The album is their most complete work to date.

It’s less catchy than Wolfgang but also more creative and more satisfying.

This fourth album, the devastatingly visceral Mosquito, does indeed find them trawling the more lugubrious recesses of their psyches and sonic proclivities.

Relentlessly dark, Houses still somehow manage to find breathtaking wonder in the wreckage.

Welcome back heavy bass and the practically patented echoing falsettos because John Dwyer’s mellow Putrifiers II mood is gone.

Sam Beam’s wily flirtations with girl-group chants and country-politan pageantry entices in fits and starts. Unfortunately, Ghost on Ghost’s midsection suffers from some genre weariness and similitude.

The multiple guest stars on each and every one of these 14 tracks have been upgraded from the regional heroes found on 2009 Lazer debut Guns Don’t Kill People Lazers Do to bona fide industry studs on Free the Universe. Some might view this third-world talent invasion as a form of dancehall imperialism, but there is depth here, respect, knowledge and oodles of heart... and enough freaky fun to dagger 52 weekends away.

It’s the pounding of the skins that makes the album really pop.

We The Common, the fifth LP offering from San Francisco’s Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, offers us a killer collection of infectious beats, bouncy melodies and smart lyrics that you can’t help but move to.

The result confirms there are few bands that can mix past and progress like these fellas.

The 19-year-old’s sound combines retro folk with elements of Britpop that’s as raw as it is original, which equals one of the more exciting debuts in some time.

While topping Smoke Ring outright nearly seemed insurmountable, Daze is (at an impossibly neat 70 minutes) a larger, more diverse and heavier experience.

His latest, Cyclops Reap, amplifies the warmth of his signature bedroom recording.

The Knife’s sound and vision--and the members’ unrelenting oddness--seem to slightly buckle under the weight of their idealism.

Their new self-titled album is both more refined and more expansive.

The Besnard Lakes have nonetheless continued to hone a pre-apocalyptic sound with their latest, Until In Excess, Imperceptible UFO.

Bleached’s Ride Your Heart blends just the right amount of catchy melodies and guitar fuzz with the rollercoaster ride known as love.

For Now I Am Winter is filled with widescreen ambitions that deliver on every count.

It’s markedly less garage-born than previous endeavors, too, sounding more akin to a dancier Echo & The Bunnymen or a version of The Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs recorded at higher fidelity.

Themes of maturation again flow through, yet some tracks (“Jailbirds,” “Bottled Affection”) recognize the trade-off between freedom and insecurity of youth.

The Growlers’ third full-length album sounds like a sketchy Tijuana pharmacy that’s got a little “something” for everybody.

The Ash & Clay takes this live approach and translates it into the duo’s most collaborative and folk-driven record yet.

Each song is constructed carefully and intentionally, much like their album as a whole.

Another collection of pop spells that beguile...here’s to at least 10 more years.

Their first album in 23 years finds Bonney again waxing romantic and sardonic over lurching post-punk stormers and haunted spaghetti Western ballads.

Julian Lynch’s music lacks the bombast of [Nino Rota’s] works, but is similarly raucous, mysterious and full of whirling joy.

With the combination of these instruments and intimate vocals (not to mention some single-digit counting on “Waitress”), it would be odd not to notice that the album can sound a touch Feist-y. Yet the delicate and intricate progressions the songs present make this record Glass and Steiner’s very own.

Listening to the record as a whole is sort of like meandering through an exhibit of miniature, spasming wire sculptures.