Where previous releases have been occasionally bogged down in somnambulistic reverie, the majority of The Earth Is Blue feels light as air.

It's easily the artist's most cohesive, polished work.

An almost uniformly excellent outing.

There's a layered, almost psychedelic feel to a lot of these songs, suggesting that Beam may not be the died-in-the-wool folkie some might have pegged him as.

The only thing that holds this collection down at all is the fact that you're listening to it at home, and, no matter how good your audio setup, it will never come close to the band's famously loud and beautiful live sets. And, at that, this comes close.

It's one thing to treat your influences with reverence, eyes and goals fixed on a past that brought them to you. It's another to fold them into the present, into the elusive omnipresence of the moment. And how Dead Meadow pulls this off on Feathers is an amazing thing to hear.

Filled with zesty pop confections, sing along choruses, and plenty of attitude.

An exceptional testament to James Murphy, both as a musician and producer.

Manzanita may be too diverse to be cohesive, but it is filled with interesting songs and the continued potential for great things.

Possessing a richly elastic set of vocal chords, Bird is in league with such silver-throated singers as Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright, but he rarely if ever over-emotes, a common criticism leveled at Buckley and Wainwright.

The album has a sonic cohesiveness that makes for a consistently pleasant listening experience.

The found sounds on Digital Ash can seem an affected and unnecessary embellishment in certain places.... But in other places they work.

Stripped down and folky... there's no denying Oberst's presence as a major artist who continues to evolve and explore his craft with each release.

The album is harsher, darker, and just plain louder than Low have ever been in their 10-year career.

I Sold Gold is the rare record that can poke fun at itself, the world, and its fans yet transcend simple entertainment.

Both Costa and Lindsay Anderson have an uncanny ability to evoke multiple emotions through their lyrics. The downside seems to be their lack of range; all the songs feel the same.

A loose, fun collection.

Nothing's Lost is heavier, denser and in its best moments, verges on pop nirvana.

It's a crackling, concise collection.

Cave's songwriting chops and incisive lyrics have, if anything, grown stronger.

Rendezvous is among the group's finest works.

Sounding like a lost classic from Britain's 1979 art-punk scene, the Futureheads' debut is an assured masterpiece of twitchy, nervous pop.

When layers of choir-boy vocals are added to the group's singing ("Hun Joro"), when feeble, naturalistic sounds are used in questing improvisations ("Sigur Ros"), or when acoustic instruments coalesce with a swath of electronics ("Dogun"), you'll find your jaw on the floor, too, stunned as ever.

Dents and Shells matches the intensity and concision of Impasse, while adding an organic, spontaneous feel to the proceedings.

Love Songs for Patriots picks up exactly where American Music Club last left us: producing uniformly excellent music filled with heartbreak, loneliness, and - yes - politics.

In a way CVB's New Roman Times is on par career-wise with Rush's 2112 - well, minus the klezmer anyway.

Summer in Abaddon delivers an all-inclusive perfection that sets it apart from any other record this year.

Mason's songs wander from folk to rock and dip their toes into country, but sound fresh, and never boring.