The major criticism of Animal Collective has been the band's proclivity to bewilder listeners more than give them the pop songs they want. It's difficult to criticize Merriweather on those terms, but it applies a lot more to Fall Be Kind. What's worse, that bewilderment prevents Fall Be Kind from being what the best Animal Collective releases always are: fun.

Half of the album is rambunctious and full, driving and manic; the other half charms us with melancholic lullabies fueled by a single sip from the purple bottle. The result: With Feels, Animal Collective has created its first pop masterpiece.

They've found the blueprint to the instantly memorable rock song - and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga contains several - and continued to follow the instructions.

Eluvium has crafted an album that is at once immediate and accessible while deceptively complex.

The songs sound as modern and fresh as if they were recorded last year.

Not only have Brion’s strings been replaced by an indescribably awkward alt-rock guitar riff and a misplaced drum beat, but Apple’s vocals have lost all of their bite and passion. On Brion’s work, she seemed hungry, ready to get back into it all. Here she retains the emotion that such a talented singer can muster on a good day but none of the rawness that signifies her best work.

Those who stick around will be treated to a sort of musical security blanket, jam-packed with hooks and an overall sound that should appease to fans of both the lightly melodic and relentlessly heavy.

I think The Shepherd's Dog is probably Iron & Wine's best record to date (Beam has never once even made a mediocre album, so this says a lot).

Office Of Future Plans reveals itself as quite possibly one of the most brilliantly sequenced albums of 2011.

Tronic isn’t quite hip-hop’s "Smile," but Black Milk is certainly open to pushing similar boundaries of possibility.

Total immersion in the passion of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah reveals the true power of music as a means of artistic expression.

15 Again hits more than it misses, and its hits push all the right buttons, musically and emotionally.

The bulk of El Camino keeps that approach fresh by twisting their rock sound into a pop sensibility that may feel nostalgic, but here--in this concentrated, potent dose--reveals itself to be just as eager to move forward as it is to revel in the past.

Tha Carter III soars because of Wayne’s to-date under-appreciated ability to turn himself down.

The Body, The Blood, The Machine is the holy grail of anti-political/anti-religion records to come out in the last seven years.

Wake Up The Nation comes across as a lean, physical record with enough lucid zingers to make you hungry for more.

The Letting Go benefits as much from diversity as from Valgeir Sigurosson's recording.

As the name suggests, the tracks on Early Fragments are disjointed in terms of their release date and the band’s maturity. But this is to their credit, as the juxtapositioning only adds to the unpolished, lo-fi nature of their material.

Instead of spoon-feeding you how you’re supposed to react, they challenge you to understand them.

Carrion Crawler/The Dream captures the band in psychedelic bulldozer mode instead, delivering ten blistering cuts at a furious pace.

Taken as a whole the album is great slab of rock and roll music.

Celebration Rock is raw frenzy, tender love, and foolish cacophony.

The tuned-down Melvins-like squall from their earlier records is still present and accounted for, but Torche have managed to shove their guitar work into unexpected places that balance limber melodicism with punishing heft.

It's an album that marries the buzzsaw abrasion of past Swans' albums with the country-cum-death-blues feel of his work with Angels of Light. That's an easy way to explain it, anyway.

Ugly is ultimately an album that finally finds the Screaming Females completely confident in their own identity, no longer trying to straddle the line between their headier rock aspirations and the DIY punk scene that gave birth to them.

Food & Liquor is the best hip-hop album of 2006.

This is not his best record, but it does have a couple songs that rank with his best.

Old is Brown’s best work. Complex beyond its two-sided structure, it is filled with narratives that collide, sentiments that conflict and resolutions that come to nothing.