Sensitive enough to charm you, yet with songs hard enough and strong enough to keep you from getting bored, Silent Alarm is already a strong contender for debut album of the year.

The band still has the muscle to match its mileage.

This is the best album of the year so far.

Picking highlights is futile; the record might run for less than twenty minutes but it burns brightly for the whole duration.

That’s the wonder of St. Vincent. It’s a personal album that’s well-written enough to provide something we can all identify with.

The album is a melting pot of so many brilliant musical perspectives, which could only be channelled by a band with a gleeful, wide-eyed fascination with the possibilities of their music. And they succeed in their knowing but expertly-delivered goal: to sound like no other band out there.

These songs are chaotic, unexpected and jarring. Samples, vocoders, and shambling synths crash together in an unstructured soundscape. But if you listen through the anarchy, you will find a stirring, masterful odyssey.

This collection is simply a joy to listen to, with great singers lovingly rendering great songs with a talented producer at the helm.

Truly, Wild Beasts are those rarest of animals; true, untamed originals.

The most noticeable difference from his previous work is that the three are symphonic, they have parts, and those parts are distinct, either marked by a certain loop, bass ostinato, drone, or tempo.

A fully conceived album of beautifully crafted songs, and a real treat for fans and newcomers alike.

Suckers make this stylistic smorgasbord indisputably their own.

This is their Holy Bible--in other words this is an unknown quantity alright; it's Weezer's raw, emotive bastard child; and a great, brilliant, titanic blot on an often pristinely laundered back catalogue. For that reason in particular this is a thing to be cherished.

Cloud Nothings might still be young and quite indebted to their 90’s influences, but their latest shows they’ve already mastered all the qualities of a truly great rock band and all of their contradictions: fury, angst, precision, sloppiness, catchiness and, of course, fun.

It Still Moves is the kind of album that can inspire both wonder and respect in equal measures.

It's Waits' best album since Rain Dogs, and may possibly be even better than that--only time will tell, but it will be time well spent.

With a confectionery of similarly colored assortments, The Idler Wheel... retrenches most of her past output, whether its wistful balladeering or sultry jazz, as a means of expelling a truly uncharacteristic voice.

Wilderness Heart is probably the best new utilization of the Iommi/Page/Lynott grab bag you'll hear because, to put it simply, it's going to appeal to men AND women.

With Buds, Ovlov prove once again, and perhaps more effectively than ever, that the alchemy of passion and songcraft is undeniable no matter where your devotion resides.

Face the Truth is probably the most eclectic of all Malkmus’s work. There are elements of every Pavement album in amongst the tracks, with familiar noodly guitar intros, shouty, jaunty refrains and languid deadpan-rap segments.

Old is all about developing the character of one very conflicted dude, and to me that’s its crowning achievement; it’s not his “split personalities” as much as the inner turmoils that fizz around within any complex character, but which you hardly ever hear so convincingly captured on a single record.

Admiral Fell Promises sits somewhere in the middle of being a series of musical pieces and being an album. It's brave, but Kozelek's grace and musical deftness means he never risks alienating his audiences and makes Admiral Fell Promises another essential addition to Kozelek's remarkable catalogue.

...Like Clockwork is easily the best release from the band since Songs for the Deaf.

The result is an album of uncompromising vulnerability and rawness.

Tillman becomes one of the great diarists of our generation in Honeybear, possessing a keen, merciless intelligence within a sophisticated melodic sensibility.

In many ways, his music is more punk than punk music is nowadays-stripped down completely to only the most basic and bare of instruments, the tiny Kristian Matsson manages to live up to his name as The Tallest Man on Earth.

An exceptional piece of psychedelic garage rock that never stays in the same place yet manages to still feel consistent as a whole, making this album a true standout amongst Thee Oh Sees' vast discography.

Elverum has created an album that demands your time and attention, not to mention any memories you may be willing to part with.