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.

Zedek somehow twists her troubled characters and haunting tunes into things of beauty.

Coomes' blatant, almost hilarious, display of his guitar mastery is fun to hear. His solos and fills ride front-and-center, perfect and expansive and insane.

This is at once a record to rock out to, a record to contemplate, and a record to immediately buy if you think it impossible for a band this well-hyped to defy their own press.

Repeated listens... reveal the album's complexity and highlight how far the band has come in the four years since their last release.

A lucid and diverse record.

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.

An almost uniformly excellent outing.

Their best album since 1996's brilliant Under the Bushes, Under the Stars.

Dramatic and dark.

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

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

A more savage, flawless and impressive sound could not have emanated from these Austrian-born, Chicago-fed composers of laptop jazz.

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

Harcourt would do himself well by spending a bit more time on his lyrics; a lot of the time it sounds as though he's just filling in the space between choruses.

To be sure, there is an ironic smirk clinging to much of Who Will Cut Our Hair..., but there is also the subtle beatings of unpretentious sympathy and maverick potential.

It's not always pretty, but even the mistakes have a remarkable charm.

The krang of album’s past seems more an afterthought as the band explores the natural textures of layered guitar and lumbering bass tracks.

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

This is the natural and logical epiphany of three musicians who have been getting to know one another for some time. It's also a damn good album.

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.

Immediately more accessible than their last effort.

Summer Sun doesn't have the collective impact of its predecessors, a problem typically attributable to song selection, sequencing and mixing.

Has more to do with the Shangri Las' "Leader of the Pack", '60s sock hop and the Jesus Mary Chain than it does with Television, downtown Manhattan and pre-treated denim.

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.

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

In the band's able hands, the music still sounds dangerous, unpredictable, and potent.

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