there's nothing else like this band right now and possibly ever. The volume and power of late 90s rap metal without all the stupidity and endless chugalug. Vocals that not only sing sweet melodies but support them with harmonies that push and pull against the current of noise, only sassy and canny, like a My Bloody Valentine that's being marketed to pre-teens.

With Twin Cinema, The New Pornographers have elevated themselves from a band I really like to a band that I can't live without.

Push Barman To Open Old Wounds is a rare species indeed; though all of the songs could be considered “hits,” the album avoids all of the tackiness associated with greatest hits collections.

Hospice sits squarely in this camp, a heartbreaking aural experience that hits us on a deeper level.

Diehards will lob all the complaints about sequencing and omissions, but if we're being honest here, what this compilation isn't leaves no blemish on the quality of what it actually is.

Sounds are given room to breathe and interact, room to develop detailed relationships with each other, and therein lies Abandoned Language's most compelling facet.

The only thing the tracks have in common is the uncommon musicianship on display and the high-flying atmospherics that keep most of the album's mood adrift in the stratosphere.

It’s weird, (but not annoyingly so), it’s catchy (but not annoyingly so), and it’s fresh (but not annoyingly so). Face the Truth is the work of a songwriter at his finest hour.

Thunder, Lightning, Strike is simply amazing. It is filled with boundless, glorious noise, sewing together flamboyance, quirkiness, sturdy sampling, and a well-traveled feel that can take you anywhere you want to go.

The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter finds namesake and frontman Ritter boldly claiming musical territory with a reinvented sound, turning from the meticulous arrangements and somber ruminations of his previous album to a more daring, moxie-charged approach that yields some of the freshest, most captivating songs of his career.

Brighter Than Creation's Dark is a tour de force that easily earns its praise and rings out as classically as any classic rock album.

One of the best albums of 2006.

Interesting, unique, weird and inviting.

Whether or not you choose to accept it, the FACT is that Scotland's own Hutchinson brothers have created a sweet and powerful collection of tunes with The Midnight Organ Fight.

The album is a classic from start to finish, and only adds to the already monumentally impressive discography the band has produced in the past decade.

One of the finest pieces of pop music to drop this decade.

Dr. Octagon has once again put hip-hop under the knife and performed surgery on it.

They have blended the sensitivity of classical and the sensibility of rock into something far greater than post-rock.

Every one of the eleven songs attached to Blacklight is a stunner in purely musical terms.

This is one for the ages, an album that you will covet, listen to, and live by.

Throughout Merriweather Post Pavilion the band mixes instrumentation and samples and voices in a way that seems to be an advanced or accelerated development of past triumphs.

I'll Sleep When You're Dead is too smart, too relevant, and too dangerous.

This album's brilliance comes from the titanium-larynxed Tom Gabel's juxtaposition of the listener's jaded expectations of punk with too-direct-to-be-dishonest sentiments.

Imperial Teen have again made one of the best records of the year.

In far fewer listens than you'd expect, BiRd-BrAiNs sheds its outer shell of defensive harshness and becomes an easy, enjoyable and addictive listen.

Neon Bible may be a bold departure from the beloved Funeral, but the divergence is as inspired as the music itself.

Maybe the growth is only obvious to those who've been following, but that doesn't take away from the obvious upgrade of accessibility found here.

Liars is an ingenuous reflection of a band in total control of their wild creativity.

Even with song subjects nicked from movies, the only false thing here is the title: Get Awkward my ass. It's extremely difficult to imagine these hyperdrive darlings as anything but fully adept.

I can't remember the last time a popular punk album sounded this simple, lean and ready to conquer anything in its path.

Deerhunter have indeed created a masterpiece. While it's not perfect, it has the charm and scope and full realization that was lacking in the band's earlier work.

Excluding the established Radiohead franchise from consideration of In Rainbows, it is still one of the most compelling recent releases, and should be considered for 2007's Album of the Year in any context.

Weighed and measured, Graduation is easily the best rap album this year.

Screw the band name, McBean is a temporal writer, and he channels his unique vision into equal parts regardless of his color-coded outfit. It's a bold and brash move that is working wonders thus far.

As with songs like "The Orchids" and "Spider's House," the continued confidence in slow, sleepy numbers, hinting more towards the ambient side of experimental folk, like the devastating "Krill" or the aforementioned "Evidence" suggests that as Rutili ages, his music will only grow in accessibility, relying less and less on the clatter of his youth. Songs like "Gauze" used to be austere nuggets buried in the noise, but these days, the noisy abstractions are, for the most part, the odd-man out.

Perhaps taking a cue from another seminal band, Talking Heads, The Suburbs is a more restrained, tempered affair. Yet the beat of their bleeding heart still remains...

Only Deerhunter makes echoes without egos, grounding even Bradford Cox's most wayward divergences in an all-encompassing blend of simple rock stylings.

Woke On A Whaleheart is a pleasure, and aside from the intro to the song "Footprints," every moment on this record is immensely listenable.

Operatic in scope, ruthlessly ambitious in its range, The Paper Chase have dropped one the most unique and substantive records of the year.

The Dr. of Mathematics has one-upped it with Andorra, keeping all of the earlier album's core sonic qualities while adding layers of heartfelt atmospherics to craft what is not only one of the most mesmerizing and unique albums of the year, but also one of the best.

In this case I've been compelled to return a lot. Weird accomplishment for a pop singer. It's a five-or-six-listens album.

Undoubtedly his best and most credible album to date.

One of the most exciting and substantial records so far this year.

Farina and MacKaye have created a delicate and beautiful masterpiece that transcends their punk and post-punk routes.

If the Flaming Lips mated with Marilyn Manson and ate Underworld for breakfast, the end result might sound something like Battles' debut album, Mirrored.

The Eternal is absorbing and raw, from the slower, affable 'Antenna' to the pounding 'Poison Arrow.'

Constantly winning and resurging, not a moment of Apologies to the Queen Mary is lost to the chaos.

Thomas' craft is tremendous for a newcomer, especially in an indie-rock moment that needs it.

It's hard not to stare in open-mouthed amazement at the sheer brilliance of Black Sheep Boy, though you're trying to clinically dissect all the elements that make it so.

If you like intelligent song writing with killer sing-along choruses, then you desperately need this album.

Archer and friends deserve praise for making an album so rooted in its locale so appealing to a wider audience due to the never-ending amount of catchy hooks and melodies on display on Stars Of CCTV.

Listening to Ys is like dreaming with eyes open, a detached lucidity in which clarity inevitably follows.

If you’re looking for a roaring, well-executed good time, look no further: the Ponys are practically peerless.

Superwolf is collaboration in the truest sense of the word, and the talents of the two musicians involved feel revitalized and meaningful in ways that they may not have for some time.

The whole of the album is stunning and unique, and if the thematic gender-bending core of the album makes a few people ideologically shy away, then it’s truly a shame.

The whole of the album is stunning and unique, and if the thematic gender-bending core of the album makes a few people ideologically shy away, then it's truly a shame.

It’s amazing to see how the Decemberists have grown. The songs from their first EP, 5 Songs, seem like a man and an acoustic guitar, where Picaresque feels like a full blown orchestra.

This is a hell of a record.

As accomplished as Black Cherry was, Supernature completes the suspected evolution from the quasi-avant-garde stylings of old to intelligent, sophisticated pop music.

Far removed from the desolation I feel surrounded by, Land of Talk's first full-length album's sense of hope, grounded in realism, is at once reassuring and encouraging.

This new bag of tricks is implemented with due subtlety that bolsters the charming simplicity qualities, while filling the tracks out and, cautiously, adding some curves.

A sprawling tour de force... It overwhelms you with its brawny rhythms, its artful arrangements and foggy atmosphere, and its thrilling instrumentation.

This is proof that Campbell made the right decision in leaving Belle And Sebastian.

So much of Illinois feels magical, however, in much the same way as a large State Fair: there is commotion and wonder as the population is continually enchanted by progress, but to unknown purpose.

As well as being their most accessible, The Campfire Headphase emerges as the most solid Boards of Canada album to date.

Though he may not have the experience in years, he more than makes up for it in the way he crafts his songs.

Black Dialogue: a hip-hop classic? Maybe not, but pretty damn close.

Heart Like a River takes you on a journey, and does not leave until every sight is seen and pathway is walked.

Hart’s multiple layers of sound keep his unadventurous song structures from becoming trite; though Our Thickness is pure verse-chorus-verse-chorus fare with no flashy bridges or codas, it will still take months to dive into every piece of instrumentation.

While there has clearly been a degree of evolution... none of Eluvium's previous effects are lost with his new offering; the music still winds its way through your mind, but at the same time it moves the soul as well.

Every song here, on both discs, is interesting and amazingly well-crafted.

A genre-bowing indie masterpiece as gorgeous as anything released since Sigur Rós’ ( ).

The Great Destroyer is a masterpiece of emotional tumult.

Drowaton is as close to an orchestral pop masterpiece as you’re going to get.

Anyone intrigued by Doom should adore this album.

Lambert promises on the album's stellar title track, and if that isn't a warning to all of Nashville, from a woman who has compiled one of the year's finest releases, it should be.

Is Is will especially appeal to fans who found "Show Your Bones" a little soft. On the other hand, this release should appeal to any and all Yeah Yeah Yeahs aficionados.

Triumphant, bitter, despondent, but never false or insincere, The Last Romance is one of the early great listens of 2006.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah gets my pick for summertime album of the year.

The first must-listen record of the year.

It's fun and light, and even though for all I know he could be singing about the destruction of mankind, it is bursting with joy and happiness.

I'm prepared to defend this as hip hop's frontrunner for best album of 2007 thus far.

I Created Disco is not only the title of Harris' full-length debut, it's also the title of a track on the album that threatens to depose Justice from their perch on high.

It's strange second-hand pop, deconstructed and represented as something entirely new, augmented by a range of melodies and affectations. Good for him and good for the world for the opportunity to be exposed to his music-pop music in its purest form, pop informed by pop.

Listening to The Weakerthans makes me feel young and happy and hopeful.

The bar has been raised for 2005.

Few bands have managed to blend so many divergent sounds and styles together to make such an interesting, great-sounding, and cohesive [key word] record as Evangelicals have with The Evening Descends.

There's something captivating about the project, and you will find yourself returning to the album over and over again.

It will, absolutely and deservedly, reside among the best of the year, but, when given space, can ruminate indefinitely in one’s consciousness and soul.

While they are not afraid to bang the drums and rock out, Menomena keep the majority of this album behind a beautiful mask of complimentary melodies.

This is the kind of record you'll spend days rocking out to. You'll get lost walking around listening to it (I know I did), think about quitting your job to relive the days when a record like this was all that was allowed to matter.

Perhaps their best outing yet.

Cleaned up, stripped down, and melding dance music seamlessly with post-punk, Sound Of Silver is as solid as a dance album can get.

A masterpiece that celebrates life, in all of its horrific, painful, magical and wondrous glory.

It’s apparent that this album was made with particular care, as most of John Vanderslice’s works are, but there are many cases where a more mature display of music appreciation is taken; previously, when met with such dogged emotional complexity, Vandersilce would rely on experimentation. Here, he stares straight on.

A dazzling collection of songs, Putting The Days To Bed cements Roderick's reputation as one of the best songwriters working today.

Destroyer’s Rubies is every bit as marvelous as his landmark Streethawk: A Seduction.

Ladd’s drive and focus throughout the entire album keeps the listener’s ear, as each moment is unexpected, even after multiple listens.