Spoon rebounds from the insurmountable challenge of following up the colossally brilliant Girls Can Tell with an equally impeccable album.

This is not an easy record to absorb. The band’s rough-hewn production is tinny and sonically chaotic, but underneath the surface noise lurks one of the finest records of the year.

Once all the influences roll off your tongue, however, you’ll find yourself speechless before the excitement this album will invariably instigate.

The sonic consistency may bore fans thirsting for more of Cornelius’ spastic and unpredictable eclecticism, but the ensuing stereophonic experience is second to none.

Plenty of bands have hooks and good songs and retro-garage sounds, but none compares to The Strokes.

As difficult as it is gorgeous, Vespertine ranks among Bjork’s finest albums.

An astoundingly seductive debut.

Gorgeous, lush, and surprisingly optimistic.

OnOffOn is the aural resurrection of a band that still matters.

Last Exit is a monumental debut... on par with It’s My Life or Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret.

It is the band’s most fully realized musical achievement.... A monumental album by a monumental band.

Gimme Fiction may not be your favorite Spoon record right now, but give it a few years.

The band’s finest release by far, it’s a swaggering, head-long dive into funk, rhythm and blues, gospel, roots rock and roll, and disco but with a very sleek modern edge.

Elephant is a startlingly dark and consistent record, incorporating frequencies never before heard on a White Stripes album.

This is arguably Idlewild’s finest hour.

A classic party record from start to finish.

This is Mission of Burma’s most aggressive and impassioned record to date.

Even though Guero sounds familiar sonically, it still pushes Beck further into a league that he all but owns.

This is dance music with unquestionable soul.

Costello has never experimented so freely on an album in his entire career.

while the production’s sleek sheen holds tight reigns over any explosive guitars threatening to get out of hand, The Stills still manage to build up enough tension to hold your attention through good old fashioned songwriting.

Each listen reveals depth and texture that allow the hooks plenty of room to breathe.

Mr. Beast isn’t Mogwai’s most challenging or daring record, but it might be its most beautiful or powerful.

The Strokes match their innate catchiness with a new found intensity that makes First Impressions of Earth sound like a band hungry for blood.

Sunny Border Blue will go down as her finest album outside of the Throwing Muses because it’s her finest batch of songs.

The lyrical terrain is insultingly common (girls, life on the road, girls), yet the band has such an idiosyncratic method of expression that makes these everyday themes sound – at least over the course of each song – radically inspired.

Late Registration... definitely mines familiar terrain, but West’s zeal for clever wordplay juxtaposed with his unflinching confidence makes for a charismatic and often electrifying punch.

Low sounds fearless in its experimentation. Such personal intimacy juxtaposed with extremely haughty pretension could easily turn off listeners, but it’s all woven together so well that it’s hard to dismiss even the wrong turns.