There's just a little more space on this record for the songs to build and breathe. Twin Cinema is the first New Pornographers record you'll want to sit through from beginning to end.

Happy Songs is epic and subtle, technically savvy and emotionally charged and visceral all at once -- in short, it's a summary of everything that is great about Mogwai's music.

Like The Fiery Furnaces' Gallowsbird Park, or Interpol's Turn On The Bright Lights, Funeral is a debut record that simply refuses to be ignored.

Halfway through the album, it's clear that this is a glimpse into the future of pop music.

De-Loused in the Comatorium is a musical gem that captures the soul of Mars Volta in a way that soundly delivers on the hype.

Monday at the Hug & Pint is Arab Strap's best record, and should land on every critic's 2003 top 10 list.

You really don't know what you're dealing with until you sit down and take in the freewheeling beauty of one of the year's best.

All told, it's another triumph for a band whose creative peak seems to defy gravity with each passing year.

If you're an Old 97's fan you've been waiting for this. If you're not, you just might be when it's all said and done.

The 10 tracks are hands down the most irresistible pop music you'll hear this year.

Better than anything they've recorded to date, Hypermagic Mountain approximates the swelling energy of Lightning Bolt's live havoc.

A stunning bit of psychedelic folk-rock.

Malkmus' songwriting is back from blandland, the backing Jicks rock, and the production got it all on tape without screwing it up.

A near perfect record that will have The Rapture,!!!, and every other dance punk band looking over their collective shoulders.

An album that's both effortlessly confident of its sound and monumentally fearless of introducing cohesive surprises.

Although an extreme statement, it is a major stylistic step forward for the band and pays off great dividends to those so inclined to follow them into The Woods.

Slice Thrills up into its individual pieces, and Ellen Allien's third studio record is flawless.

While all of the sounds that made their debut so compelling are in place here, Broadcast has also branched out, employing a looser approach to strong structure.

The band sounds filthy and scorching.

It's an outstanding piece of work -- literate, catchy, and emotional.

Room on Fire is a passionate, 32-minute burning effigy of the seemingly insurmountable expectations fans and critics had for the record.

The smart pop hook chops displayed on So Much For the City make it clear that this is one retro-minded band that may just make it to the future.

This is Bianchi’s tour de force, emotive but clever enough to avoid seeming self-centered or pathetic, and satisfying in its candid complexity.

The group's cohesion is the cornerstone of the album; no one instrument stands out, while each contributes equally to the whole. And it's the trio's loose arrangements and subtle interplay that leave center stage to the thoughtful and provocative lyrics.

It has an appealing gentle earnestness that most pop music lost somewhere in the past few decades.

Ima Robot mines the dark recesses of metal, glam, new wave and electro, meshing its findings without a stitch to produce memorable choruses that stick in your head long after they're gone.

Soft Spot is a winningly cohesive album -- both thematically and musically -- and shows Barzelay's songwriting talent growing exponentially.

A lucid and diverse record.