One of 2005’s most pleasurable albums.

Repentance can be taken as prime party music, but if you dig deeper, it's much more rewarding.

It can be a bleak listen at times, but for every scuffed-up shadow and turn to negative space, there’s a song like “No Tree No Branch” or the frenetic “Coins in My Caged Fist” to pull you out.

Carey has made a debut record that is both solid in its own right and hints at the promise of great things to come.

Cansei de Ser Sexy works not because of its ability to break new musical ground but because of its ability to borrow from other influences and use them in new ways to avoid sounding totally contrived.

Provincial is an immensely enjoyable album, to be sure, but the suspicion lingers that it could've been pushed into "career highlight" territory with just an extra little push.

Sometimes there’s a comfort to be found in familiarity, and Car Alarm plays like an object lesson on why sticking to your guns isn’t always such a bad idea after all.

The purpose of Clues wasn’t to outshine Penner or Reed’s past successes, but to make great new music. And on Clues, they do just that.

Clutching Stems is the band's finest record since The Albemarle Sound, and the kind of pop record that may break your heart, may even tear you apart, but it's also generous and complex enough to put you back together in the end.

Like the return of Portishead and My Bloody Valentine, Leila’s reemergence is another welcome surprise in a year that’s been full of them.

Bluefinger is catchy in spots but ultimately forgettable.

C'est Com..Com..Complique is superb, a monument that could only have been sculpted by the group's original hands.

More important than any commentary about the listening habits of internet browsers I could possibly make is the fact that Dancer Equired stands as the perfect gateway for new Times New Viking listeners, and definitely deserves to be enjoyed and not brushed aside.

It's a distinct type of pop that could become truly memorable when he actually sits down to compose a full album.

With West, Wooden Shjips is just breaking in its new soles--and hitting its stride.

Flume manages to be somewhat of a timeless release in terms of modern electronic music, one that could have dropped at any point over the past 12 years or so and still made an impact of some sort.

Over and over, we get the sense that Cadence makes records for that gaggle of kids on the album cover, for the look on their faces. If any of the rest of us likes it, all the better. It works: We’d like to know more about Mr. Weapon, and his buds.

Wilderness Heart is tight but never overly controlled, and it varies in all the ways you could possibly want it to. It's a Black Mountain record through and through, that's for sure.

Sky Blue Sky is Wilco's first step toward aging well, but it transcends transition and is an album that sounds right in its place and time.

While maintaining a slick vibe embodying the sultry lowlights of an unsuspecting loft party, Foals' Tapes are nothing particularly groundbreaking--but sure as hell an intoxicating listen.

When looked at from afar, 8 Diagrams is far more of a success than it is a failure, and years from now, when it is fully removed from the drama and hype, it just may sound even better.

Most of the material is as impressive in sound as it is atmosphere.

Under a Billion Suns is a great record, and Mudhoney is one of the best bands in rock 'n' roll, period.

She may not excel on her solo album the way she has with Broken Social Scene or Metric, but it's still a rainy-day listen.

The band's accomplishment on Fear Is on Our Side is that no matter what direction the song goes, the journey is always worth it, the ending is a satisfying resolution.

Exposion challenges us to rethink the limitations of a song, and thusly rewards us with an album unlike any other this year.

Crystal Castles leaves its mark as an electro record that challenges, succeeding and failing all at once, and perhaps most important, never forgetting the primary goal of dance music.

Finding Forever, then, is Common's snapshot of hip-hop's awkward middle age--an album that is neither here nor there.

Ponytail fans will surely enjoy this relatively formed incarnation of the band's energy.

It seems impossible that the same band that started out so ramshackle could deliver an album as splendid and tighly wound as this.

Free the Bees shows a group of skilled musicians who are comfortable in their style and songwriting, and it plays like it was unearthed in a warehouse basement, where it was hidden for the last forty years.

We're Animals may not be as mind-boggling as Numbers' 2004 release, In My Mind All the Time, but it merges elements of the precursors to the new wave/post-punk movements with a psychedelic ambiance.

Vidal’s newfound penchant for quiet introspection, providing a fantastic centerpiece to this EP, which contains more riveting ideas and modes of expression than most full-length albums.

Keep Your Eyes Ahead could easily be seen as the result of making the best out of a bad situation and succeeding in spades.

Down to the minute details, epic pop should center on creating a tiny, vibrant world that begins and ends within the space of the song, and Eggs’ best songs truly achieve this aim.

We have an airy, understated collage that acts more as a stopgap teaser to keep the spotlight on the young lad from London, before something more cohesive and fully-realized can be recorded.

[The] most unexpectedly superb album so far this year.

While The BQE might not put Stevens in the running as the most groundbreaking voice in contemporary classical music, it's certainly a damn sight better than the orchestral efforts squeezed out over the last several years by the likes of Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, et al.

You'd be hard pressed to find a big ticket R&B album quite as restless, tuneful and fearless this year.

The album showcases the band's pop proclivities while preserving the dark, often harsh, atmospherics that makes their sound so distinct.

Mellow and breezy, Spelled in Bones has “summer record” written all over it, with its warm, gentle pop melodies that would make Paul McCartney proud.

The sound isn’t youthful, nor does it try to be. To Del, the quintessential alternative hip-hop artist, and Tame, underground hip-hop mainstay, the panacea to the apparent predicament of age is craftsmanship.

Simply put, this album is more than pretty good.

It may not have the knockout highs that Dual Hawks or Flashes and Cables had, but it is just as consistent all the way through.

The free-for-all collective sound can lend the music a cutesy air, but the intensity of the songs rescues the album from juvenility.

The most apt comparison would be Dylan's more recent comeback albums; if not quite the masterpiece of Love and Theft, it beats the hell out of anything McCartney, Jagger or Simon have put out in the last fifteen years.

Like all Gogol Bordello albums, Trans-Continental Hustle is instantly enjoyable, but even more lyrical and musical layers emerge on repeat listens that show you just how smart and (simple) Gogol Bordello can be.

There are moments when the ambivalence toward everything sounds like it might, just might, be giving way to genuine concern.

The sanitized production can be a bit of a stumbling block, and Rogue occasionally gets ahead of himself with his high-spire vocals, but Descended Like Vultures is by and large not the sophomore slump such and such and so and so were expecting.

Free at Last is everything that his heads could want.

Hella are a band reinvigorated on Tripper, realizing and embracing with all of their arms (a run through any of the tracks here definitely makes it sounds like they each have more than two) the sounds that absolutely work best for them while showcasing their growth as songwriters and the experiences they've picked up from their myriad side projects.

Gently blurring the lines between the warm golden haze of pedal-steel’d country rock with elements of tasteful, classicist new wave, the quietly intimate Cardinology jettisons the schizoid, freewheeling genre-hopping of previous records, giving the album--and, most important, the songs--an intensity of focus where there was once just intensity.

Whether or not you think antipathy and self-destruction are legitimate themes for music, or you feel that even the pretty remote handling of rap that Salem has done as three white kids is too much, you can't dismiss what started all this hub-bub in the first place: the fact that the trio has crafted a sound that still doesn't really sound like anything else. Whatever else it does, King Night stays true to that.

Little Joy never really breaks out of its mostly grey color scheme, and is an album that could test the patience of many, but these do not seem like things that concern My Disco in the slightest.

The album sticks very much to the template of ambient keyboard pop and an atmosphere of disappointment that past Lali Puna and Notwist albums traded in. That said, it's effective in what it sets out to accomplish and has a silent ambition that is fairly admirable.

Loud, brash, but never cocksure, Mantaray swaggers like a cat in heat.

Luckily, Blackenedwhite, the first post-Odd Future hype machine album, is still as good as it was eight months ago, when it came out and was instantly the most fun album in the Odd Future oeuvre. It's a triumph of two kids putting all of their efforts into an album, and coming out with something great.

The listenability of the second-half might leave hip-hop heads indifferent, often feeling just too full of glossy pop, no matter how solid Plug 1 and Plug 2 continue to rap twenty-five years into their career.

By this point, it's within their rights to utilize pieces of their past in building a new present for themselves, as long as they don't half-ass it and start turning out inferior remakes of their old tunes. That's not what's going on here, and if anything, No Line is ultimately a more visceral and memorable effort than either of the band's other two 21st century offerings.

When the proudly worn tropes – the irascible low-life characters, the working-class heroes – show up to break up the life-affirming stuff on Dream, they're an afterthought (the jokey “Outlaw Pete”) or worse (heretofore never to be mentiond again "Queen of the Supermarket" is, well, really fucking terrible). That's why the finest moment of the album is "The Wrestler."

The main thing preventing Big Echo from being a very good (or even a great) album is that the bulk of it is clearly and undeniably influenced by the quieter moments from Grizzly Bear’s oeuvre.

Christ Illusion is not a throwback; it's something new steeped in something old.

It may all cohere together, but it doesn't all work.

Though some of the oddball, art-house tendencies have been lost in this new translation of the band’s music, there has never been a better, brighter or more immediately satisfying pop soundtrack to Das Kapital.

Pixel Revolt simply and beautifully reminds us that no matter how great a rock producer is, songwriting talent is as essential as it’s always been.

In spite of this second half lag, Daedelus continues to exhibit a tremendous capacity for distilling disparate ideas into something personable.

By all accounts, a solid album; it’s just that we have come to expect better from someone with such a flawless back catalog.

A stunning, grandiose pop record.

This ability to remain reverent to its influences without compromising its personal vision or sounding like a dull tribute act is White Hills' greatest strength, and it's on display throughout the album.

Although it's a top-heavy record, Waterloo to Anywhere gets stronger with each listen; the melodies come through and the energy that at first seems restrained starts to break free.

The largely successful results characterize a risky proposition that in the hands of talent and artistic focus has yielded all sorts of adventurous delights.

Heart of My Own sounds more produced than Oh, My Darling, but not for lack of quality. Despite the yearning lyrical plotlines, the warmth exuded from the woodsy harmony of Bulat’s voice mingling with the amalgamation of guest instruments cozies even the bitterest of winter days.

Their chemistry undeniable, this debut could serve as a watershed for both members’ future creative outputs.

It's a lot to take in, but the simple, hypnotic beauty of the stark landscapes Tyler has created here reveals itself more with each subsequent listen.

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.

Girls and Weather is a rousing debut effort from a band that isn’t out to try to pull birds by acting like the Stones (or the Clash or the Libertines).

On this album she proves herself as something more (way more, in fact) than an eternal scenester and competent drummer.

Ultimately, Hearts is an adolescent album in every conceivable sense.

Family Perfume Vol. 1 wafts with a brilliant array of aromas, drifting from atmospheric psychedelia to homegrown folk melodies that leave a lingering sweetness in your mouth.

Ditherer is a lot of great noise from a small band with big talent.

Think Au Pairs or Delta 5, but filtered through Bikini Kill and the Rapture.

The Big Pink's A Brief History of Love is exactly the kind of album I wish had existed when I was 14. That's not a dig at the record; one of the more special things that a group can do musically is create a sound that appeals both to teenagers and adults.

Featuring a crunching call-and-response bass line, 'Hurricane' not only makes for a hell of a good time, but, much like the album Jim, also makes for one of Lidell’s tightest and most enjoyable to date.

It's this combination of the simple and the intricate, the elegant and the forceful, that makes Luminous Night work so well.

Full of simmering restraint, Jukebox sounds lived-in and genuine, less a genre experiment than full fledged statement.

It's true that most of the attention Gonzalez received in the beginning was from songs other artists' wrote. The difference with Gonzalez is that he picks songs that fit his minimalist and whimsical approach--and he often makes them better than the originals.

Without any previous knowledge of Treacy's work, My Dark Places could be shoved aside as an album from some bloke being different just to be different, but this is nothing new for Treacy and the Television Personalities.

These musicians came into their own and have created another standout record without repeating themselves.

It's poppy, it's quirky, but it's also shrouded in forebodingness and unease. When the group achieves that sort of balance, AttentionPlease is close to perfect. The album fails when there is too much dance, too much party.

When it works, Temple stuns. Unfortunately, it seems he's also chosen to pad this album with formless sound collages and white-noise excursions, diluting what would have been a stellar EP's worth of material.

Twin Sister live up to their advance press here: They're a good band with room to grow, and a couple great songs.

People will fall in love to this music, and Coldplay knows it.

After repeated listens, the fact that the end of the album doesn't live up to the beginning really starts to stick out.

Song of the Pearl marks a nice transition for these guys, but it ends up sounding like it could have been more.

The danger with The Errant Charm is pretty much the same as any other Vetiver album -- so many mid-tempo, strummy songs can create a sluggish effect.

Small Craft probably wouldn't make it as an art installation. It gets too diverse and obstreperous to make good musical wallpaper.

These Four Walls retains its charm, even when Thompson goes to the well perhaps one too many times with the line repetition trick.

Nupping proved it, and Natural History amplifies the point that Dope Body are a completely unimpeachable unit from a musical standpoint: able to fit in with contemporaries while still sounding undoubtedly like themselves, carrying on the proud outsider-rock tradition of their hometown.