Despite the up-tempo spunkiness of half the album’s songs, the prevailing tone seems to be that of a musical android--equal portions ukulele and digital distortion.

This go-around does lack the face-sucking gravity of "In the Morning" to serve as a point of access, but the best way to experience Junior Boys’ music has always been total submission.

More important than the album’s conceit and whatever toehold it might offer, though, is that it sports less flab than their critical breakthrough.

Repo is likeable for all the right reasons. That the band hasn’t challenged themselves or their audience to find new ones is the album’s chief drawback.

There’s a lot that could go wrong with this approach on Sun Gangs--but nothing does. For all the arch drama, the big rock songs on here are frenzied, and the small indie pop songs are lean and melodic.

The Atlantic Ocean is impressive, at times even masterful, yet falters in reminding us more of what it lacks than of what it possesses.

It’s Blitz isn’t FTT, and may not be remembered as highly (particularly by those who never give it a chance), but it is a logical progression.

The weird and promising thing is that it works without ever feeling natural. The actual coexistence of the earnest and the smoove stops being so striking after a while, but the best songs on Rules don’t let you forget there is one.

Therein lies the power of this understatedly great debut – in avoiding a simple homage to sounds that came and went a couple of decades ago, Gonzalez managed to imbue her music with a greater historical perspective.

Regardless of the frames built around them by producers or the press, Amadou and Mariam make great pop music, and their new album gives us more of it.

She’s at her best when sticking to a palette of steel, indigo and black.

Deacon is a gifted musician capable of so much more, and that makes Bromst feel like a waste.

Hinds and Co. have dispensed with the neanderthal growls and screams of past records, which might have robbed Crack the Skye of its surprising grace and pushed it closer to the nu-metal end of the spectrum.

The album is also horribly sequenced, pushing its best tracks down after a morass of prettier, more insipid melodies had fluffed you.

An album full of cover versions is not really essential listening, although there are a few songs here reminiscent of the better covers from past Yo La Tengo albums.

Album closer 'Warlock Psychologist' is a glorious mess of distorted keyboard and poetic non sequiturs that less dedicated bands would probably have left off the record. But not Swan Lake, whose perverse commitment to farty art-rock is to be respected, perhaps even embraced.

More bands should, logically, sound like this. It’s a wonder that no one wrote the song 'Pine On' before now, as incredibly basic and memorable as it is. That said, Obits fall short of Froberg’s Hot Snakes.

DOOM’s sounds as bold and battered as ever. You can almost hear the accumulation of Dutch Masters on his larynx.

This is, undoubtedly, one of the most beautiful records of this year, and its very indistinctness forces you to go back to it over and over.

It’s the sound of epic detail in exquisite registration, and Albini perfectly vivifies Mono’s Technicolor wall of sound.

Ultimately Beware’s designation as a "big" record feels arbitrary--it is polished and competent, but at the same time disappointingly bland.

Though a solid and promising outing, Wavves isn’t a revelatory record. It fits nicely into the "scene," however vague that semblance is these days.

Scratched up, indifferently tuned, coming in ghostly and pale like AM radio, Strange Boys’ first full-length has the banked fire of a slow burner.

Speck Mountain might have a great album in them; this one isn’t bad. But I hope that some day they get over themselves and really get down.

The album’s elements--large scale pop and tightly controlled electro--don’t always work together, but they come together on the very last track, 'Radio Kaliningrad.'

Throughout, Mirah picks her soft, knowing way through songs that soothe even as they challenge. Her melodies curl gently up into question marks, as she asks you to make sense of life and love and loss.

In the newfound center on Thank You Very Quickly, Eagleson and company have stealthly transitioned from indie ethno-experimental vanguards to genuine Afro-Rock champions, erasing 7,000 miles of distance and so many years of history.

An Imaginary Country is a solid record, but in the context of Hecker’s discography, it can also be underwhelming at times.