A beguiling blend of astute social commentary and first-rate music that rocks, weeps and testifies.

An essential addendum to the Galaxie 500 story.

A timely twinkle of apple crisp bells, hearth-warming handclaps and belly-rubbing brass.

An invigorating mix of spacey dub, seventies funk, eighties big-beat electro, old school hip-hop and even early Prince, Father Divine is Ladd's most lyrically accessible and sonically enjoyable album to date.

In recasting these wilfully off-kilter tunes and investing them with his trademark warm and inviting melancholia, Mark Kozelek need not be modest: Tiny Cities is a big success.

A record brimming with potential.

More hypnotically dark gems.

Lookaftering sees her trading the overly twee vibe of her debut for a darker, more mysterious and mature sound.

Unlike Rogue Wave's timid debut, Vultures blazes forward with the kind of assured bravado not usually seen this side of U2.

It's on the sonic departures, though, that Feels strikes its most resonant chord.

Boards of Canada seems to be able to release albums pre-aged, so that all the things that might have bugged you a couple years ago now sounds like another part of why it's a classic.

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

Tanglewood Numbers, musically at least, is Berman's most fully realized album.

It might not be the underground hip-hop record of the year, but it is easily on the short list.

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

With Shamelessly Exciting he's starting to get good. In other words, on this record, once you get the idea, you're still going to want to listen.

The record... is able to maintain a thrilling tension between bright, dream-like songs and an encroaching darkness.

The record may have a little less electronic slink than prior efforts, but it has a propulsive energy, even in the mid-tempo tracks, that makes the record easy to like.

Suckfish is pure audio porn.

Zilla delivers a cleverly orchestrated junket of joyful raucousness and synth whirls.

Their sturdy, inventive debut, Apologies to the Queen Mary, draws further, fresh blood from the indie rock stone.

Dramatic and dark.

Hypnotic and dreamlike, the album presents a vision of pop music's future glimpsed through the lens of its past.

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.

If gripes were to be made, one could argue with Crow's length, which at 74 minutes may be a little more whimsy than one can handle.

The music is as soothing as a lullaby and as challenging as a modern art exhibit.

While In The Reins bears the unmistakable imprint of both Calexico and Iron and Wine, these collaborators donâ??t seem to be interested in playing it all that safe.

Not Them, You is one of those rare records that rewards on both repeated listens and initial forays.

A loose, engaging collection of songs that won’t knock your socks off the first time you hear it, but begins to work its way under your skin on subsequent spins.

As with most things this conceptual, certain aesthetic sacrifices must be made. But Matthew Herbert is the remarkable musician, with his keen senses of rhythm and melody, who can pull off such an audacious ruse.

Songs is heavy on romantic longing, but the music is so coy and smart that it rarely feels mushy.

Black Dice doesn‚t shy away from risks, and this record is just as daring as Beaches and Canyons or Creature Comforts.

Amber Headlights has clear thematic and structural parallels to the Afghan Whigs' excellent 1996 rock opera Black Love.

This turn for the yee-haw is a bit mystifying but hardly a mistake; Howl is exactly the cry the BRMC needed to make.

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.

Bright Ideas has an air of excitement and energy about it, and contains some of McCaughan's strongest songwriting to date.

The punk-informed material on Blitzkrieg Pop sounds like the missing link between Ministry's earlier, sensitive electro material and its later and more well-known incarnation as the nihilistic buzz-sawing and bile-spewing industrial unit.

Knitting Needles & Bicycle Bells is a near perfect collection of four-minute songs that recall a more ragged XTC, the skewed pop/rock style of The Kinks, and The White Album-era Beatles.

If the fifties rocked this hard, we'd be dead now.

There is some irony in following up a record called We Fight Til Death with one titled (and as vital as) Giving Up The Ghost. However, Windsor For The Derby doesn't sound as if it has succumbed to anything save for its singular atmospheric pop tendencies.

[Has] a mysterious backwoods vibe worthy of Murmur-era REM.

Surprisingly, the time frame covered by the collection does not detract from the listening experience, rewarding Cursive-completists with moments of power punk and the angular guitar work the band has come to be known for.

A shot of raw psych rock that's as adventurous as it is accessible.

A gorgeous, shimmering 40 minutes of music - a sonic road trip through parts unknown.

These are songs about horrible times in horrible lives; hearts are rotten long before they break and the sounds they make are awful and haunting and beautiful.

My only problem with the album is that it begins to devour its own tail about halfway through, at times sounding tedious, or worse, precious.

Lidell has created an album of flawless, imaginative, and radical funk grooves.

The compilation will not alter your opinions of Lali Puna. But between the new material and older cuts previously scattered across numerous singles and compilations,I Thought I Was Over That is something fans old and new will want to have around.

Humming By The Flowered Vine takes the rootsy sounds of classic country music (incorporating Hank Williams, Lucinda Williams and everyone in between) and plops them smack dab in the middle of Manhattan.

The results are predictably wonderful.

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

The results are stunning.

When Pause came out in 2001, that sounded like an artist at his peak. But get this: He's still at his peak, and the view is no less scintillating, crisp, and sweet, rolling with drums and shaded by clouds of horn reverb and file-sharing swish.

The record's disparate experiments are unified by an overriding darkness, the black light Albarn shines on the dancehall. It's this unusual tone that makes Demon Days intriguing long after it's ceased to be novel.

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.

Is Malkmus treading water? Well, maybe. But despite the complaints of those fans who can’t let Pavement go, he’s still making valid, adventurous and - most of all - fun music.

Perhaps the best overall representation of Belle and Sebastian’s distinctive brand of indie pop.

A debut album so confident and flawlessly developed it seems more like the work of a band hitting its mid-career creative peak.

While it feels like they're still finding their way and discovering what they're capable of, it's clear there's potential for greatness and longevity.

All eleven songs on Gimme Fiction are immaculately crafted, concise pop gems.

A true supergroup -- a set of songs that might be superior to either group's work separately.

Snaith simply dictates the flow of emotions and events on this record, with the kind of command presence rarely seen.

[A] sonic sheen (and the punchy rhythm section) gives the songs an immediacy that the previous reunion records have lacked.

And though she may be running in place lyrically, her melodies have never been keener and her vocals grow richer and more confident with each release.

The Wedding is a worthwhile gamble and a record like no other in the Oneida catalogue. Which, come to think of it, makes it a lot like every other Oneida record.

Mice Parade is an original, hovering over multiple traditions without disturbing any of them.

A bipolar rock opera for the ages.

The Sunset Tree may just be The Mountain Goats's most poetic, coherent work.

Awfully Deep, on the whole, is a bold, ambitious swing for the fences. But, like it or not, the game's done changed, and Manuva '05 sounds way too much like Manuva '01.

Even the most hardened, poker-faced purists will crack a smile at AIH's ridiculously catchy, hook-riddled dance-pop.

Part of the problem with Alligator is that it echoes so many other records, but part of its satisfaction is that it sets itself apart so well.

Furthers the high concept lyrical talents of the group with an added twist: a more atmospheric, slightly new wave sensibility.

Although Lost and Safe would be a crowning achievement for any band, The Books show no sign of running out of beautiful musical ideas to convey.

Suspended Animation, on the whole, is a technical marvel; a kaleidoscopic foray into death metal, Looney Tunes sound effects, and an alarming balance of slapstick and pathos.

If Blues isn't as immediately classic-sounding as Molina's 2003 pseudo-debut, it still harbors enough affecting songs to make you pause and admire the man's craft.

By album's end, two coming-of-age stories are complete: the boy has grown into a black sheep man, and the literate musicians have become a hell of a rock band.

Arular is what The Coup’s second record set out to be but wasn’t: Party Music, both for the warehouse hedonists and the basement dissidents.

While the music is as delicious and diverse as ever, the Decemberists' meal ticket is Meloy's unmatched lyrical prowess, which borders at times on mod-Shakespearean.

Songs walk a delicate tightrope between the brain and the hips, and the libidinal release of the beat is denied, suggested, suppressed, and finally let loose to sweat it out.

Silence's instrumentals - choppy samples, organs, and horns, set to the tune of a staccato digital pacemaker - sound great, but they hardly stray from the formula laid down by Vocal Studies and Uprock Narratives.

Newcomers may want to start investigating with something less daunting, but even the casual fan of Cave's work will find this collection indispensable.

No Earthly Man demonstrates that all the glitz and studio production techniques used in making many records aren't really necessary to craft a compelling document.

While the new album doesn't quite topple 1998's Silur from its Tarwater throne, The Needle Was Traveling is certainly a more than credible addition to the band's discography.

Occasionally, you might wish for a more generous-sounding lead vocal or concise song structure, but 10th Avenue Freakout is populated with stimulating, rather than easily accessible, music.

Throughout, Doe strikes just the right balance. He's confident but not arrogant; laid back, yet full of vitality.

She's lyrically sharp as ever, and switches gears and works in nice melodies just enough to soften the edges, luring fans in before she pummels them.

No Wow is pure sex, pulsating blues-based rock and roll from start to finish.

Aside from the added guitar riffs and post-punk tones, Stars stick with a lush string section and neatly placed horns throughout, and their romantic appeal stays largely intact.

Despite the fact that Prekop isn't really pushing himself on this album, it's a near perfect distillation of his art.

The advantages that The Capitol Years have over many of their compatriots are the excellent voice of lead singer Shai Halperin and swoon-inducing harmonies.

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.