The Milwaukee-based post-rock sextet pretty much turns its back on proggish theatrics this time around, instead crafting tracks so organic, they could pass for natural phenomena.[#81, p. 54]

If Bondy's been searching for a suitable solo identity, Believers may be his charmed third time.[#81, p. 54]

The lack of focus and discernible melodies keeps CANT from being anything more than an interesting diversion. [#81, p. 53]

The songs' infectiousness outweighs their questionable stylizations. [#81, p. 53]

This compelling album is dominated by a spirit of grace and hope. [#81, p. 53]

Lush and smooth, funky and ethereal, Celestial Electric is a sublimely down-tempo album filled with beautiful vocals and gorgeous orchestration. [#81, p. 52]

With the right proportion of leadership and lawlessness, Wild Flag sounds like liberation. Long may they wave. [#81 p. 52]

The band rarely strays from the album versions of songs (sometimes to a frustrating degree; would it have killed B&S to record a version of 'Sleep The Clock Around' without the annoyingly long fade-in?), but such faithful rendering doesn’t make the material predictable; rather, it shows the band at the top of its delicate game.

Secrets Are Sinister’s unflagging energy keeps it from sounding tragic, as if with a few more tries, its narrators and subjects might be able to bridge the gap between them.

The duo’s third LP won’t reconcile the two camps; in fact, Heart On may be the first EODM album to really make the detractors’ case. Chugging riffs and falsetto vocals abound on these 12 tracks, but instead of indulging whatever black magic that kept 2004’s "Peace Love Death Metal" and 2006’s "Death By Sexy" from devolving into jokey karaoke, Hughes and Homme decide to play it mostly straight.

The constant fluidity here makes the album’s unpredictability seem grounded and cohesive instead of erratic.

Every song on debut Alight Of Night seems to be falling apart, mostly because vocalist Brad Hargett’s melodies are off the map.

The album’s sound is a more intricate remix of Fauna’s futurama, another hyperbaric disco chamber filled with technoodling beats backing pop operettas, while the lyrics sometimes do that magnum opus one better.

While Parts & Labor’s grinding wall of noise seems to invite this kind of egalitarianism, the experiment never seems gimmicky or extraneous. Instead, it becomes virtually impossible to distinguish what sounds do or do not belong. It all comes together in one glorious racket.

The emotional tenor on Lambchop’s 10th LP is hard to miss. Not that there’s anything wrong with being touchy and tender, but the calm, spare arrangements on OH (ohio) can only be described as pretty.

By drawing from their past and crafting intriguing sonic hybrids rather than self-consciously aiming for some dubious new turf, the Rosebuds have, accidentally or not, wound up with their most satisfying album yet.

For all its guest appearances (Neko Case, Silver Jews’ Brian Kotzur and Devotchka’s Tom Hagerman), the album’s overall sound is tight and consistent.

Mercury Rev has talked about reinvention and veering away from its comfort zone, which is only to be commended, but the band has really fallen flat on its face here.

By keeping the songs a little shorter, and by bandleader Gustav Ejstes not being such a musical ball hog this time around, Dungen has made a record that’s far more sophisticated musically and melodically.

Like their English ancestors, the Girls deal almost exclusively in exuberance and wonderment, making found squalls and rattles sound like their own. But that might have more to do with the copious amounts of reverb echoing through the album’s best songs.

The Power Of Negative Thinking is a weighty, absorbing, often hugely entertaining and occasionally thrilling curio. JAMC completists will love it, but four CDs’ worth?

Rest easy, the group that makes you wish you’d gone to film school so you could’ve built a movie around its expansive instrumentals--works that seem to come rumbling from the molten core of the earth itself--hasn’t changed much from the glory days of early albums such as 1997’s "Young Team."

Enjoying Furr, then, depends entirely on your ability (or willingness) to ignore the heavy footprints of familiar musicians.

Brightblack Morning Light has always been a druggie band; this time, however, the drug of choice is Dramamine.

Hagerty’s Howling Hex, which plows the radically different but equally worked-over field of nerd-rock whimsy on Earth Junk, starts promisingly, with a spooky clutter of hooting keyboards and echo-soaked vocals.

Led by mercurial crooner Stuart Staples, the current lineup’s grand balladry is more stately and slow-boiled than ever.

Even on the weaker songs, when the chord changes come secondhand and the influences arrive undigested, Wrecking Ball remains an ugly slab of guitar sludge that’s well worth the pain.

Though I generally partake in the Kool-Aid, some of Pollard’s post-GBV stuff has admittedly either gone over my head or missed the sweet spot. Brown Submarine’s pleasures, however, are inarguable.