While it may not be the greatest thing to ever come out of the Po-Mo singer-songwriter scene, Lily Perdida offers plenty to admire.

But, and here's the catch, at times the arrangements just don't cut it.

And Never Ending Nights may be Willner's most fully realized expression in an already impressive body of work.

Women present a fresh lo-fi landmark that sounds like it was made in your garage before getting packed-up for a Sunday picnic in the park--well fused, lads.

They pull from various sources and somehow manage to make them unrecognizable; the mélange of influences so rich and varied--changeable almost by the minute--they constantly keep you guessing.

Even though King Of The Beach marks a dramatic step forward in Williams' abilities as a songwriter, he's still the same lonely dude that can't keep his friends, can't get a girl, and can't catch a break. Except it seems like maybe this time he finally has.

Smith doesn’t make any compromises to make things any more agreeable--in fact, the album’s bloated runtime and cogent lyrical content makes it a somewhat weary listen that rewards more when taken in short, sporadic sessions.

As well crafted and fascinatingly acute as Enemy Mine is, it lives in an alternate reality: a place where too much need be forgotten in order to grant Enemy Mine what it would otherwise deserve.

It’s got a great list of guest vocalists, too, and it feels like each one has been recruited as a result of careful consideration. If there is a criticism, it’s that it’s a disjointed record that sometimes feels like Steadman focuses more on showing off his preferences than his own soul, but it sounds delicious either way.

While The Camel’s Back demonstrates a clear progression in Psapp’s worth as songwriters and musicians, it becomes easy to ignore what they accomplish creatively as the ears only pick up on its “cuteness” factor.

It’s the lyrics that truly standout.

In keeping it complex, shy and out of the ordinary, Broder has accomplished a composition of delicate and post-modern-day-genius proportions.

Much of Cobra Juicy finds itself operating more on the sensitive side of their distinct weirdness, with the album sporting some of the bands gentlest, breeziest, and most romantic sounding tracks yet.

The boys are in peak form in (Girl We Got A) Good Thing, a sauntering piano-led number that has this bubbling, dumb-is-more-fun David Lee Roth attitude about it that could possibly cause one to shed a single, happy tear in its rousing finish. The colorfully romantic Wind in Our Sail is also typically gleeful, detailing a cute meet alongside one of the band’s most memorable choruses since Pork and Beans.

It's endlessly fascinating... [However] the album occasionally com[es] across as wilfully obtuse.

Overall, One Kiss Ends It All is a little uneven but still an enjoyable piece of cosmic pop, and once you get past the occasional stutter, there is a lot to take from this one. If only every day could be Saturday.

Cloak and Cipher is unpretentious in every respect, escalating their previous subtleties with furious, transcendent melancholic moments. While many Canadian bands find themselves teetering on the edge after much premature praise, it comes as a pleasant surprise that Land of Talk keep getting better.

It’s dark and joyous at the same time, fun and epic sounding enough to seem meaningful, despite my inability to make out most of the lyrics.

Cut Copy are back, and back with enough danceable synth-pop to flatten the sensitive Bombay Bicycle Club member in all of us - but only just enough.

By mixing in a few lighter moments amongst all the dark the band do give the impression that they are on the way to becoming something quite special, but they still need to consider letting in a little more colour and variety into their songs before they can achieve this potential.

The big thrills come so fast it almost feels like a blur, only equaled to the ravished excitement of making a score on a big night. It’ll knock you senseless, possibly bankrupt, until the urge comes back in full force.

Soft Will won’t enter the annals as album of the decade, but it showcases the tools and talent to make it happen one day.

The album clearly bounces back and forth between those moments of emotional annihilation and utter hope and optimism. But more than that, with those tracks book-ending the effort, the record's most basic motif is clear: even as lords of rock, the men of R.E.M. still struggle daily with their own issues and the standards of the world, but welcome the battle with ever-glowing smiles.

As a title, Wonder Where We Land couldn’t be more appropriate. The answer is somewhere safe, both viable and habitable, but lacking in exhilaration and wonder.

The Crystal Antlers’ debut is a flesh-fattened cloud prowler emanating a strange, jilted tenderness, a record whose devastating expressive weight is amplified, not obscured, by its deranged, frayed-edge make-up.

As usual the songs are superbly crafted, and very well-executed.

So, this may be Sic Alps' best album to date.

Some of the clever songwriting is still intact and that rescues an otherwise middle of the road affair.

Jamie Woon has dropped a second LP every bit as captivating as his first, and it’s hard to find any faults with this piece of work. Sumptuously slick, and with the humidity of a tropical locale. Make sure you make time for Making Time.

Bottom line, this is a fun, solid output from !!!; a highly enjoyable trip with full cohesion, no true blunders, and at least three standouts on an album with only nine tracks.

It’s all meticulously crafted, but thanks to an easygoing dynamic, each track sounds somehow breezy and nonchalant.

It sees the Cumbrian exiles embracing their maturity and demonstrating restraint, without scrimping on the songs.

Little Joy makes for a fine, self-contained little album.

Of all releases, their latest is the most cohesive, lucid, and interpretable.

These Are Powers are trying to find their way while building their form as formless as possible.

For Fanfarlo, this is a follow-up that does all that it needs to do. It keeps us critics and fans happy with a healthy balance of familiarity and expansion.

It's [their] mastery of one's musical landscape, both sonically and psychologically, that makes Beak>'s take on krautrock so poignantly effective, with >> possessing the ability to lure in both fans and newcomers to the genre into its paranoia-fraught world of distress.

Take this album to your heart and cherish it as the sweet, accomplished, and skilfully made, underappreciated little gem that it is

When it closes with the eerie, smoky gospel influenced Youlagy, you know it’s fantastic and you know you’ve found the most breathtakingly beautiful album this year.

The tracks highlighting Vik are showstoppers as usual, and his dominate wordplay only reiterates why others should drop the mic when any of DOOM’s personas enter the booth.

As with any album that features epic, largely instrumental tracks, pacing is paramount, and Sleepy Sun does an excellent job breaking up the Goliath tracks with hit-and-runs like Red/Black and with some lovely acoustic numbers.

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.

The power of this album comes from the mystifyingly cohesive blend of piano ballads, orchestral choirs, heavy metal, and completely danceable electronic.

It’s easy to commend this album on the sole basis that despite coating his tracks with an incomprehensible amount of tripped-out trickery, Toro Y Moi still branches out into less protected songwriting.

An absolute beauty of an album.

Respectably, Sun Airway do constantly challenge themselves by taking the unexplored route of achieving sturdy compositions through electronic textures, especially in a time when house and nu-rave are fast becoming indie's current electronic touchstones.

Champ sees Tokyo Police Club with a firmer grip on their sound, their vision, and their conquest; and although not destroying expectations, it makes good on a lot of the promises their earliest work showed off.

Mirror Mirror may be easier to admire, or more likely be creeped out by, than to love, but it marks an interesting turning point for Sons and Daughters, suggesting either that they've come to terms with the fact that they'll never be particularly successful and so are now happy to push themselves into darker territory, or that they're struggling and this may be their last gasp.

So in a sense the imperfections are actually its perfections because it represents E’s state of mind purely: his every whimsical thought, his waking up and not knowing how he’s going to feel that day and his whole-hearted honesty to allow every fucking shred of it be put to record because he has the audacity, intensity and conviction to do so.

What’s most apparent on this record is that despite having a fairly eclectic approach to creating a pop song, and cooking up the occasionally psych-y moment to epic-ify the songs, if there’s one emphasis on here, it’s on great melodies.

This is not for all tastes. Slow, broody, experimental.

I Predict A Graceful Expulsion maintains a grounded, brooding focus that is designed more as a calling card to exhibit the next proper artist to warm the top of dusty stereo players of plenty middle-aged households.

Most of the time it's a joy to listen to.

An excitable sound, great vocal harmonies, a jangling noise that is immensely listenable: It's all here, it's catchy as hell, and it's exciting.

Between the two, disc 1 is more memorable than its counterpart, but together they still form a fascinating insight into one of the foremost production talents operating on our shores today.

Gang of Four's latest is a consistently interesting and passionate record that illustrates their continuing relevance. What more could you reasonably ask for?

There’s reason to believe that the kind of soppy, mellow pop they write just doesn’t have a place in our current times, that it reeks of starry-eyed nostalgia. But as every generation has a Seth and Summer romance for younger audiences to scrutinize and fawn over with episodic foresight, there will always be a platform for heart-on-sleeve songs to track the high and lows of a teen soap opera.

As bouncy as it is insightful, as flashy as it is understated.

This Icelandic association seems to have triggered a benign crisis in Jimmy Lavalle's composition gland and stimulated his transformation from a major key minor artist to a minor key major artist in the course of this one volume.

There are few bands that can match Royal Blood at their heavy, melodic best, and How Did We Get So Dark? proves to be a thrilling--if limited--listen from one of the UK’s fastest-rising rock bands.

Recent Meat Puppet albums have had an ephemeral presence in record shops, particularly in the UK, appearing on a variety of labels and disappearing from the racks not long after release. With music so focused on the transitory nature of things, it seems strangely appropriate.

Although it’s good stuff, there are few innovations here, and while the simplicity is welcome, you may not always notice that there’s an album playing.

There's much to recommend Just To Feel Anything and while, as with all retro-leaning instrumental rock, the question of its exact purpose is perhaps a little hard to answer when the details come together, as in Adrenochrome's shifting bass-line, or in how the title track gradually blossoms into life, such concerns are ultimately rendered entirely, wonderfully, redundant.

On its own, it's a great record. Tacked onto the end of a sprawling, massively exciting discography, it just doesn't deliver.

Their overzealous sense of accomplishment can't be denied, especially when the album itself manages to never skip a beat.

It's got a great tonality and texture to it that gives Adams' voice just enough room to rise above it. There are some songs that are right to be outtakes here, they toil that middle ground that Adams can on occasion slip into, and it's when he's at his 'nicest' sounding that often leads to the most uninteresting work.

Almost presents touching, and often forthright, chronicles of the messy scenarios we stumble into which defy easy explanations.

So, despite feeling that this is a good, rather than great, album, my score for it may have gone up a point or so by the end of the year. Here’s to the return of Tortoise...

If Any Day has that low-stakes feel, their flow just as effortless, it's because they're still keen to deliver a sort of refined muzak on steroids that never ages.

There's something about how these tracks activate complicated astrophysical sequences dense with mathematical run-off that makes them have hi-speed, cyber-virtual effervescence.

Our Love to Admire’s lesser tracks seem to have placed a greater emphasis on texture than melody or even rhythm, which is arguably the band’s most potent weapon. As a whole, though, Sam Fogarino will be satisfied.

The theme is relatable, and relevant because it encompasses more than that one side of desire we all expect to hear about. This exploration and focus is what held together Eels’ 1998 masterwork, "Electro-Shock Blues." It does the same here.

What keeps it from the top is the lack of musical surprises. Still, these twelve songs will keep you warm as winter turns to spring.

Yorn loses some of the album's momentum as it progresses, too enamored with its stately flow—but just like any troubadour who calls L.A. home, he still writes some of the most tuneful folk-rock this side of Laurel Canyon.

The album isn't faultless by any means, but Trailer Trash Tracys have made one of the most interesting albums of recent months.

Not Waving But Drowning showcases why Carner is heralded as one of British hip-hop’s biggest talents, but this isn’t quite the revelation his debut was. That being said, any album that includes an interlude dedicated to England winning a World Cup penalty shootout will always go down well.

YACHT’s music is as simple and enjoyable as their philosophy. You won’t end up ruminating on it all night, but you are very likely to enjoy it while it’s on.

Given that Uneasy Laughter is guitar-centric first and foremost, both Saving Face and What Separates Us benefit from having muscular riffs that help offset its huge synth lines and Solomon's tenuous vocal range. Which is Moaning's greatest strength, but can be a weakness too, as they haven't been fully able to add more personality to their vulnerable, dark romanticism.

Ogilala is anything but musically overwrought, and the melodies do keep a haunting quality that elevates his distinct quivering voice.

Sea Of Cowards sounds like the record Jack White’s been trying to make for a long time. Whatever he does next will probably sound that way, too.

Stewart has enlisted the services of several vocalists of an R&B ilk to add a more radio-friendly feel as well as structural steel to the otherwise frantic procession of convulsive electronics, but this is a dizzying listen that is ultimately erratic, but enjoyable.

Despite occasional moments of album filler, Delays have still given us an album with at least three slices of timeless pop.

Like unsettling lullabies, The Cave Singers brand of folk music is contemplative, but isn’t that of a summery strum.

The latest in a series that's now produced two very good albums, Something For All Of Us... succeeds on many levels and is a testament to Brendan Canning as a solo songwriter and not just as a member of a very succesful band.

Even if you've learned to appreciate the methodology of music, or lack there of, there are moments when too much misdirection can make you feel lost instead of dazzled. Nonetheless, this quintet from Leeds deserves at least one very enthusiastic thumb up for this compilation.

Oak Island, just out on Secretly Canadian, is a logical extension of that debut's theme and style, but is better crafted--or perhaps just better served--and stands as a good example of how subtlety can sneak up on a person and pack a desolate punch.

On Felt, Suuns are one step closer to creating a language they can call their own.

Adem has outdone himself, and has created what may be the strongest record of his solo career so far, and Takes merits hearing as an album in its own right, as well as being one of the best exponents of the maligned covers album genre. Highly recommended.

[The album is] really nothing but fun, and it sounds for the most part like it was put together that way, if we can allow that Lynne's idea of fun is carving out a perfect piece of pop production for each delectable morsel he offers up.

The primary question that you are left asking is why it's taken a man with so much talent so long to release his solo debut? Fortunately there is enough worth and intrigue within this record to keep you occupied until the next one, if there is one.

They just haven’t quite found the necessary depth to separate their clinical precision, an incredible feat considering Bagshaw concocted most of Sun Structures with bassist Tom Warmsley in his own bedroom.

This album then is in no way spectacular or ostentatious, but partly because of this there are almost no moments at which it falls flat; and if anything marks out an LP as being not just good, but very good, as well as stepping it away from being a mere collection of songs, it's an excellently crafted and cohesive consistency.

For sheer instant appeal, the winner has to be Cyberspace and Reds, which is clearly one of the most bizarre, absurd, and exhilarating records dropped in 2011, while Computers and Blues requires a great deal of thought and introspection before it can be truly valued.

It’s trashy yet too self-conscious for its own good, it’s lovingly crafted yet ultimately hollow, it’s dance music which veers from so catchy you can’t help yourself to chin-stroking music to nod at and appreciate.

NonStopErotik lives and dies on your particular hunger for music like this in 2010. If you love what Francis has done over the span of his solo work, (and to a lesser extent, if you love the Pixies) you’ll find just enough in the album to merit a listen or two. If you only have a passing interest, it’s probably not worth your 45 minutes.

Does Tonight satisfy what we were all hoping for after three years between albums, along with the lofty expectations that are by definition bound to accompany a concept album/rock opera? Probably not. But, is it better than "You Could Have It So Much Better?" Definitely, if not only for the points on the record where Kapranos and company get it oh so right.

As much as The Deep Field concerns itself with Joan Wasser's considerable emotional needs, this is not a self-absorbed record. It's a big, open-hearted statement on the best way love in a world where "good living requires smiling at strangers."

It’s all a learning curve, which is never a bad thing for a sophomore album. Thankfully, AlunaGeorge have offered us plenty of examples of what they do best in I Remember and, perhaps most importantly, left us wanting even more.