Drums Between the Bells at its simplest is often Drums Between the Bells at its best.

Kleyn sounds just fine accompanying herself with adept piano and efflorescent harp flourishes, her music FX-free except for a little echo, and I can imagine a less skyclad presentation simply gumming things up with New Age goo.

The problem is the lack of hooks, atmospherics and soul.

While it wouldn't be fair to hold Obscurities up to Merritt's 1990s albums with The Magnetic Fields and others, the material here certainly makes a strong claim for achieving next-best-thing status, providing a welcome nostalgic reminder of the many pleasures offered by what has already more or less become a nostalgia act.

Whether a frolic or a detour, the latest stop on Hynes's winding musical road is worth a listen. But take his own early words as this listener does: out of context, as an invocation of caveat emptor.

Maybe Butler was aiming higher than simply "dance music." A laudable ambition, but one that sadly isn't matched by the content of Blue Songs.

More often than not, Slave Ambient offers a sound that's equally familiar and new, simultaneously meeting expectations and evading them. It's an album whose immediate accessibility cloaks a deeper, subtler series of rewards.

Anyone seeking the nightmarish flipside of a Herzog soundtrack will find H-p1 a rewarding listen.

It's the same songwriter we've seen in snapshots from various foreign lands, this time in front of buildings that may as well be down the road: same Seine-side accordion we heard on The Flying Club Cup, same mournfully stately horns he picked up in the Balkans for Gulag Orkestar.

The Coathangers are clearly a band in transition, and it's very possible that this album's disjointed nature is a result of the band throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks.

Holing up by himself, worrying about money, obsessing with death and letting the walls close in is probably not good for Dwyer as a human being, but it's certainly good for Castlemania.

Haley tows the line between soundtrack and banger throughout, exposing the similarities between the two but also the pitfalls that come with catering to a particular demographic.

There are perhaps ways to defy expectations and still capture that truth about oneself, though that's not present in Two Matchsticks. Holding that against The Wooden Birds is certainly unfair in many ways, but still must be accounted for.

From listening to both of the intended follow-ups to his first album, though, you wouldn't know any better, as both records capitalize on the musical maturity of Harlan County in different but equally satisfying directions.

Ultimately, Williams never made a record as intense and as beautiful as Our Blood.

In the end, Giving is a more than satisfying swan song for this lineup.

Personally, the album works for me because it's kind of a gloss on intersecting listening practices that also has a distinct identity; the concentration of techno, the emotional lift of pop, the cratering impact of dubstep, and CHLLNGR himself are all there. It follows that the highs are toned down a bit for all those to fit comfortably. But then, the album feels so complete in itself, you don't really notice.

The early material is interesting, if only to hear how "Web in Front" and "Wrong" were fleshed out on Icky Mettle. But it's the album, and The Greatest of All Time, that are the real draw here.

Owl Splinters is a testament to what practiced musicianship, studio know-how and an ear for textured complexity can accomplish.

There's a number of visual pieces that lose their power, and while Notaro is good at describing what she's talking about, those visual bits interrupt the flow. In that sense, Good One feels like a straight showcase for her act, one that doesn't make concessions to the audio-only listener.

Bakesale's consistency allows it to work tremendously well as a beginning-to-end album.

Birchard's music is euphoric and in your face--if only he could combine his staggering technique with some true grit.

This album, like others that nudge closer to perfection without technically breaking new ground--I'm thinking of the Cass McCombs and Tape albums, to name ones I've written about this year--could be a springboard for thinking about why musicians who seem capable of almost anything stay in their comfort zones for albums at a time.

Through the Green is one of the finest dance LPs of the year for sure, but it's not something I could listen to every day.

Baker pretty much only has one idea, and although it's solid, he could benefit from a shift in approach.

As it stands, I enjoy it for what it is.

This is where the irony comes in--he sacrifices most of his originality to referential tropes. Through successfully emulating noteworthy keyboardists of the past, he nearly obliterates his own identity as a practitioner. It's not that he isn't good, either. He's too good.

It seems often as if the songs come to life more through sonic detail and aural shape (a variety of distortion tones, drum sounds, reverb ranges, and the like) than in compositional changes of direction, harmonic depth, or hooks. This doesn't, however, make the music dull. Instead, there's something compelling about the way Young Widows use these details--a shimmer, a hum, a scrape--for drama rather than relying on the often cheap dramatics heard in "heavy" music.