In Flesh Tones is sensitive, unsure and guarded, yet it's comfortable and inviting despite this.

If there's one thing made clear by the satisfying catharsis and musical quantum leap of In And Out Of Youth And Lightness, it's that Patterson should ignore his earlier advice more often if it results in albums of this caliber.

Brimming with the enthusiasm of a true lover of music -- jazz, in particular -- The Further Adventures of Lord Quas will appeal to listeners who don’t bring any preconceived notions of what a hip-hop record should sound like. But even for the biggest fans, the second Quasimoto record can feel uneven.

Vapours gives Thorburn fans what they’ve wanted for a while: a great album of pop bliss from a guy who for too long has avoided delivering just that.

Pulling off the high-wire act of musical comedy this well deserves an unabashed kudos.

Swanlights may not be the best of his works, but it is a welcome excursion along the path of his career.

This is perhaps the first Isis album since Oceanic that both demands and inspires repeat listens. It might very well be Isis’s best work to date. At the very least, Wavering Radiant affirms that we still have good reason to follow the band's every move.

The result was as smart and refreshing as any rap release of the last two years. Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez, despite its droll title, is similarly serious minded.

It may be easy to namedrop a litany of '90s bands to describe Cymbals Eat Guitars, but Lenses Alien proves that doing so is a fool's errand. This sound doesn't fit such easy spaces, which is what makes it so damn good.

In Advance of the Broken Arm is at least two songs too long. Yet Stern's manner of weaving together fiercely subjective, lyrical daydreaming with Olympus-level fret-searing finally means that the album justifies the majority of its many decisions.

Beyond's highlights not only stand comfortably with Dinosaur's legendary best, but they also sound like they could have been lost outtakes from the very same sessions.

Folk-ambient doesn't get any better than this.

The stylistic buffet has enough strength to survive a handful of duds.

It's rich in talent, even if short on crossover appeal. Tyler is gifted enough to do most anything with his guitar, and he'll move you if you let him.

Okkervil River has never provided easy answers in their albums--unless you read the many interviews with Sheff, who always seems willing to explain what he can--and I Am Very Far is another fine album in an increasingly finer canon.

It’s the sound of Polvo insistently reminding listeners that they brought hot fire in 1993, and they can still bring it as good as ever in 2009.

So This Is Goodbye displays an impressive maturation on the part of Junior Boys leading man Jamie Greenspan.

At the heart of it though, we're still left with what's Björk's been doing for most her whole life: music.

Runner [is] an exceptional Sea and Cake record, and if it's not their best since their classic album, Nassau, it is at least the most surprising since then.

These new songs have lofty melodic ambitions but aren’t dedicated to the kind of journeying Ward’s lyrics imply.

No More Stories… finishes Mew’s transition into the swirling, arena-rock monsters they’ve threatened to become all along, with reliably decent results, but it fails to top the blissful heights of "Glass Handed Kits" or the pop-theory class of "Frengers."

There is a lot to be said for good chemistry. Nothing about this album is jaw dropping, but Murs and 9th play off each other so well throughout this short but sweet album that I don't really care.

Besides a cyclical feeling that veers the album into the direction of repetition at several points, Bend Beyond is a solid listen.

It's a collective of conjoined poems, meticulously attuned to shake both the earth and eardrums alike.

A tight, orderly marriage of the pastoral and the psychotropic -- plenty precise, but short on soul.

By paying just as much attention to sonic details as ever, Ejstes and his pals have put forth another refined effort, from the piano on back to the drums.

The music deliberately sits somewhere between glossy and unobtrusive. It shimmers enough to mask Allen's tepid singing voice but remains far enough away to allow her largest asset -- her snappy personality -- to take charge.

Cripple Crow is demanding because of its length - after twenty-two tracks on a single disc, nearly any artist would be difficult to tolerate. But the album is beautifully executed.

What We All Come to Need is a largely successful display of Pelican’s well-defined sound with the invigoration of guest star peers and promising glimmers of growth.

Hip-Hop Is Dead... brings out the best in the emcee, who might have produced his strongest lyrical performance since Illmatic.

With In Ghost Colours, Cut Copy have created a record that is both en vogue and timeless, familiar yet fresh, full of glossy optimism, and unforgettably gorgeous from start to finish.

The lightness, even with the same downtrodden lyrics, comes from the upbeat arrangements that find their way through the slosh of feedback--an appropriate sound for lyrics that evoke the same feeling--sloshing through the everyday. Perhaps Merritt realizes that to be comically self-loathing or misanthropic is, perhaps, all a person can ask for.

For all the creativity, there's a certain fire that's missing. The jagged energy that set White Denim apart from so many others has been rounded out, replaced with a relaxed streak and lots of noodling that wears down by D's end.

This is still a consistently great set of songs, and the album another major accomplishment for Aesop Rock--but it's still there on the edges, keeping a great record from becoming another classic from one of our best working emcees.

For much of Diaper Island, he hits his sweet spot of raw indie folk-rock, but for others he seems to be bending his personality to fit the demands of guitar noise, instead of the other way around.

Now We Can See might not be fist-clenching Thermals fans’ first choice, but it shows there’s way, way more to the band than fist pumping yellers. They’re built for the long haul.

I'm gushing, I know, but listening to something as lovely and effusive as this album on repeat can only inspire those same qualities in those fortunate enough to hear. That having been said, consider Yesterday and Today for your next indiscretion.

Keys and effects -- including layered samples from the bands early recordings -- sound like the foundation to the songs, creating a fuzzy expanse that the players worm their way into.

Love and Curses is filled with great melodies that burrow deep into the skull without being cloying, and offers lyrical sentiments that tug at universal truths without pandering.

The attention to detail, the avoidance of crisp production, the resonance of the instruments and voices all contribute to the depth of the music and its ability to penetrate through to the listener in an almost raw and pure state.

At worst, McEntire renders the songs on Man-Made a tad monochromatic. Most of the time, the production and songs come together seamlessly.

Little Hells still works from start to finish, but if that's the case, then it's pretty good for process output.

Generals might sound like a spoonful of sugar, but it gives you a lot of medicine to get down.

On Get Color Health hit upon a noise that’s all their own. If they make the kind of leap between albums two and three that they did between one and two, Health’s third album should be nothing short of spectacular.

Seems that no matter what project Rhys is involved in, his love of bright, Brian Wilson-inspired melodies is going to shine through.

It's true that many of these tracks are not for the casual listener, but that's also not the point.

It’s promising indeed when an album that most artists would be happy to have as their pièce de résistance still shows plenty of room for growth.

Show Your Bones is much more accessible than its predecessor, but there isn't really a "Maps" to serve as a gateway.

You can come for the psychedelic pyrotechnics, and you can stay for the hooks: this debut is endlessly replayable.

With The Warning, the band again forces listeners to drop the safety of labeling and comparisons with other bands.

It is a snapshot of Pinback at its most practiced and self-aware: fluid, calculated, penetrating, yet always at the fringe of its former incarnation.

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.

It comes as no surprise that Fujiya & Miyagi's sound recalls other neo-futurists.... But Fujiya & Miyagi is undeniably its own band, with peppy melodicism and upfront sense of humor.

She continues to extend a thoughtful arm, whittling intricacy into something poignant and manageable.

I really struggled with whether Van Occupanther's literary, slightly nerdy, Ren-fair-leaning lyrics were more of a help or a hindrance to the album.... But at least Midlake risked the ridiculous.

Hardcore 97’s fans may be disappointed by a few omissions (only two cuts from Wreck Your Life?), but Alive & Wired is a pretty complete package.

A Church That Fits Our Needs isn't easy to define, but it is easy to get lost in.

An air of pretentiousness definitely sits over Supernature, but this is a rather enjoyable work that surpasses most material of a similar nature.

Album of the Year stands as one of 2010's most innovative and adventurous albums of any stripe, incorporating traces of African jazz, latin music, psych, metal, and more in its relentless attack. It bangs hard from start to finish, and it's guaranteed to send producers scrambling to rerecord their drums in its wake.

This time around, Zomby isn't constraining himself. This record sounds big.

They owe nothing to a far-gone musical moment, nor can they be pigeonholed. Limbo, Panto may be one of 2008’s most startlingly great debuts.

The musicians have crafted a lucid soul record (barely longer than a half hour) centered on humility, devotion, and other mature sentiments that are blissfully out-of-sync with pop/youth-centric music.

Without sacrificing any of his detailed, anecdotal lyricism or thoughtful keyboard arrangements, Advanced Base managed to construct a record you can play over and over again without feeling so sorry for yourself.

There’s something deeply captivating about Wood’s songs, and they’re brought to an appropriate close with a tightly wound sequel (of sorts) to the album’s opener, 'Water II.'

Man Man's music will irritate you, make you laugh, put you off and then bring you back for more.

The album is a crumbling beauty.

Ultimately, it comes down to the vagaries of taste, but measured against their previous output and current contenders, The Hungry Saw is a sleeper of a bar-chapped, morosely drunk record.

Screaming Females are too talented for Castle Talk to be anything but a solid album. But "solid" is a word I never wanted to use for Screaming Females.

It is tugs and pulls like these [going from raw, minimal stutter to a serenade of a "foreign-language female vocalist"], that take you to the edge and then let you down quickly but softly, that showcase the heart of what is most appealing about footwork and the genius of Mind of Traxman.

The Dum Dum Girls’ debut, I Will Be, plays like a veritable best-of of current trends in lo-fi rock ‘n' pop. In fact, the disc’s (admittedly exhilarating) fidelity to the budding-but-already-overdone genre nearly weighs it down.

The thing One Life Stand has going for it though is its thematic cohesion. This is an album about demanding commitment (from your bros, partially, but mostly from your lovers) or at the very least hoping for it.

Wincing the Night Away suffers from a fair deal of uncharacteristic filler.

Red Gone Wild serves its purpose, reminding us that Redman can still be a lyrical beast at times.

Smilers proves Aimee Mann still has plenty to offer doing the same thing she's already been doing for the last fifteen years.

With music this uniformly entertaining, it’s best just to quiet down and let the former Stephen Patrick Morrissey do the talking. That's what Years of Refusal confirms as his greatest strength, anyway.

The balance of Conatus comes off a bit too formulaic and familiar; after a while, you realize it's sort of one-trick, with Danilova pairing her--admittedly stunning-voice and platitude-heavy lyrics with stomping electro beats.

West's writing and delivery has improved since "The College Dropout," though they're still marked by both a cleverness and a clumsiness.

A wonderfully crafted album built on songwriting that is witty and potent.

It's in that strange tug and pull from which struggle springs passion and beauty that these men seemed to effortlessly thrive. And it is there with both a genuine, relatable sadness and an unwavering resolve so rooted in the broken concrete Bradley walks upon, that No Time For Dreaming also comfortably sits.

This tribute has a back-to-the-future quality, a sad wave at a sensibility that has slipped out of our reach: lost, indeed.

The Horror's assault is quite capable of speaking for itself, and that's what makes it so memorable.

In Our Heads boasts at least eight festival crowd decimators, and finally strikes the right balance between Hot Chip's two sides.

Rare is the album that's able to expand an established band's fan base while completely satisfying the cult of early flag planters, but Strawberry Jam has that chance.

Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters is full of thoroughly enjoyable tunes and melodies if you're willing to give it time.

Popular Songs finds the band crafting solid indie rock that is more by-the-numbers than Yo La Tengo has been in the past.

Underneath the Pine, like Causers before it, is slightly padded, with ambient passages helping bump this past the 35-minute mark.

Black Mountain seems to have perpetrated some legitimate time travel, creating a record that could have sprung from an era of muscle cars, muscle tees, and moustaches.

Pilot Talk II is brilliant because it builds on its excellent predecessor, but finds just a touch more focus.

Everything is more complex, more daring, and simply more produced than anything else they've done. In that sense, it's the best kind of EP, existing because of a discernable creative spark, not as a clearinghouse for also-ran songs or a victory lap following a knockout year.

This is a brief, refreshing escape from the trend-channeling that seems to have replaced genuineness.

Factory Floor achieves something that many albums don't--it serves up as a impressive album with no expectation.

Tim Hecker’s beautiful meditations are inviting but still retain the edge of a seeker that isn’t quite finished with the trip.

Let's Wrestle may, in all their zeal, cram a couple songs too many onto this record, but it's a minor setback for a pop record that carries as much melody as it does personality.

Because of the Times is Kings of Leon's turn at maturity, without any of the pretentiousness that customarily surrounds that label.

Like all score-dominated soundtracks, Slumdog Millionaire, at times, sounds like a mishmash of random pieces that don’t have much to do with each other. But that’s due to the fact that these pieces were created with specific visuals in mind -- so only listening to the album, you’re only getting half of the story. But this half is still pretty incredible.

Cahoone has delivered another confident, solid record.

Despite its short shelf life, Real Estate, if it hits you at the right time, can be splendidly transcendent.

Though he's still in the spotlight, only time will tell if these more brutal, free-jazz brass tendencies will alienate Stetson from the melody-seeking set.