It won't blow you away the first time, but it eventually will.

Ultimately, Precollection probably isn’t the kind of release to greatly expand its influence over the throngs of the unconverted, but it should be more than a welcome advance for those already convinced of Heasley’s obviously remarkable gifts.

This is one mighty album, one that will tower over others like the green shrubs that tower over the buildings on the cover.

Whilst some hooks aren’t quite high enough in the mix and the gauziness is almost as thickly-spread as on its immediate predecessor, De Facto pushes Lorelle Meets The Obsolete’s world into subtly groovier and wider-screen realms with admirable ambition. It captures a band reaching out whilst remaining true to its belief systems, with very convincing results.

Whilst the front-end and middle of the collection may take some repeat spins to fully earn affection, the two six minute epics that conclude proceedings are unquestionable gems from the first airing.

With absolutely perfect production, the end result is one that’s embracing, textured, warm, and still fun.

For everyone who thought the conceptual excesses of the previous releases went a bit too far or simply didn’t have the patience to tie together all the musical loose ends, this may be the Of Montreal album they’ve been waiting for.

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.

Sarah retains her unshakable poise and British vocal inflection, but her delivery is warmer and more engaging than on her debut, yet still tinged with an edge of melancholy.

Come Home to Mama is lyrically stiff on top of instrumental complexity. The lyrics need to be pulled way back. What does work are the opening beats and rhythms awash in a mix of sonic, ambient environments.

It'd be a daunting feat for anyone to furnish a respectable sophomore LP after the hype of a debut like Psychic Chasms, but Alan Palomo succeeds here, blessed with an innate ability to temper previous charms with present provocations.

It’s certainly going to be one of the most, if not the most, fresh sounding electronic albums of the year and it’s only going to get better as time passes.

Unless you demand pure, cutting-edge originality out of your pop music, this is a solid debut effort.

With producer Thavius Beck’s fast-paced beats and the MC’s lively rapping, the two have concocted a worthy listen.

All told, this is undoubtedly one of 2012′s most unexpected pleasures.

Though Suspended Animation boasts 30 tracks, it only runs some 40-odd minutes, and those are some of the most densely packed and bombastic minutes you’re likely to find on a record this year.

It's apparent that great care was taken in the making of this record as the meticulous production radiates through the music on every song.

Strangelet may not be Grant-Lee Phillips’ most stirring collection of songs, but it’s certainly no catastrophe.

Although a couple of things don’t quite go the distance--namely the slightly meandering “See High The Hemlock Grows” and the murky slogging “Slow Down”--Quiet And Peace holds together remarkably well for a late-career collection.

Please allow yourself to get lost in its sweeping scope of wonder because it is definitely sprawling. But mostly, we knew he’d be diverse, we just didn’t know it would be this good.

She & Him is the product of folk troubadour M. Ward and actress Zooey Deschanel and the results are a beautiful product.

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

Through its eleven songs Komba is exactly what we all need from time to time: a hopeful rejoicing in life itself.

Heaven is Whenever is not just a vast improvement from their last effort but it's also a fifth album from a band that still sounds surprisingly awesome and it's just another album for a detractor to listen to and hopefully, fall in love with--it's only a matter of time.

Answers is a document of how good instrumentals can be written without walls clearly delineating where the verse ends and the chorus begins.

It's this robust fervor and subject matter that fire up and lift up many of the songs on Ceremonials, but the constant exhortation comes at a price. Listener fatigue sets in as the relentless, up-tempo pace and sharply exclamatory vocal tone overwhelms over the course of the album.

Them Crooked Vultures is a wonderful introduction to this all-star band.

The remarkably focused and eclectic The Possum In The Driveway.

While Daisy does have its share of issues, it is by no means a bad album. The fact is that it falls beneath Brand New’s lofty standards.

There's no denying that Departing is miles ahead of where the band was a year ago and while die-hards will love Hometowns for a long time to come, Departing is absolutely the band's strongest work to date.

These supposed table scraps left off their previous two albums, Good News… and We Were… respectively, run a gauntlet that finds the band revitalized, lively and tremendously wonderful.

Focusing on the music and what's happening within and around it – enables Hive Mind to deliver a truly excellent aural experience.

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.

All of this exceptionally solid music is a remarkably beautiful thing to witness.

With Humbug, they have an album that can be fully enjoyed by anyone willing to give it a fair chance.

The fuzz and drone of Today is the Day is a refreshing look back at the band’s mid-90s, Painful/Electropura era.

Black Lips are able to both faithfully emulate some annoyingly nearly-recognisable sixties and seventies styles while using the one-take demo approach to give their own 3 chord song structures an air of immediacy that prevents the album from sliding too quickly into the pit marked “slavish recreation.”

Everything about Midnight Boom is impeccably executed.

The Moonlight Butterfly won't allow The Sea And Cake to set the world on fire but with its reviving studio craftsmanship and exploratory attitude, it should happily smoulder in the ears of those who needed the band to deliver something just a little to the left of a self-defined centre.

One of the most interesting and rewarding things about hearing the tracks as they appear on this release, is knowing that they are presented here in their earliest incarnations, Earth's chrysalis stage, if you will.

Lost in most of the noise and clutter was Jenn Wasner’s fantastic voice and Andy Stack’s ability as a “wall of sound” creator. On their new album, The Knot, these skills are not only refined but they showcase a wider, more advanced decadence and a band that sounds that much better, because of it.

Trying to isolate moments on PUMPS! proves fairly fruitless, though. It’s a totally immersive experience, best approached with trust and surrender.

There's a definite new feel to an album by Bibio in 2011; while many of the singular trademarks remain, there are choice additions that make for another triumph of a release for the British producer.

This album includes boasts a brilliant storyteller, amazing music, and, most important, beautifully delivered lyrics.

These songs are painfully uneventful.

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.

Write About Love may not be remembered as a seminal Belle & Sebastian long-player but its uncomplicated charms still make it an effective ephemeral pleasure.

This album is a feast for the uninitiated.

A fine addition to the canons of both Callahan and American music.

To sustain her muse beyond short-term thrill-seeking, a little more focus, restraint and better pacing is certainly required. That said, Acid Tongue is still-peppered with acts of greatness, which will no doubt grow further in stature through successive spins.

At least two or three songs on the record are worthy of the New Pornographers for crunchy catchiness and the entire set is packaged with energy and hooks.

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

Interstellar may not be the most enterprising album released this year, but there won't likely be another one that so cogently captures the celestial side of an era [the 80's] known for its excesses.

Much popier than the band’s previous efforts, this is a fun album with catchy beats, cool guitars and a lo-fi sound.

Nothing about the five originals and two covers here makes them come across like B-sides or throwaways.

On a purely compositional level, this is dazzling and downright brilliant. But on a purely artistic level, Insides is a startling accomplishment.

For Janes, Say Goodbye is a shining force and testimony of the great resolute determination is; if this is what her version of soul is, the new and inviting experiments are surely welcome.

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

Temper, an album that stays the course in terms of facade but for the most part lacks the great songwriting that elevated "Précis" above other singer-songwriters.

A lush post-rock masterpiece.

Intentional or not, The Inevitable Past is the Future Forgotten conjures up nostalgic moments with its overall demeanor. It's truly enabled Three Mile Pilot to possess an inquisitively solid sound and in the end, achieve the goal of fusing such memorable music together.

A staggeringly uneven salad of powerpop alt-country and even R&B that succeeds as often as it fails.

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

It’s simply constructed, confidently attempted and ultimately, radiantly accomplished. And much like that couple [on the album back cover], the album’s missteps are present but there is enough good to prove this is a solid effort.

there is an impressive and ambitious sense of craftsmanship across the record that captures Blank Realm on the cusp of something truly special.

Whilst the modus operandi suggests something rather derivative, somehow the album achieves more than fan-boy indulgence; managing to be stylish and atmospheric without being too slick or insubstantial.

While Amore del Tropico blazes some new paths for Black Heart Procession, it also hits all the right notes from the group's past.

Alter is intense, brooding, and taut, perfectly utilizing piano, chaotic dissident guitar, and complex percussion.

Phillips and Wareham manage to toe just the right line between diverse arrancements and album-wide cohesion - it's a little like listening to Luna in an alternate universe where they only play weddings and bar mitzvahs.

With Radical Connector, Mouse on Mars is taking an important step forward – both in terms of musical vision and international standing.

This album makes the case they deserve our attention and our own hospitality.

Cooper made it long enough to record one last, amazingly decorated and meticulously crafted album, Immolate Yourself, with his other half, Joshua Eustis. And with this album, not only did the tandem create something special but it just may end up being the best album of their entire career.

This album is a lot more than just a singer/songwriter's romantic confessions but not quite the grandiose rock of The Flaming Lips and Beck, but The Russian Futurists have carved a nice little niche somewhere in between.

This new album capitalizes on many of the singer/songwriter's strengths with songs that support his abilities.

He over-thought most of the tracks, failing to maintain focus on or fully develop any particular theme. Various elements drop in and out at terse intervals, presenting an idea for just enough time to intern it before moving on. But El-P has always had a theatrical flair, creating music that transports you to another place and time, and several tracks here do suck you into his demonic hip-hop underworld.

The highs here, while admittedly not quite as majestic or sugary as in the past, are still pretty far up there, and better yet, there are no lows.

One of the most accessible, pleasant releases of 2006.

In the end, this is better left to die-hard Yo La fans and jealous bassists everywhere.

At times on Song in the Air, I'm reminded of what it might sound like if Sigur Ros, Radiohead, and Jimmy Eat World were all merged together.

The Anomoanon spin small miracles of magic on Joji by merely using a 70s rock-radio framework as a springboard for deceptively modern and intricate synchronized guitar leads, vocal harmonies borrowed from the Flying Burrito Brothers, and a taut rhythm section lifted from On the Beach/Zuma-era Neil Young.

Thomas doesn’t need to be so shy anymore; with a solid debut and complimentary bandmates, he’s comfortably found his outlet.

With synths that convey the techno side behind Scuba's music, Rose allows the songs to flow within each other by way of carefully-placed transitions. There's a strong ear for melody and a terrific depiction of the sunny summer month.

Appropriately for an album called The Gathering, the esthetic Arbouretum achieves feels somewhat monolithic--overarching and whole instead of neurotic and splintered--and in this manner should provide healing properties for a psyche battered around by all the little specifics of daily life.

Fourteen songs deep, each and every one is a terrific slice of electronic pop that definitely delivers astounding results.

His vision of the album is similarly relational, and this debut brims with variety and skill, coming off with a complex personality at turns exuberantly earnest, darkly melancholy, and dreamily coy.

A series of serene and sensuous treasures rich in texture and laden with rapturous instrumental hooks.

The proceedings, though, are not without occasionally lesser moments and that’s something that fans of Save Everything and Very Soon may be surprised to hear.

For something put together with a supposed casualness, Bird Dog Dante is actually a remarkably industrious--albeit satisfyingly low-key--affair that stands-up as Parish’s most consistent and accessible solo album to date.

Taken as a whole, this endearingly strange collection should force casual-listeners to appreciate the importance of the album as a convoluted, contrary and eternally charismatic art form, which can still be defended by even the most work-shy of songsmiths.

While Era Vulgaris is not cohesive in tone (Could it be a reflection of today’s fragmented, compartmentalized world that pulls in all directions?) and doesn’t fire consistently on all cylinders, the album is still chock-a-block with complex instrumental arrangements, stop-and- start rhythms, gracefully refined harmonies, cranked-up choruses, and pointed commentary on the modern world.

Mo’ Mega starts off strong... But from [the middle] on out the songs lose focus.

The lack of truly classic Calexico moments marks the album as a transitory step: too far for some, not enough for others.

Overall, though, there's a lack of memorability tarring this CD. Very few of the songs sound familiar even after repeated listenings.

Possibly the best Kristin Hersh solo album since 1994's classic Hips & Makers.

The Wave Pictures are a band sufficiently self-confident to take enough risks to keep themselves interested but without distancing themselves from their extant character, which Great Big Flamingo Burning Moon reveals is a durable and entertaining combination for the most part, even if a tad more lubrication would have helped to soften-up some of its drier corners.

Lithium Burns is a far too well crafted and assuredly performed record for a debut album.

While the band is always fun and catchy, it can be a bit much after a while.

Those who are desperately clutching onto the past few months' sunny days and starry nights – or planning for Summer 2011 already – are likely to dig the unpretentious, casual atmosphere of Eternal Summers. For everyone else, there's bound to be something else out there better suited to pumpkins spice lattes and fall harvests.