No matter your tastes, there's something to put you on edge. [No. 117, p.61]

Twerps succeed in making decades-old style sound brand new again. [No. 117, p.61]

It undermines its poppy ideas with unorthodox chord changes, meandering melodies and a jarring minor/major push-pull. [No. 117, p.61]

If there is no respite from volume, there are variations in pacing. [No. 117, p.59]

Any absence of qualitative gain is overcome by quantity: 19 tracks, 10 tracks, 10 players, three LPs and nearly two hours with one of the best start-to-back country/rock records of recent years. [No. 117, p.59]

This is an album with a lot of parts to fall in love with. [No. 117, p.58]

Everything Ever Written falls right in line with the great records the combo has produced 2002's The Remote Part. [No. 117, p.57]

Musically, Honeybear is more polished effort than Fear Fun, with more production and horns to fill out the songs and an even bigger experimental streak. [No. 117, p.56]

Hatfield, drummer Todd Phillips and bassist Dean Fisher still mash up the agony and ecstasy in the same idiosyncratic, gorgeous way we knew and loved. [No. 117, p.55]

Much of this album comes surprisingly close to the woozy heights scaled by Barat's old gang--but not quite close enough because, if there are criticisms here, it's that there's too little light and shade. [No. 117, p.52]

Earle doesn't try to reinvent the blues, but he wears them well. [No. 117, p.53]

It's a pleasure to hear him unpacking his toy, stretching out and exploring this new set of voices. [No. 117, p.61]

Hexadic too often misses the point by honing in on formlessness and esoteric explanations instead of solid consistency. [No. 117, p.61]

Capturing the band at its creative zenith, the three albums on Volume 2--Music To Strip By, Charmed Life and The Band That Would Be King--are hip-shaking, chin-scratching things of beauty rife with bent-grooves and wacked-out, sexed-up story songs that fall somewhere between Jonathan Richman and the Residents. [No. 117, p.53]

Despite faithfulness to the originals, this is unsurprisingly polished compared to the source material. [No. 112, p.61]

Come to it for the moody abstractions and impressionistic scene-setting. [No.112, p.60]

After several years of wandering in the sonic wilderness, Parker has returned to his roots with a velvet-fisted vengeance. [No. 111, p.58]

Overdrive showcases barer instrumentations and peeled-back song structures. [#110, p.59]

Essentially, this is one for obsessive completists only. [No. 116, p.55]

Seeds finds an adventurous art-rock band embracing accessibility. [No. 116, p.60]

There isn't a moment when Arthur Lee is anything less than Arthur Lee: brilliant, unpredictable and relentless in his drive to reinvent himself. [No. 116, p.59]

Simmons can write lengthy tomes, but Sylvie shows she's also adept at paring her words to simple truths. [No. 116, p.61]

Twenty years later, the Shellac so many swore by is back, and swinging. [No. 116, p.61]

Even more than on its two earlier LPs, Rhyton knows where it's going. Each piece zeros in on a particular mood. [No. 116, p.59]

The selection here covers a comprehensive gamut of hymns, carols and miscellaneous Christmas songs from all the usual suspects to a few curveballs. [No. 116, p.59]

A gravity-defying 23-minute take of "My Favorite Things" shows how far Coltrane had come in such a short time. [No. 116, p.57]

Burnt Offering resembles nothing so much as the soundtrack to a '70s exploitation flick. That's no dig. [No. 116, p.55]

Gentlemen could be the best album of the alternative era, and the new deluxe double-disc reissue loaded with demos, b-sides and rarities just confirms out opinion. [No. 116, p.53]

A 65-track, six-CD boxed set featuring several mixes of 1969's studio album, live recordings from San Francisco's Matrix and a disc of VU's never-released fourth album.... This disc is worth the price of admission. [No. 116, p.51]

If you're not already a fan, this won't convert you. But if its obtuse kraut-rockabilly's your particular addiction, this will be pure manna, pilgrim-uh. [No. 116, p.57]

Different Every Time is a two-CD overview illuminating Wyatt's strengths as a musician, politically outspoken performer, singer, bandmate, leader and composer. [No. 116, p.61]

Flesh is musical, but also minimal, a soothing pink noise that won't put you to sleep or interfere with your daydreams. [No. 116, p.59]

Results are varied.... Luckily, Deerhoof's blahs are better than most people's best. [No. 116, p.57]

To hear them here, in nascent form, performed by a band that had only played 10 shows in its lifetime, is to hear the nervous current that flowed through Fugazi when it had everything yet to prove, and a lifetime of excellent work ahead of it. Highly recommended. [No. 116, p.56]

The songs contained within make fellow travelers such as Dr. John or Tom Waits sound like eunuchs. Marvelous stuff. [No. 116, p.55]

Nothing Has Changed makes his entire discography sound more consistent than it actually is. [No. 116, p.52]

This five-LP/four-CD set collects all of its albums and a ton of extras, and paints romantic picture of a band that possibly could only have existed when it did. [No. 116, p.53]

Transformation is richly and lushly inherent in everything Hegarty makes his own. [No. 116, p.53]

IX strips down the layers and offers walls of noise, but cushions the blow with moody interludes. [No. 116, p.53]

On release, a collection of singles over the band's career, its stability takes these years-spanning pieces and forms them into coherence, it's also one of the year's best listens. [No. 115, p.55]

Too Bright highlights the moments of buoyancy that dotted his first two outings--both of which sounded nothing if not dour on first listen--and setting the stage for Hadress as one off the most compelling new American songwriters of the last half-decade. [No. 115, p.61]

The music, co-created with producer Patrick Leonard, is sparse but energetically diverse, with dips into Memphis soul, country, cabaret and jazzy funk. [No. 115, p.58]

His artistic sophistication and derring-do has reached a new (and, frankly, unexpected) level of maturity. [No. 115, p.56]

It's yet another excellent Oldham album. [No. 115, p.54]

Syro is surprisingly listenable without drawing much attention to itself. [No. 115, p.52]

This fourth full-length goes somewhere stranger: the 1980s. [No. 115, p.61]

No One Is Lost features some of the band's richest melodies, not to mention some of its heaviest grooves. [No. 115, p.60]

Hold is the most fun Melvins record in a minute, somehow combining two of the weirdest bands in the history of American rock to come up with an almost-straightforward rock record that shreds hard. [No. 115, p.59]

While the urgency of You're Nothing is missed, this more distraught-sounding version of the band is plenty captivating. [No. 115, p.57]

The eight songs are all beautifully crafted, integrating elements of folk, blues and country/rock.... A new American classic. [No. 115, p.55]

This record feels pretty special. [No. 115, p.55]

While things get a touch unfocused in the final stretch, the Hot Chip chaps are always god for a grandly uplifting closing statement. [No. 115, p.53]

Things never bog down in the spectral murk, even when the tempos slow to a bump in the night. [No. 115, p.53]

Her vocals throughout the album sound relaxed and carefree, with wordless bridges that convey a giddy exuberance beyond the power of any lyric to convey. [No. 115, p.55]

It's still, ultimately, a novelty rather than something that's likely to become part of your life. [No. 115, p.55]

Let's Cry is at its best when it steps outside of this project's prescribed comfort zones. [No. 115, p.61]

LP3 is instrumentally nuanced. [No. 115, p.61]

Home Everywhere is noisy and poppy. [No. 115, p.59]

The music is a 10; the curating, something rather less. [No. 115, p.51]

Despite an approach that can occasionally feel too reverent, these unreleased lyrics get a fittingly old, weird treatment that makes complete sense. [No. 115, p.51]

This shimmery psych-rock collective is back with more wah-wah Woodstock jammolas filtered through cathartic chanting, African rhythms and jittery percussion. [No. 114, p.57]

Twenty years later then, Glory remains, for better or worse, a totemic symbol of a n overinflated, overexcited era that now seems long, long gone and scarcely conceivable. [No. 114, p.51]

Alix's absence of missteps or variations could be taken as relentless or monotonous--or a couple of pop perfectionists who found what they've been looking for. [No. 114, p.57]

Below The Pink Pony is a fat-free delight, this season's surprise. [No. 114, p.55]

A cohesive and satisfying whole. [No. 114, p.59]

Prophet has something absolutely genuine to say, and he continues to be a prime exponent of walking like you talk it. [No. 114, p.61]

Most squarely accessible record to date, and easily the most pop album to come from an alumnus of Sacred Bones. [No. 114, p.61]

There are moments where small breakthroughs are made, but as Sway proceeds, it takes a turn toward the dour and depressing. [No. 114, p.61]

Another gem, and, not unexpectedly, one of his darkest collections. [No. 114, p.59]

Another profoundly pastoral and ethereal folk record. [No. 114, p.53]

The treatments are smartly contemporary, balancing Amidon's clawhammer banjo with Frisell's echoing electric guitar, backed by jazz-inflected bass and drums. [No. 114, p.53]

This is a fresh, auspicious strike into new territory. [No. 114, p.61]

Hideously tedious sounds of the "definitive" Primus lineup drowning in a soupy melange of chocolate and cutesy pretense gone way, way wrong. [No. 114, p.61]

Bestial Burden works because of its methodical execution--a calculated piece of catharsis that towers over all other bedroom power electronics tape-peddlers. [No. 114, p.59]

It's yet another solid Lanegan album, although it lacks the harrowing edge of 2004's Bubblegum or the lascivious humor of his collaboration with Isobel Campbell. [No. 114, p.59]

It's a truism that embedded in most double albums is an even better single one, but that doesn't apply here. [No. 114, p.58]

Black Moon Spell is King Tuff's glammiest work yet, echoing the swagger of the New York Dolls and the sexy, stoned vocal styling of Marc Bolan. But it still rocks. [No. 114, p.57]

A gorgeous, seductive album. [No. 114, p.56]

His boldest, most impressive statement to date. [No. 114, p.55]

The energy is unreal, but it also seems to be Dope Body's raison d'etre. [No. 114, p.55]

Snaith crafted Out Love with all the care of a handwritten mixtape. [No. 114, p.52]

The emotional mood of At Best Cuckold never breaks away from the spell of his comfortable lethargy. [No. 114, p.53]

The active present Human Voice takes advantage of each of Dntel's original promises. [No. 114, p.54]

Branan oozes country cred. [No. 113, p.53]

The expansive instruments on this double LP lure you into a more relaxed aquatic experience. [No. 113, p.53]

This third LP corrals sophomore sprawler Lenses Alien without killing its spirit. [No. 113, p.53]

Frame's always been an old soul, and the heartfelt Seven Dials is a welcoming return. [No. 113, p.55]

The Jersey quartet offers its most effective heartland punk cocktail to date, but shakes and stirs the concoction with new influences and musical approaches. [No. 113, p.56]

This is an album with a lot of rich, rewarding darkness in its grooves. [No. 113, p.57]

After The End is disappointing because Merchandise has already proven it can do more. [No. 113, p.59]

The linear song structures, full of droning, atonal, repetitive music, shrieking vocals and skewed tempos, still make this music as challenging today as it was in 1978, although some of the songs now sound remarkably normal. [No. 113, p.61]

This is a valiant and enjoyable varied attempt, by a seriously stacked cast of contributors. [No. 113, p.61]

He's created a burbling paint pot of a record, one teeming with ideas, styles and reference points as diverse as Double Nickels On The Dime, but wholly recognizable as Tweedy-esque. [No. 113, p.60]

High concepts don't always result in high art, but Commonwealth comes close enough. [No. 113, p.61]

Tennis dances easily into the present with an album that pines for more for modern connection than campy reinventions of someone else's love. [No. 113, p.61]

With shimmering synths and deep, delicious grooves, Sinkane delivers a future-funk feast of global proportions. [No. 113, p.59]

A thrumming, tribal first half gives way to a haunting, ethereal second. [No. 113, p.59]

Sadly, "Everything Is Wrong" announces another second-half fade, the back side congealing into the same zombie histrionics that sank Interpol. [No. 113, p.57]