It may play a little too closely to everyone's strengths, but in the moments here where those strengths are at full tilt, that's not a bad thing.

Tamborello's textural sensibilities remain, but his ability to supercharge glitch into something intoxicating and luminous seems to have dipped out the back.

It's speculative fiction in album form, gleefully out of step with most sounds of today, demanding attention, but more importantly, keeping it.

Somehow, the final product turned out better than some bands' actual albums.

Chunks of Temporal will be inessential at best for casual fans, meant to appease only the diehards.

The album lives up to its name in every way on this powerful, bruising, yet generous record.

In essence, under the mantle of her most pretentious album title yet (in a catalog of pretty brilliant titles), lies an earnest dance-pop album.

Tame Impala possesses an uncanny ear for reconstructing psychedelia that spans decades while remaining undeniably present.

It is whole, undiluted Crystal Castles--and it's as haunting and raw as might be imagined.

Tightened and more focused, Just To Feel Anything wouldn't entirely jar the listener out of their headphones. Still, it shines when you hold it up to the light.

The Bears for Lunch surprises from quick song to quick song (even though we know this trick well now) and maintains an overall cohesion and distinct mood.

Cahoone has delivered another confident, solid record.

Young Hunger is a solidly crafted album that manages to give hints at what Chad Valley does best while musically supporting a bunch of his buddies.

Some of the better songs on Dreams and Nightmares--"In God We Trust" and "Believe It" being prominent examples--are the ones that let Meek hit the track hard and tear it apart.... But ultimately songs like these are in the minority on Dreams and Nightmares. There are many notable stylistic missteps.

Local Business may be missing the epic historical bent that lent The Monitor extra credence in a crowded field of garage rock contenders, but in place of the brazen Civil War narrative is a more subtle meditation on being poor and ambitious in America.

While there's no outright showstopper like "Make the Road By Walking," The Crossing manages to phrasally reference the lightning-strike horn crescendoes that gave that single its timeless resonance.

How can you talk about The Haunted Man without calling it "achingly beautiful"? This is a real problem, and it necessitates a thesaurus.

This is another satisfying and remarkably fresh set of tunes from Robert Pollard.

Their voices and sound may be immeasurably more ragged and weathered, but if Neurosis' idea of "consistency" continues to include this kind of additional exploration at this point in their career, may their journey never end.

Cokefloat! is a complicated punk album, all id and very little superego. It's not juvenile so much as it is childlike, and what makes it childlike makes it heartbreaking.

Lamar's no impressionist, however; his lyrical gifts weave a complex, yet uniquely-West Coast set of influences into something that feels new and forward-thinking.

Jiaolong may be a perfectly competent incarnation of Snaith's undeniable talents, but it doesn't quite induce the stupor it should.

Information Retrieved's value lies in its stark denial of what fashionable indie rock is these days; it's an admirable and frustrating time warp to the days when Sunny Day Real Estate were cutting edge.

While Eating Us and their various solo pursuits found them sticking their necks out into the world at large, Cobra Juicy proves that their self-imposed isolation once again yields the best results.

To have a release that's altogether thrashing, infectious and emotional achieves a depth that the slew of garage rock revivalists today fail to encapsulate.

METZ is, in short, an almost-amazing album, an album of extremely well built and executed rock songs undone by a production that all too often calls attention to itself.

This is pure, unadulterated energy, seething catharsis taken out on throats, fingers, fretboards and drum heads by a band going on 22 years, and showing no signs of weakness or irrelevancy.

On Disappearance, Lytle yet again hits that perfect balance of gentle storytelling and hard, dark emotion.