Keeping the music simultaneously lush and light is a good choice for songs that prominently feature people moving too fast and making weighty decisions that would seem reckless if they weren't so endearingly passionate.

The result is a confident, tight batch of tracks that beautifully encompass a prosaic kind of ache.

The Indigo Girls prove themselves, again, to be artists whose metaphoric turns of phrases evoke a hard-up world and invoke a more meaningful existence.

Like their creator, the 10 songs that make up We Live in Rented Rooms won't demand you listen to them. But the more these songs play, the more layers they reveal.

Errors have built a subdued and often gorgeous album with very little that needs deciphering.

He's here to entertain, and to interpret the memories of his childhood. As such, the music is a gentle stroll, like an idyll walk through the Rothaargebirge, the deep green mountain range adjacent to his hometown for which the Ferndorf is named.

The Future Crayon... succeeds in being just as captivating as the band's proper albums -- or perhaps even more so.

A barnstorming, kiwi-pop-delicate album that is Reatard’s best album-length statement to date.

Why?’s ability to write so prolifically, that holds Eskimo Snow together. It keeps us looking forward to what the collective will present us with next, even if the quality of Yoni Wolf's vocals are up for debate.

Where Love and Life limped from song to song, The Breakthrough zips confidently through its sixteen tracks.

It's a bit more playful and pop than its predecessor, but it retains Tiga’s signature finely tuned electrohouse sensibilities.

It has sunshine in its music that isn't clichéd, a range of songs that never let the progression slow down or stagnate, and an array of emotional explorations that are refreshing and accomplished.

Cape Dory is not the kind of album that heralds the emergence of some great new talent, necessarily. It just does what it set out to do, and it does so perfectly.

Class Clown Spots a UFO is a fine record, but now two records into their return, it feels like this "classic" version of Guided By Voices is following too closely to a script.

Guster manage to let out a bit of their inner Oasis without sacrificing any of their "I-knew-them-first" credibility.

Meadow features Buckner's most focused work in years.

For the Whole World to See is not the true revelation the label wants you to think it is but it has some catchy melodies and delivers them at breakneck speeds.

Even if you've got Smoke Ring for My Halo, go get this one (it will be available as its own vinyl pressing), because this thing is way more than just some tacked-on companion piece.

While not the definitive Tindersticks album, Falling Down A Mountain is a compassionate, delicately rendered collection of songs that warrants repeated listening.

The standout tracks are the featureless "Flame Throwers," "Odds Cracked" and "Auralac Bags," the latter of which boasts a noir-ish, alleyway-chase-scene type of beat.

The growth on display here outweighs the band’s now reliable--and easily addressable--shortcomings.

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

All the elements of Espers' sound come together more seamlessly than ever before here.

It’s the ultimate inner battle of good and evil, one that even the best of us wrestle with when making ourselves vulnerable to the entanglements and snares of love, and one that Khan has found her most confident and enthralling voice in yet.

With less of the anxiety that marked his earlier albums, that world is a joy to get lost in over and over.

As previous albums did, Myth Takes sees !!! aiming high in terms of grandiosity and intensity but falling short of its ambitions.

McCombs still has an ear for language and roll-off-the-tongue singing. His voice coats the lyrics like thick warm caramel on this one. Though often obtuse and twisted, McCombs includes some straightforward lyrics, as well, with some political commentary to boot.

What stands out on Etiquette, what makes it so powerful, isn't the full instrumentation -- it's still not exactly a wall of sound -- it's the moving and earnest lyrics Ashworth deadpans over his dark, minimalist beats and minor chords.

Levi's gift lays in kitschy nuance that is inherently pleasurable. And by diving into more conventional songs on Never, she loses a bit of this endearing personality.

Crafting a decidedly more difficult record was likely something Krug intended, considering these songs seamlessly segue in and out of each other. That means some parts sound almost superfluous, as if they were written expressly to maintain this continuity. Still, the effect succeeds far more often than it fails.

In highlighting the more tasteful, nuances of their sounds, they’ve emerged with a more cohesive whole, a representation that better captures their classic-rock heart while simultaneously stripping the fat away and revealing the core behind the chaos.

Yes, I'm a Witch may be less than the sum of its parts, but [some] notable tracks... make it worthwhile.

For the most part, the album succeeds insofar as it either builds upon Malkmus's perennial themes or allows itself to indulge in experimentation.

For a debut album oozing with influences, Stuck on Nothing is doubly impressive in the way that it not only makes a definitive mission statement for a truly exciting new band but also manages to keep such a strong sense of itself in spite of itself.

It's hard to say that the group took the safe route with Grass Geysers, because it's such an exhilarating listen. Perhaps it's an unfair standard, but as past albums prove, this band still has some muscles that it's not flexing here.

This is the best mix of various recordings Moore has done since A Thousand Leaves.

Arthur & Yu may be too grounded in the past to alter the future of pop music. But if they make songs this lovely, there's no shame in that.

Applaud Reznor for attempting something that doesn't read like school graffiti; shake your little fist at him for doing it anyway.

A perfect summation of everything that was great about this band.

More than the last few albums, Wolfroy rewards this kind of close relationship between listener and performer.

As its name implies, Snowflakes and Car Wrecks is meant for winter listening. But the open space on this EP is good for curled up meditations in any weather.

on Arrow, it's more fun when they swagger around like the road-tested ramblers they've become.

Lucifer transforms the mundane into the magnificent, slowly but surely edging out all other summer listening options.

The songs are classic Mogwai, only more sophisticated--and, as such, startling different.

It's evidence of a powerful songwriter honing his artistry.

It holds its cards close, but it's the kind of album that rewards patience and a willingness to dig into the album's complexity and deeply personal nature.

Throughout its 43 minutes, Fool’s Gold has the air of the kind of effortless breeziness that comes with tossed-off side projects. But that vibe underscores the effectiveness of the album, which features multiple stylistic quirks that could lead Fool’s Gold in a variety of directions if they continue as a project.

Even at its most elemental moments He Gets Me High sounds a lot more expansive than their debut. It might not be essential listening, but it certainly can be taking as foreshadowing of what a high-budgeted Dum Dum Girls might sound like.

All I know for sure is that I’ve got two ears and a heart, and Manners sounds and feels pretty great.

This crackling album stands to remind that the man can still rock like all hell.

Control and ambition can go together, and Meiburg proves that, in the right hands, the combination can yield some exciting results.

Robyn's transition to the boldest--and maybe loneliest--girl in the room allowed her to showcase her versatile range of emotions and musical influences, plenty of which are on display in Body Talk Pt. 1.

The album encapsulates summers of falling asleep on porches, cicadas chirping periodically among the trees, shaking slightly from a passing breeze.

If nothing else, The Good, the Bad & the Queen is a clear demonstration of Albarn's maturation.

It's never anything less than gorgeous.

If Hartford, Connecticut's Magik Markers has built its reputation as a feverish live act, Boss wrangles all that frantic upheaval into a surprisingly tuneful and, yes, utterly ragged set of songs.

On The Door, there is a sense that the sounds happening are not the products of the people creating them but rather those of some inscrutable (and vaguely dangerous) pulsing energy below our feet. It’s an amazing effect. And it’s created through the sheer power of quantity and repetition.

Unlike the Darkness or Eagles of Death Metal, these guys don't think this shit is funny, and instead of making them ripe for mockery, it makes Wolfmother that much more respectable.

It's garage rock, sure, but it's so much bigger and heavier and totally bloody-knuckled from a bar fight.

If that same sense of insularity and reserve -- magnified by Nastasia's pitch-perfect, inflectionless soprano -- keeps On Leaving from connecting like it could have, the music draws you in, even at its slowest and starkest.

Easily the most exhilarating rock 'n' roll record to emerge in 2008.

The Runners Four may not come off as innovative as Reveille (2003) and Milk Man (2004) did, but the real innovation here is in making chaos sound so serene.

There’s still plenty of bits on Beat Pyramid you’ll find exhilarating. But the rest of the time, you’ll find yourself wishing These New Puritans would ascend above its well-established reference points.

If there's ever been an advertisement for allowing bands to develop before they blow up, Native Speaker is it. You'll probably listen to more immediate albums this year, but few will have the down-the-rabbit-hole quality that marks Native Speaker for success.

while Thank You Very Quickly is not shy about facing the challenges and horrors of certain parts of the world, it is defiant in its love for life in spite of struggle. It proclaims the power of working together and leaning on one another, no matter the circumstances.

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

All the swirling riffs and overlapping repetitions might be tiresome if not for the sad, imperfect voices at their center.

Once you get the lay of the land of Alopecia -- with its ethereal production, endlessly analyzable wordplay, and moments of supreme pop clarity -- it’s a captivating realm to explore.

At its best Gossamer is, like its namesake, delicate at first glance but possessed of incredible molecular strength.

Edwards’s newly minted disco folktronica, as easily aligned with Sufjan Stevens as Aphex Twin, is a little bit very crazy.

Watch the Throne is as much of a celebration of the A-list prominence of its two marquee stars as it is an exegesis of all of that fame's attendant complications.

Wasser’s a collaborator at heart (she was a charter member of the Dambuilders and worked with Lou Reed, Antony & the Johnsons and Rufus Wainwright, who guests on “To America”), and she sounds most natural when she’s backed by horns and keys and backing vox and slinky grooves.

Made of equal parts detached beauty and inspired disintegration, it is a transmission from another place -- no matter where you live.

There's No Home offers a rewarding finish as a slow syncopation turns to an eerie final verse featuring Jana and John and Matthew Brownlie.

Zammuto excels at the opposite: deconstructing life into easily digestible songs that make you feel something.

Lyrically, it's all sort of inscrutable and encumbering to follow, but the music is so good it scarcely matters what he's on about.

The Air Force goes beyond music that you play to clear out a party; it's the album you play to let your invitees know that you actually hate them.

There is something distinctly perfect about the naivety that the Pains of Being Pure at Heart seem to effortlessly inject into every bouncy ballad of young love and young living that makes their self-titled debut not only a welcome throwback but a much needed vacation from over-calculation.

Ragon has the skill to twist all his found objects into something real and new: a strange breed of robust neo-folk with a fiery art-punk streak.

Sonically, the album picks up exactly where the Lips left off with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots: heavy on the pop psychedelics, occasionally odd without being inaccessible.

His mixtapes still might be better (especially Midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik), but Str8 Killa is the first step toward Gibbs regaining the label contract that is so rightfully his.

While Compass, due partially to its longer track list, features a few duds that prevent it from surpassing the superior Jim, the album still shows Lidell as indie’s best answer to Robin Thicke and his compatriots, artists Lidell bests on a regular basis.

Careworn and authentic, the prismatic scatter of songs on Volume One, filtered through the sepia tinge of Deschanel and Ward’s nostalgia, sound more like out-of-time gems than the loving recreations they are.

Dead Man’s Bones evokes all the right images of a haunted October, and with such sensitivity and sincerity, it’s rarely kitschy and never inappropriate.

Like many of the instrumentals on this record, a New Age gauze covers most of these productions. It may not be every listener's particular cup of tea, but An Album is a dazzling song suite for an autumnal release.

It's a confident debut, one that features two young musicians reveling in their abilities and perhaps discovering ones they didn't know they had.

It has a known start and finish, with a middle that's tied together cleanly enough.

Here, Mind Spiders achieve what every delirious party-goer wants: a celebration that stretches to infinity.

The musicians' new sense of restraint gives us what may very well be the Blood Brothers' smartest album yet.

Algiers is a good record, and though perhaps it could have been great, it's still another fine turn in the winding, ever-shifting road of the Calexico canon.

It's far from his best work, but, as Callahan takes a detour into rootsy musical traditions such as country and gospel, it is a characteristically eccentric release.

It's hard to shake the feeling that the band's fourth album, Blood Pressures, is the one that will take The Kills to the next level.

Difficult. All very difficult. But cheap dates get old quick, don't they?

Sampson's penmanship here is the most minute and observant among a recent batch of great songwriting

Make no mistake, there is still plenty of rock--it's just doled out selectively instead of consistently.

Dudes may not be your mom's secret recipe for home-made pancakes, but the music is consistent, healthy, and in the right mood, quite delicious.

Marked with woe from beginning to end, BerberianSoundStudio is closer to antichrist than Hallelujah, but Broadcast reminds you that divinity is intrinsic with death.

Although it's a stylistic elephant in the room compared to Invisible Girl's other offerings, it's a welcome indication of Khan and BBQ's scope and talent, testifying to their expanding interpretation and application of garage rock's attributes.