The melodies and arrangements take center stage, and they're consistently stunning. [Winter 2008, p.97]

There's something comforting about hearing this stripped-down version of Iron & Wine again. [No. 118, p.54]

That they've played themselves out of a tight corner is an impressive feat in and of itself. [Winter 2008, p.99]

Red, Yellow And Blue is good.

Inni takes the listener on a walk through 15 or so years of a robustly lush and sumptuously luxurious ethereal-pop weirdness clashing with colossal waves of noise rock. [#82, p. 60]

Daybreaker, though neither as arresting as her debut nor as cohesive as its follow-up, almost corrects the inconsistency issue. [#55, p.86]

It sounds like a band getting down to business, adjusting its identity to account for downsizing while consolidating its many strengths. [No. 100, p.51]

The toxic muse behind Pussycat's bitter melodies and crunchy guitar solos is recognizable as the man who's made so many of us feel as dejected as a woman in a Hatfield song. [No. 142, p.57]

Oddly familiar and familiarly odd, Season Hire is a challenging and progressive counterpoint to staid and fallow takes on folk music that have been crapping the airwaves--and our news feeds--in recent years. [No. 118, p.61]

True, nothing here ever astonishes, but coming from such a unique voice, the familiar bests most else. [No. 96, p.51]

Hypnotic and punchy by turns, it's a riveting album that finds Bell X1 pushing its established aesthetics in admirably new directions. [No. 100, p.52]

A thoroughly enjoyable and loving tribute. [No. 142, p.57]

That [M83] achieve My Bloody Valentine beauty through antiquated analog rigs is an achievement in itself. [#64, p.100]

The album's greatest treasures are sadder and subtler, finding their place within the Willie trifecta of love, loss and loneliness. [No. 142, p.59]

[The album presents a] well-formed, poppy and updated take on their post-punk and new-wave heroes. [No. 85, p. 56]

The Dave Sitek-produced Planta keeps things light and easy. [No. 100, p.53]

20 Years sounds like it was a blast to make. The playful side of the band, which often gets scant notice, is on full display. [No. 147, p.55]

Daniel and Schmidt have created a peculiar album that reminds us of the majesty contained in vintage machinery.

Spoon and Rafter proves that sometimes refining your focus is just as enlivening as radical departure. [#60, p.108]

There Is No Love In Fluorescent Light is not quite as perfect top-to-bottom as 2003's Heart, nor as high energy as 2014's No One Is Lost, but it's still very good. [No. 147, p.59]

Security brings new elements to the mix without compromising Antibalas' fundamental power. [#75, p.94]

This record's controls are set for the heart of the drone, and the crew knows precisely where they're going. [No. 100, p.53]

These songs--even the quiet ones--are bold, messy, unflinching, humming with life. [No. 147, p.61]

There's no "Cinnamon Girl's" here, but "Farewell American Primitive" and "Only In My Dreams" breathe the same catchy air. [#90, p.53]

Each measure of music on her third album is milked for its last ounce of wizened drama, each word imbued with the same measured solemnity of a grandmother's deathbed wish. [#74, p.109]

Offers little bits of everything Luna does well. [#57, p.93]

It's easy to get caught up in TEEN's dreams without completely falling asleep, a tough act to follow with so many similar acts just simply getting lost. [#90, p.61]

Peel back the layers, and you're confronted with a wealth of oft-unexpected sonic exploration. [#90, p.60]

On par with anything in the back catalog. [#69, p.106]

The unrushed songs are equally appealing, gussied up with elegant guitar and piano accents and spiked with disarming lines.

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.

And Now That I'm In Your Shadow finds him at another peak. [#74, p.98]

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

The Universe And Me feels like Sprout’s sonic scrapbook and philosophical star chart folded into a single stellar statement. [No.139, p.60]

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]

Sunshine Lies contains some of Sweet’s best moments in years, with the classic push/pull of gloriously sunny melodies and lyrical darkness underneath.

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.

Although Powell's new land Of Talk is considerably more contemplative and understated, Life After Youth is an evocative and powerful step forward. [No. 142, p.57]

It's the rather unhinged propositions that sends chills in the warmest way, much like Will Oldham's timelessly classic mid-'90s output. [No.99, p.52]

Not many bands release their best work six albums in, yet this could very well be the story here. [No. 142, p.61]

Its most accomplished album. [#60, p.97]

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

An enchanting collection teeming with well-crafted hooks and fiery passion unheard since the epic, under-appreciated Faith and Courage a decade ago. [No. 85, p.56]

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

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

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

A dark album that shines very brightly. [#46, p.85]

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

No No No plays less like a travelogue than simply what it is: a really good--if brief--Beirut album. [No. 124, p.52]

Nada Surf took it to The Next Level with 2003's near-flawless "Let Go" and has followed it up with two amazing, richly rewarding efforts. [Winter 2008, p.110]

Here, the raw emotion in Grace's voice isn't diluted or smoothed out; her rage and vibrancy are front and center, and not just in song. [No. 124, p.53]

The songs on The Repulsion Box sound like they were banged out in the underlit kitchen of a crumbling Appalachian cabin. [#69, p.108]

Manages a graceful, humble, grounded timelessness without sacrificing the groove. [#58, p.82]

Make no mistake: You will dance. [#64, p.80]

The band clicks perfectly, as if it had been playing these songs forever, and the album brings out another side of Auerbach, with different guitar textures and a different falsetto channeling his blues-rock instincts in a different direction. [No. 124, p.53]

Pollard's most efficient and exploratory album in years. [#73, p.99]

Erasure avoids the obvious pitfalls with its usual combination of intelligence and good humor. [No. 104, p.55]

Both sound retrospective but bound together, that introspection sounds loving and lovely. [No. 130, p.53]

Quasi has finally crafted a studio work that exudes the same whiff of spontaneity that's always been evident in performance. [#61, p.105]

It's hard to imagine a better psychedelic-pop record this year than Satanic Panic In The Attic. [#64, p.102]

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]

Gensho makes obvious how much each act enhances the other. [No. 130, p.53]

The Long Goodbye is no cutesy, navel-gazing crap; it's the neglected pop practice of C-A-R-E and reverence of form and forefathers. [#59, p.93]

Arab Strap's most affecting album yet. [#71, p.86]

A stellar first attempt at a concept album... [a] ghoulish delight. [No. 85, p.59]

Overseas hits all the soft spots of longtime fans, while cohering easily into a new and striking whole. [No. 100, p.57]

While there's certainly nothing on Poses so riveting as to signify a rock revolution, there's something to be said for the virtue of a simple crooner operating at the top of his game. [#51, p.122]

Slow Summits is full of carefully arranged autumnal tunes: thoughtful, intimate, unaffected and wistfully romantic. It's secret music worth sharing.[No.99, p.56]

[The] sly, artful brilliance should come as no real surprise. [No. 100, p.57]

A personal (and personnel) triumph for the band. [#73, p.90]

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

There's craft galore on display here. [No. 139, p.52]

The emotional gravitas only lends heft to the group's exhilarating, ever-present sugar high. [#74, p.104]

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]

A hungry batch of songs that finds Malin wandering the avenues and uncovering compelling stories wherever he goes. [#64, p.100]

Lanegan's stamp here is reverent-yet-indelible--think Mark Kozelek channeling AC/DC--and the organic sonic approach is an especially intriguing left turn following the electro buzz 'n' thrum of last year's resplendent Blues Funeral. [No. 102, p.57]

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

Cronin learned how to pack garage/punk fuzzbombs with big hooks as the Moonhearts' frontman, and he hasn't lost the ragged-and-reckless urgency here.[#81, p. 55]

What lends Bee its buzz--beyond the purring keyboards, the plump wah-wahs and sexy whistles--is its subtle edits: dreary snowdrifts in synthetic time that cautiously subvert the electro-charge like a savage nipple twist on the pale body of the vestal virgin that is Llama pop. [#48, p.93]

Tripper is a strummy, breezy delight. [#81, p. 55]

Some will call this regression, but longtime fans will likely call it focused and celebrate the return to form represented on The Lucky Ones.

While Gibson is often humane, she's not always gentle. [No. 130, p.57]

A headphone-friendly, Latin-flavored, hypnotic concoction of deep grooves, tropical textures and warped blips and bleeps compressed into fractured layers. [No. 96, p.55]

The guitar-free I Guess Sometimes offers evidence that some of the most compelling "rock" music today doesn't come from conventional rock musicians at all. [#48, p.100]

Apocrypha feels of a piece with Eggs, though without as many layers or as heightened a sense of playfulness. [#75, p.91]

The more writerly approach hasn't dulled the duo's riffage one iota, even if this is their most musically expansive and easily their most musically expansive and easily their cleanest-sounding outing yet. [No. 139, p.56]

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

With Hitch, the Joy Formidable has expanded its sonic palette and subsequently zeroed in on its ultimate sound. [No. 130, p.57]

As comebacks go, it's perfect. [No. 124, p.61]

Elegantly crafted and darkly mischievous.

It finds Wareham in rare form. [#54, p.95]

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]

There's a noisy undercurrent on Breaks in the Armor, which may become even more prevalent with the return of and cross-pollination with Archers Of Loaf, but the album's stripped-back, still powerful songs might be indicating Crooked Finger's path from here.[#82, p. 54]

Has enough regret, sadness and self-loathing to power a Trent Reznor comeback. [#61, p.96]

They turn out to be pretty good influences on one another. Jay sounds generally reinvigorated: good-humored, full of nimble, intricate wit and atypically emotionally revealing, and if Kanye's rhymes occasionally remain as clumsy and crass as his personal life choices, he drops far fewer boners than usual. [#81, p. 56]

Brave stuff. [No. 117, p.54]

This is a record packed to the rafters. [No. 130, p.58]

Songs so immediately enthralling you won't even notice the faint Dungeons & Dragons scent of [Rieger's] lyrics. [#54, p.88]