably executed.

This is an excellent release from an already accomplished band.

These are two distinctively different sounding EPs but they are successfully united by Condon’s never-failing trademarks: wonderful vocal lines, linear melodic patterns and that soothing voice.

In the end AM not only signifies a career-defining moment that neatly places the band on a proper pedestal for all to admire--this is where not only Arctic Monkeys have come but in many ways, how they’ve masterfully conquered and continue to simply win.

One of the most engaging and thrilling pop statements of 2004.

There is a certain magic at work here, one you don’t hear often, and one that belongs to true artists alone.

Seriously fucked-up and seriously stunning.

A career-defining work.

The truth is, practically everything on Dark Was the Night is exceptionally well done. Even when they aren’t covering but contributing original recordings, everyone brings their A-game.

Given the potency of their debut, British Sea Power’s Decline can safely be interpreted as a marvelous exercise in self-deprecation.

Ultimately, The Wild Hunt is anything but a disappointment; instead it's a smooth progression that departed exactly where he left off: it's still affecting with countless moments of brilliance, it still showcases a musician that is everything we could want in a songwriter and on a more contextual look, it's still a man making simply honest music with nothing in the way but his heart and soul.

There’s no lack of stride here, in fact the entire scope of Reflektor and its magnificent way of sucking you into its entire ride is downright remarkable.

This is a band that is as strong as ever and on the pleasurable Hey Venus! sound downright terrific.

They’ve always been able to create music to pair with this feeling of nostalgia but Beach House has somewhat, in a way, perfected their dream pop with Teen Dream, an album that flows like the beach and cascades with lush melodies, harmonies and fantastic gentleness.

A melancholy masterpiece.

Wild Mountain Nation keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time and it’s a fine piece of music.

Everybody Loves a Happy Ending is a polychromatic, sweeping collection of gorgeous guitar-pop gems, a clever and harmonious amusement park filled with fun rides listeners will want to board over and over.

Faking the Books is one of the best albums to come out so far this year.

Magic succeeds magnificently because it is the perfect balance of what we’ve come to love about an artist while venturing out to try new things.

The poetry of pain is so strong, and mixed with superbly produced music that doesn’t take a nanosecond for granted.

I’m not sure what stands out the most about The Cover Up, whether it’s the tremendous production values or the clear confidence the band has with its music.

Expo 86 is a brilliant reinforcement of what occurs when true chemistry exists in a band.

It will be the simple fact that it’s as good as anything Albarn has ever done and for the Gorillaz, a fantastically tailored album from top to bottom.

Amok is a tenaciously rich and strong album that is certainly the work of gifted musicians.

[It] would be a shame for you to miss.

Though it is not overtly innovative in its instrumentation or approach, The Creek Drank the Cradle is composed and performed with such an inclusive, intimate voice that the album is extremely accessible, even personal.

The album is consistently strong from start to finish with enough outstanding material to vault it into classic status right next to "Dummy."

The Needle Was Traveling is that rare album filled with an electronic-acoustic amalgam that is ideal for day and night listening, which impacts the memory and the libido, and whose combination of lyrics and melodies is immediately catchy yet consistently prompts rediscovery.

They have crafted a terrific debut album and are prime to make a dent in the indie community.

Gonzalez bathes us in a sound so big and enveloping that it’s impossible not to bask in its powerful, optimistic glow.

When they began their self-titled debut, they were uncertain kids from Brooklyn making a record from all the music they had ever known. They’re leaving veterans of the game with obvious talent and colossal potential.

One of the band’s finest releases and arguably the most comprehensive statement to date on just where the musicians were coming from, the roads they took to get where they ended up, and even possibly where they were headed.

This album is more a statement of where they're going. It feels big, open, and alone, like you are listening in on something you shouldn't hear.