Utilizing a vast array of musical instruments the pair conjure up noises that frequently unsettle and occasionally inspire.

This sophomore album is the sound of four rock historians picking up their instruments and just playing.

Perhaps Bodega will eventually create something that accurately summarizes our content-focused existence and kicks us out of our collective stupor. As it stands, though, Endless Scroll is merely a kinda-good album doomed to get lost in the content thickets.

Every Country’s Sun certainly has some very lovely, dense, and poignant moments borne out of creative and unpredictable arrangements, yet the majority of it fails to leave any impression other than boredom.

With all that early potential, the rest of the album sometimes can’t keep up. The record, though, never loses its way, remaining a convincing and mysterious sonic space throughout, one often worth getting lost in.

The slower tracks feel out of place and disrupt the flow of the album, but the highlights, especially the opening tracks, are as good as anything Pontiak has done before.

This band is awfully good at being annoying.

The trio have returned to the territory of their debut, but somehow failed to recapture the lightning that animated it.

This latest recording, however, does more rehashing than reinventing. It suggests, of course, that Cassandra Wilson remains a vital jazz vocalist and a sterling live performer. But as the latest of the singer's recording projects, it is inessential and merely fine.

It's not an album that's as surprising or forward thinking as Dangerously in Love or B'Day, but it is for the most part a fun listen at worst and for her legion of fans it will probably translate to much more.

While Is This Thing Cursed? won't win over any more acolytes, or incite anything close to a Billboard pop-punk resurgence, Alkaline Trio diehards will find themselves, by turns, nostalgic for what came before and thrilled by what they hear now.

The 11 tracks of Gulag Orkestar are very good, but not the stunning achievement you might be led to believe they are.

That’s not to say it isn’t a pretty powerful album with a few moments of greatness buried somewhere beneath. It’s just to say ... come on, man! Get those hands dirty!

This 19th album may not quite be the best of their releases, nor is it the most accessible album to come out of 2013 (accessibility would not exactly be very Melvins, would it?), but Melvins fans and fans of experimental rock, novelty songs and the classic punk style that never took itself too seriously will find a lot to love in Tres Cabrones.

Established fans will respond with delight to the staccato wall-of-sound guitars; new listeners may not necessarily show the desired “Ooh, they’re so hard!” response.

This album is worth a listen. It's too watered down to stand the test of time, but right now, it hits the spot.

Despite the sometimes lackluster lyrical content, Parallel Uni-verses is ultimately saved by its jazzy upbeat production and Del’s delivery, which, despite his goofy swagger, fills up the album with relative fluidity.

There's very little variance in tempo or tone from track to track, the shadings almost imperceptible to the casual ear. At times You Win Again, Gravity! seems more a study in monochrome than an album in full living Technicolor.

Why is Migala so gun-shy? Why have they settled for plod over fireworks, for stasis over excitement?

As accessible as Tiger Talk is, it can feel compressed. And though the music is perfectly executed, with riffs and fills so precise it almost feels as though the band is reading sheet music, sometimes it's hard to find anything underneath the words and melodies.

Mondo serves as much as an introduction to a promising new as it does a reminder of a major producing talent.

It features some of their most vital work since their first decade as a group. .... Unfortunately, it also includes their tendency to jump to different styles with odd timing and to frontload the hits, which makes it just another above-average mid to late-career album.

These songs could benefit at times from a bit more variation, but there are plenty of inspired moments on this album that make 2:54 an emerging band to watch as they further develop their sound.

Whereas the Catheters are far more exciting, abrasive, and vivacious than whatever MTV is passing off as rock 'n' roll these days, they seem all too plagiaristic when compared to the garage-rock kings they so obviously idolize.

Song-for-song, I'd pick In Blue over this latest. And there are, of course, lots of better albums that you can get. Still, relatively few of those albums are current albums by artists as purely pop as -- but this much better than -- Britney.

Compared to the previous compilations' sense of liberation, Charli sounds at odds with its some of its invested players and parts: the label, the fans, and Charli the artist. ... When its gears click, Charli glides.

The high points of The Altar are nearly perfect, but these are outnumbered by a massive middle section comprised of unremarkable, uninspired filler.

Lyrics are far and away the album's weakest point, consisting more often than not in pat, stock-sounding phrases.

Adams still hasn't made the solo record that everyone feels he's capable of, but Jacksonville City Nights ranks with his most solid records.

Even after 20-plus years, the band still has a lot of snap and energy, and that feeling permeates most of this album.

So much of the album winds up repeating itself thematically that despite the giddy sugar rush one feels when overloaded with hooks like these, a surprising amount of the songs here don’t have that much staying power, especially during the disc’s final stretch.

While the weaker songs are definitely not throwaways, they miss the mark in more than one way.

While plenty of the set is for collectors only, Rilo Kiley has provided a number of songs as strong as their previously released material.

London Grammar’s music remains gorgeous, but the band too often limits themselves with their own conservatism.

A promising contender, rather than the champ. As nice as Again & Again is (and it is "nice"), in 2011 there are simply bigger fish dishing this electro, pop art revivalism up more convincingly and, crucially, with more personality.

It’s an album often more complicated than it seems, and that it what makes it a solid debut, even if sometimes fruitful complication fumbles into confusion.

Ultimately, Motion is somewhat of a scattered album with some shining moments.

About to Die offers a tight, effective encore for Magellan.

Common Existence makes Thursday sound like a band that has settled in their skin without lazily settling on a sound.

Fantasy Ride is at worst a highly competent contemporary R&B album. It's also oftentimes thrilling, which is no small feat considering how much the album was labored over and how often its format and players were changed.

TRST is a sharp 'n' smartly entertaining synth-noir debut yet it falls just shy of hitting the truly big numbers.

They aren't working out new muscles so much as they're toning and flexing the ones they have. That doesn't make these songs bad, or even boilerplate. Mogwai is good enough at what they do to keep it fresh enough, but when they're not exploring as much on record, we get less to listen for in the bargain.

For all the inevitable flaws, the release of From Memphis in Hollywood is more than welcome, well worth the two discs.

Taken individually, each of Love and Its Opposite’s songs is impressive and affecting. Strung together as an album, though, their sulky nature becomes oppressive.

A mixture of pleasant, melodic love songs and dour heartbreak songs, with a couple of songs about his Christian faith thrown in.

As the solidity of the term Mountain Man suggests, this band is more stolid. They are the anti-Roches, using the same group of tools for the opposite effect.

With a darker theme comes a darker sound.

This is a fresh, young band, attractive in sound and approach, playing music with echoes of many great indie-pop bands of the past.

At this point in time, Volcano Choir has made it clear that despite what the scattershot structure of Unmap may have indicated upon its release, this project is for real. Whether it remains on the musical radar for years to come remains to be seen.

It is not all this good on Shots, but when it is, Ladyhawk show they can stand with most any rock band going today.

Lloyd's most interesting work can be his most rewarding, and Mirror is an example of how little ventured equals little gained. If it weren't for the final two songs, I would say nothing ventured equals nothing gained.

Hull's mistakes are few on Mean Everything to Nothing, an album that probably signals the youngster coming into his own.

One can easily be seduced by the pleasant surfaces of the sound into the gloom beneath.

There are actually some great moments in this jumbled incoherent mess. The problem is that Kinsella’s had ample time to convince me that his post-Cap’n Jazz stuff is somehow better, more-relevant, or even worthy of my time.

It's tough to say whether The Fever should be appreciated or disdained for going apeshit within well-worn terrain.

There's a distance in these songs. Keeping the audience at arm's length ensures that the album won't get bogged down in pain, even as it willingly swims in that pain. While that distance also results in a slightly ephemeral experience, the result is mood music that works as well as a breakup album as it does a warm-up for the club.

On Lullaby, the vocalist and songwriter certainly makes good on that declaration, his refreshing lack of desperation taking shape in a melting pot of Americana, new age and electronic music.

While Day Breaks can be relaxing at times, it also borders on being sloppy on rare occasions such as these.

The songs on Noise Floor don’t rank with his best, but there’s a reckless spirit to the endeavor that’s alluring, and representative of his music overall.

Magic & Medicine would be a modest success if it weren't for a handful of songs that nearly ruin things.

For all the times where Noonday Dream gets, well, a little too dreamy, "Nica Libres at Dusk" demonstrates further possibility for Howard's songwriting. If he's able to marry his chops with acoustic instruments to his penchant for electronic and ambient music, without letting one take precedence over the other, he'd be on his way to a masterpiece that, at their best, each of his three records thus far has hinted at.

The execution of This Is Another Life may be its best feature, but “Villain” shows Lortz is at his best when he assesses the damage, rather than splitting it sideways.

Everything's Fine is far from perfect, and upon its first few listens may prove a disappointment for fans expecting more of the same, or even an expansion on, the spunky sounds of Love Like This.

Descended Like Vultures still has its moments of pleasing, ephemeral pop, but those moments, if nothing else, work as nice interludes between the more engaging numbers.

Instead of a collection of singles, each song [on the album] develops an element nascent from the beginning, "Headlights," into a deeper exploration. The downside of this is that all the songs begin to blur together.

All We Grow is surely the work of a confident, able composer. However, Carey seems to need more time with his ideas, more of a willingness to take risks and break his songs out of their initial molds.

Like Zappa, Busdriver's creativity means that for every brilliant track he records there will be several tracks that are just plain weird, and Beaus$Eros is no exception.

Modest, low-key, and unassuming, Old Yellow Moon is finally too conventional a record to rank as a major addition to either Harris or Crowell’s discographies.

While clearly wanting to be a legendary piece of extravagant and influential work, it suffers the most from its inherent apathy, a type of intangible element that makes it come off as equal parts careless and desperate.

Despite the album's general inertia, it contains some impressive individual songs.

Deer Tick could have done a lot with their plethora of strong songs: made painful cuts to release a regular album, or shoehorned an overarching narrative in and called it a concept album. But the simplest solution was the correct one. They just put out two good records on the same day, inviting but not forcing listeners to associate them.

A Thousand Skies lacks the big, catchy bits that would make his songs take off. Instead, it ends up as a smooth record to listen to where it’s easy to zone out and let the music fade into the background.

Tough Age does as good a job as anyone at meeting these minimum standards [of garage rock], while crafting few fun pop songs along the way. There’s little enough to separate them from the already-crowded pack, however.

Music for Listening to Music to is surprising in that it hits the thresholds of likeability and then runs away from the conceptual bar in favor of speeding faster than light. It might dabble in simplicity to a fault, but it makes up for it with instinctual choices like rusty strings and perfect harmonics.

The songs on Monterey are uniformly pretty, due to the excellent harmonizing of Ken Pettengale and Joey Ryan, but the downcast vibe the record has seems like it will limit its appeal to very specific sections of the folk and Americana audiences.

It tends to dilute the very elements that make the band unique.

I'm Bad Now finds Nap Eyes somewhere in between their two former releases.

Walk It Off communicates only through the reach of its buzzing instrumentation.

Ten years ago, Speakers and Tweeters would have been great, but it just doesn’t feel right now.

Ultimately, Conor Oberst is a bit of a mixed bag, an album that’s often as frustrating as it is inviting. It is, however, a step in the right direction and a sure sign that Oberst is growing as a songwriter.

In the end, Funhouse bites off more than it can chew, but it never chokes on its ambitions: it shows Pink as one who is unsure of her post-marital identity, hopping around from emotion to emotion without ever settling onto a state of stability until the album’s well-timed closing moments.

The mix of the two makes The Colossus sound like a work by an artist who is maturing rather than lashing out.

Steal Your Face, while still maintaining its fair share of robust moments, can often feel a bit second-tier. Perhaps it’s because Watersports felt more spontaneous.

It's difficult to dislike Arcade Dynamics, maybe even impossible, given that it's so relentlessly inoffensive. On the other hand, it's not an album likely to engender much passion, either. Whatever the case, if you need another soundtrack for a summer afternoon, you could do worse.

It’s all pleasant enough, but it largely lacks the appeal of Actress’ own recordings.

Sometimes Pratt’s nervousness about being looped into a scene extends to her album’s production. Some songs are cloaked in hissing tape, and her lyrics can be difficult to make out.

Deer Tick could have done a lot with their plethora of strong songs: made painful cuts to release a regular album, or shoehorned an overarching narrative in and called it a concept album. But the simplest solution was the correct one. They just put out two good records on the same day, inviting but not forcing listeners to associate them.

For all their quality on paper in terms of instrumental skill and stylistic infusions, the tracks never really seem to get going. Dawes are faced with the facts that innovation is all well and good, but this doesn’t mean that the listener will buy into it.

As one might expect, the vast majority of One Lovely Day is familiar territory, confirming that Cope's artistry is found not so much in inventing something radically new, but in refining and arranging various genres.

Vetiver makes first rate folk pop music that can be as fine as a walk on a spring day with brightly colored wildflowers mixed in the meadow, sweet smells in the placid breezes, and newly hatched insects flying by.

There’s simply not enough sonic variation going on here to make Soused nearly as compelling as its respective creators’ past efforts.

Overall it’s a solid sophomore effort, and certainly good enough to tide Strokes fans over until that band’s next release.

The songs are tight and well produced enough that you might find yourself, at moments, wanting them to loosen up a bit.

Because the formula is so well-tested, Empire Central is at its most satisfying when avoiding Snarky Puppy’s full-group sound.

There are some real gems hidden in here, though the jumbling of genres and quality makes for an album that sounds altogether ill at ease.

Silver Wilkinson is a slicker effort, and yet plays similarly to Bibio’s earlier ambient efforts: almost willfully failing to grab our attention, it recedes happily and wispily into the background.

When Yann Tiersen is on, he’s really on. And when he’s not, it’s just kind of nice and that’s all there really is to it.

As charming as Friedberger can be, he’s at least as often a little too precocious for his own good, and it makes the overall listening experience simultaneously cloying and fascinating.