Heretic Pride lifts those shadows--it's the most optimistic Mountain Goats record yet. It’s uplifting and soulful, genuine and sophisticated--full of tender moments enhanced by remarkably pretty melodies and arrangements.

From the first notes of Everybody, the band is trying to recapture the fire of its early albums. But the band has been moving away from that style since its inception; it's not surprising that the transition back may not be as smooth as they had hoped.

Truthfully, after the first four songs, there's nothing about Challengers that isn't an evolutionary step forward for the band, making the sequencing even more nonsensical.

But what this offering lacks in mirth, it more than makes up for in transcendence as well as dissonance.

Transcendence has yet to occur, but they have taken the required step in acquiring a broader range of exposure.

This collection of rarities is a window into the mind of a restless but inspired talent. She isn't for everyone, but she is a break from safe.

The masks only serve to augment a record whose textural complexities and depths sink in further, quietly addictive, play after play.

Strikes with a magnificent urgency.

The more conventional tracks prevent the album from reaching a true fever pitch, but even they are elevated by Maria's primal wail.

While collaborator conductor Aldo Sisillo's orchestrations deserve a healthy dollop of credit for the overall sonic success of the album, Patton's voice is clearly the centerpiece.

It's these odd melanges that clench together into perfect hooks that make Ministry of Love as promising as it is.

On Real Close Ones, the M’s sound like a slightly older version of the band that made their first album. Sure they’re really good, but they're too pensive to make the step up to the big leagues.

Rabbit Habits struck me most where it rescues the jazziness that's sorely missing from 2006's "Six Demon Bag." At the same time, though, the band continues to develop some productive tendencies from that sophomore outing.

Beautiful front to back, it's still an album that never quite asserts itself.

B continues to acquit himself admirably on purely technical terms, wrapping a slow, slithering tongue around the quick stabs of his guitar.

They're a tight fit: Ant likes to experiment, and Ali's nimble enough to keep up and make it work.

He'll probably still be relegated to afternoon festival slots and in hard to find reaches of your local record store, but Pop Negro is another delightful record that pushes the boundaries between music and countries.

Even if they are more refined, they may still sound very much like what Blackshaw has given us before.

As a group of former heartthrobs with something to prove, Duran Duran are both a product of its time and a band with its eye on the future -- and they've finally managed to capture the titular sense of Now.

In and Out of Control is still hindered by what has sunk every Raveonettes album from being great; there’s a sinking feeling upon multiple listens that you’re just listening to one long song.

The album may have its bumps, but the unassuming charm these guys have always brought to their records comes through more often than not.

Impeach My Bush is Peaches' best effort yet.

It's deeply dreamy pop, not unlike Beach House (with whom Lanterns share a UK label in Bella Union) or Mazzy Star, though their songwriting isn't quite up to snuff with either of those.

Dear God, I Hate Myself packs enough of a wallop that it is worth sitting through some dross to get at the choice bits, which, as is the case with any of the best work by Xiu Xiu, are uncomfortable, uncompromising, and easily hummable.

Because the songs refuse to make their musical strictures ends unto themselves, because a good sense of melody can make a bunch of analog synthesizers feel as familiar as your mom’s meatloaf, because Bazan’s lyrics celebrate the commonplace so convincingly, the Headphones manage to sound as real -- in fact, as ordinary -- as any ol’ rock band.

Svanangen has a wholly human presence on Loney, Noir, easy to invest in and equally easy to reap rewards from.

No matter what band he's playing with, Froberg has always had a great ear for guitar tones, and here, he and second guitarist/vocalist Sohrab Habibion whittle down their instruments into scythes, dialing down their more surfy tendencies in favor of guitars that lurk during the verses and slice only at the most opportune moments for maximum impact.

Right now, I can’t think of a better album to listen to after having a shitty day. Glasvegas is a masterpiece of modern miscreant malaise.

They have that kind of hypnotic quality, a combination of strength and texture that sounds calm at every turn, which is what makes it so surprisingly volatile in its effect.

A handful of these delicious earworms deserve to be on the radio. The mismanaged sequencing of Konkylie robs its melodic impact, but the ability to write a great tune is definitely with these Saints.

The album is full of Hersh's characteristically strong songwriting and the emotional uppercuts that make her best work so gutsy.

Mostly Lee Ranaldo has created a mid-crisis record that sounds more powerful than frustrated, more strong in its beauty than reactionary in its power.

If that score at the top of this review seems unfriendly, it's not because they've grown boring or predictable; it's just another step in an ongoing process.

Albatross is a slow bloom of an album, as likely to frustrate those looking for immediacy as it is to reward those looking for substance in repeated listens.

It's almost impossible to pick favorites off an album that doesn't have a weak track.

Despite the absence of Timbo, Elliott continues to do what she does best: cross-fertilizing genres, geographies and temporalities and continuing to transform her musical identity without sacrificing any authenticity.

As all over the map as A Certain Feeling is, it’s much more concise than the band’s 13-track debut, "Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink." There’s not much extraneous fluff here.

For Wilco fans, the songs here won’t surprise. But the effectiveness of these performances, the intimacy of the quiet, and the small, new lights they shed on tunes they’ve long known all makes this a worthwhile record. It’s a record of execution over ambition.

Without the threat of squalls of feedback (like on Palo Alto) or serious climaxes (like on Rook), most of Golden Archipelago ends up as beautiful as the cover of the album, but with as little context.

He's smart enough to know what's to be done, sincere enough to do it free of distraction, and nice enough not to impose his will on you. Ted Leo has literally seen his success as an artist become a life or death experience, and he's here to tell you how to treat it like a grown-up.

I Feel Cream is a force of positive motion that addresses criticism with the sonic equivalent of a bitch slap.

Skipping from dizzying keyboards to bluesy guitar, this is one of Coomes's finest musical hours, capturing his muddled musings into tight and coherent disarray and focusing in on the dynamic between these two exceptionally talented divorcees.

This is a rich, complex and conflicted soundtrack for the best comic book movie never made.

We get to peer deep into McCombs's mind, but with the benefit of coming up for air once the record ends.

If Jungles presented the formula, Ideal Lives gives us the answer.

Aesop Rock's None Shall Pass is filled with precise lyrical detail and head-nodding production, and the result is his most accessible record of his career to date.

A Sunday-nap headphone-record that successfully conveys emotion.

End of Daze sounds like a short segment of Dum Dum Girls' future greatest hits collection.

A subtle, intricate album that simply gets better with every listen. A bittersweet pleasure from beginning to end.

Veirs' delicate, informed touch makes the album a worthwhile listen for anyone interested in taking the first step toward delving into America's back catalogue.

Rarely are stopgaps so magisterial, tender, and wistful. But, again, I hope that’s the point.

You won’t get the same thing twice on Kids Aflame, and Goldstein keeps the surprises coming with subtle changes to his vocals, adding layers of horns in unexpected places and by simply choosing not to be safe.

51 is a damn fine mixtape... one of this young year's best.

In addition to great production and invigorated rhymes, the album also sees four guest spots from the likes of Damon Albarn of Gorillaz/Blur, Beth Gibbons of Portishead, Goodie Mob's Khujo Goodie and Boston Fielder.

It is worth repeating that Far takes everything Regina Spektor has done in the near ten-year span of her career and mashes it up to perfection.

Don't expect any club bangers or hot remixes. But the exciting part is that, in Silver, it's starting to look like we might have a true composer on our hands.

It feels like a resurfacing, like a promise, and it's a grand closer for this classically GBV (collection) album.

Unlike previous releases, when we were taken on several rides within a solitary track, the thrills and tempo changes have been stretched out to album length, making this offering essentially a forty-three-minute song, with each track becoming a spike or dip along the way.

As False Priest beds down in its second half, the album still has a sonic charge, but the frenetic sense of discovery from the first half drifts away.

Knowing the story behind Piramida's recording process does not ruin the horror movie or give away the ending. It does, however, adds a plotline to the wordless emotions the tracks evoke.

It’s Frightening builds upon White Rabbits’ established aesthetic and at the same time sharpens the band’s shambling attack.

The project finds strength in synergy, working off each member's best qualities; they balance a dry vocal tone here with a melodramatic keyboard sigh there.

Fuckbook is the best joke fake lo-fi cover album since Pussy Galore’s Exile, except with the added irony of the roasters becoming the roastees.

Simply, Menomena are a band that sounds completely familiar but totally different.

The Sound the Speed the Light pushes the same boundaries that Mission of Burma has always pushed, and no doubt it will lose points for not pushing any new boundaries.

The album's lyrical shortcomings are easy to overlook, especially when most of its best parts occur when the words drop away entirely and the crisp handclaps come in. It's that sort of giddy, emotional, inarticulate pop that Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin does best, and Walla does his part in bringing that side of them out.

We Have Sound is one of those albums that rarely has a down moment, and it’s all thanks to Vek’s ability to bring his diverse tracks together.

Often eccentric and unpredictable, Love Is Simple is wholly listenable because it is compelling, honest, and joyful.

The wonder of Some Are Lakes is the fact that such arguably masculine instrumentation goes such a long way to buoy Powell's lady vocals. Neither takes a backseat, and the combination feels way natural.

There’s a certain history-capturing aspiration here, as if the album's purpose wasn’t just for charity, to move records, or for Dessner to get together with his pals to compile an album but to provide a musical time capsule that in 20 years could allow younger generations to get into indie rock from the early 21st century. If that was how compilation albums were solely judged, Dark Was the Night would be the gold standard.

There are fewer moments of reckless genre experiments on Touchdown than there were on past Brakes efforts, and when there are, they feel purposeful, like the band had some alt-country (or quick punk song) quota to fill.

More often than not, they miss, retreating back instead of charging forward.

It keeps Raekwon relevant, not to mention is better than most of the hip hop out there. But it's always worrying when an artist, even one as celebrated as Raekwon, gets complacent.

[Remiddi's] fastidious mentality manages to keep this song suite afloat, even if the sails aren't always full of creative wind.

It's a summer album released just too late, but should do a stellar job of carrying some heat over into the colder months. Most importantly, it's yet another case in the argument to trust Thee Oh Sees with whatever sounds capture their interest.

A valiant attempt to combine varying disciplines of Eastern music with neo-psychedelia, Aufheben is a pleasant listen.

If anyone questioned whether or not Jayceon Taylor had what it took to stand on his own post-G-Unit, Game answers all of his critics with a resounding yes on Doctor's Advocate.

Dismania makes for an altogether appropriate title for an album this interested in gathering the common ingredients of despair, anger and disaffection.

With 1968, Pajo... may have finally found a style he feels comfortable putting his name on.

What Uhlhorn has done on Fin Eaves is reconcile those influences into something unique to him; this is homage or pastiche, rather than imitation. Rather than playing different influences to different effect, Fin Eaves is a whole work, the first of the band's career.

While the rawk portion of Meek Warrior... is a bit of a letdown, Akron/Family hasn't lost its knack for making pretty with the acoustics.

Infectious, progressive, immediate dance music.

Although it's similar in style to the band's first three, numerically named releases, The Spell transcends more-of-the-sameness with the strategic addition of some elements culled from Amore and a further honing of the band's unmistakable sound.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra has produced the rare indie pop record that seizes you on the first listen but also rewards repeated playing.

Highway Companion contains the most clear-eyed and hopeful songs that Petty has written in memory.

Truly, the heavy strings and pasteurization O'Brien has effected on the last few Springsteen albums--"The Rising," "Devil's & Dust," and now Magic, the Boss's reported return to form with the amorphous E-Street Band--has robbed Springsteen of his still-youthful energy and blue-collar credentials, something that has always been key to the believability of his sometimes overly corny manner.

The best parts are worthy contributions to their catalog, and worth the price of admission here. But as a whole, Weather Diaries isn’t the brilliant Ride return fans might hope for. Though there’s enough here to suggest it could be a start, the preamble to the next great Ride record.

On Invitation Dominant Legs have all of the parts of a "sound," there's just a little more assembly required.

There's a theatricality that's akin to the Decemberists, but the sweet disco-bobs of "I Understand What You Want But I Just Don't Agree" and "Play a Little Bit for Love" suggest a more outwardly grandness, a notion supported by the Baz Luhrmann-aping album cover.

You'd be forgiven to not have the hooks of these songs stuck in your head, or worse, confusing them for some other band.... Ignoring this, you have another quality catalog entry from one of modern indie rock's somewhat more surprising career bands.

The first half of this album serves up to be a dynamite, nearly EP-of-the-year standard, if it was an EP. But, the whole album seems less focused and ideally not so much of an album but more a collection of tracks.

Part of what makes it so distinctive is also what ultimately frustrates. The songs bleed into one another until the reverb-drenched vocals and phantasmic spirals of sound become heavy-handed, almost overwhelming.

Everything’s a little less condensed here than previous entries into the Newman catalogue, and the compositions even get to hang loose at times. That does lead to some delayed gratification, but it’s still exciting to see Newman let his hair down a bit--in an understated manner, of course.

They've got the hooks, they've got the personality, and (at their best) they've got the songs. Their low fidelity is a choice for the album, not a way to plug into a movement. And while Past Time might not realize their sound as well as it could, when its working this is a sound that has no expiration date.

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.

For those who maintain that vocals are the most superficial element of pop music however, Scars on Broadway will be a surprise treat.

An almost-perfect blend of '60s-style Britpop, '90s-style Britpop, and the post-punk of the new millennium, Inside In/Inside Out is the rare debut that features not only the kind of exuberance/naivete that only bunch of nineteen-year-olds could produce, but also the thoughtful consistency characteristic of seasoned professionals.

What does all this mean to the casual music fan? Invest in a reissue of Jeff Beck's Truth.