If you hear ten seconds of any given song then you've heard its entirety, yet you haven't experienced the song. It's that sort of an album.

At first, it’s a bit off-putting how much Mulcahy has extended his reach, also considering its numerous shapeshifting vocal qualities, but once you recalibrate your expectations you’re left with an album that bravely looks ahead. It’s a fond return riddled with unbounded creativity, and could very well be his definitive statement.

While Wall of Eyes captures the trio at their most musically freewheeling, it also loses the ordered potency of A Light for Attracting Attention. Yorke himself has also reverted to themes of self-identity more cryptically, making less of an impact compared to his sardonic candor identifying with the everyday anxieties of living in the outside world's structured chaos. Still, it's clear that The Smile operates on their own accord.

On Your Own Love Again is a record about that struggle with transmuting feeling into expression. The grand themes of the album are heavily understated but, well, that’s kind of the point.

It's exactly what everyone expected this much hyped album to be like. We all guessed the Jay-Z appearance and a Wu-Tang member outshining the other acts on show. We all expected insane feats of arrogance... But don't get me wrong, it's a good album.

From beginning to end, Houck's voice crackles with soul, and his down-home arrangements are soothing and familiar without seeming cliché. That being said, there is nothing particularly innovative about the album.

Nanobots is, at the end of the day, a solid and immensely likable album.

Interestingly enough, Where You Stand may be the first Travis record that snugs comfortably into an adult contemporary format.

While the album isn’t quite the overhaul that quote makes it out to be, there are enough twists to catch longtime fans off guard. Even with eight albums to their name, The Hold Steady continue to prove that consistency doesn’t mean going stale.

It could do with one or two songs being trimmed, but there's enough variety to keep things engaging, if at times it lacks incisiveness. Still, my criticisms are largely comparing the band to their past work, which happens to be exceptional.

Sometimes, the results are heavily wrought and obviously worked over (the muddled instrumentation in the chorus of Breakers comes to mind), and some of the skittering grooves (the spastic tribal pounding of Wooly Mammoth) don't quite fit in the album's overarching arc. Nevertheless, the stately elegance of Hummingbird emphasizes how Local Natives are fit for the role of indie rock saviors.

Ratworld wears its influences brazenly on its sleeves, but its execution is impressive, presenting an odd bird view of a world that is ostensibly its own.

While there is no denying that Keep It Hid is the product of one half of modern rock’s most invigorating duos, Auerbach is able to mix in enough of his own spice to make the album a worthwhile affair.

It may not come across as immediately ambitious as her previous work, but there are no tricks or gimmicks that create this intimacy; it’s just clever production and writing that never outstays its welcome.

Mould's most mature album, and for that reason, it is definitely his best solo album, too. The Silver Age is not the best record of the year, but it is certainly one of the most unpretentious and easily liked records of the year.

Flash-forward to two years later and we get One Second of Love, which finds Gonzalez maturing into a graceful songstress without entirely abandoning what inspired her in the first place.

Glaspy’s voice itself is eccentric and susceptible to emotional metamorphosis, and some of the album’s strongest moments are when her voice is abrasive in its frustration or contrition: for example the first words spat from the chorus of You and I, or the frantic bursts of urgency amongst the affable stream of the title track. Sometimes, the formula for good guitar music is a simple one.

They deliver one unforced, shout-out anthem after another—mirroring the immediate tunefulness of their Canadian counterparts Japandroids' Celebration Rock. Does the celebration get too rowdy for its own good? Well, sometimes. The hook-driven energy can get way ahead of you if you're not fully committed to it. Even so, there's a lot to ponder in their resistance with closer inspection.

You may well have to look elsewhere for music that will one day remind you of 2013, but this is still a great, brief blast of noisy, off-kilter rock; a consistent debut which sounds better each time you hear it.

The Universal Want's strengths lie in a series of inspired moments rather than it coming together as a satisfying whole.

It may not be the most unique and memorable of albums, but there's a lot in Boys and Diamonds to like; great thumping melodies, intriguingly mad vocals and moments of beauty (particularly the delicate drumming that closes the album) and shows that Rainbow Arabia are a band that have the potential to be far more interesting than their mundane origins would suggest.

The record stands as the most shocking thing the Odd Future collective has put out to date: a R&B record with crossover potential without sacrificing soul that creates a complete picture of its author, warts and all.

Fall Be Kind shows the band on the path to becoming an even mellower band and nothing here is exceptionally energetic except for the last half of Graze.

While not on par with essential solo Pollard fare like Not in My Airforce, Waved Out or From a Compound Eye this cohesive, flowing work motors by and, as always, his stirring songs reveal themselves and their riches through repeated listens.

Chasny reveals himself to be a guitarist capable of an admirable level of intensity, if not pure technical virtuosity.

Turner’s defense mechanisms are as honed and as vicious as his rather formidable bullshit detector has proven to be in albums past, and whatever Humbug lacks in middle fingers, or even thematic continuity, it makes up for with sinister gazes and scathing ambiguities.

A pretty decent album with a lot of filler.

The biggest, brashest cartoon this side of Eminem's early albums.