I always felt as if those moments of triumph in the band’s music were the focal points, the “good stuff” you waited for and wanted to arrive and then stay forever. This time around though, they appear to have taken a backseat to the band’s darker impulses, and staggeringly, Takk sounds all the better for it.

Disappointing, but still a worthy purchase.

There’s a lingering sense that the product at the center of all the hubbub remains something less than its lofty reputation.

Tempting as it may be to assume that beefing up their sound would have automatically made the Decemberists markedly better, the truth is that these strides may have at least partially come at the expense of the things that always made the band so singularly compelling.

Somehow The Polyphonic Spree have managed to make a record that actually is simple, joyous, and spiritually uplifting.

A set of saccharine sweet songs which occasionally dissolve spectacularly in a haze of whirring electronic mist.

Rarely has a band created a world-space so monolithic yet provided a listener with so many easy routes to the interior.

It’s a strong and dynamic step forward for the group and deserves to bring them a level of recognition commonly accorded their more famous Montréal label-mates.

Ultimately, it's that broken, half-told beauty that gives Dog its mystery, but also perhaps its feel of a record you may always like but around which you may never really feel completely comfortable.

If anything, it feels like Gibbard has regressed to the point where he sits in the shadow of his bandmate and producer, Chris Walla.

Multiply sounds like he picked up some ancient reel-to-reel tape from lost Holland-Dozier-Holland sessions and gave them a 2005 production spit-and-polish.

If there are complaints to lobby against this remarkable debut, they lie mostly in its sound-quality. Namely, it sounds like what it was: self-recorded and self-released.

Cast of Thousands is a great record, beautiful and emotionally powerful as well as musically inventive... a refinement and extension of their vision that will emerge as one of the best records of the year.

Nothing too dire mars Vega’s compositions, which remain as condensed and detailed as Victorian miniatures.

An immediate and combative disc that blurries up a litany of angers over surprisingly versatile layers of pop-punk guitar thrusting, The Body, The Blood, The Machine is a focused tantrum, irresolute in its actual stances, but pissed and rambunctious enough to overcome its vagaries.

Inches succeeds, and then some, because the record simply doesn’t sound like it’s been collated together over a nine year period.

Such are The Clientele’s gifts that its hard to believe The Violet Hour is only their debut album; few bands with more impressive vintages and prolific back-catalogues have managed to make records as touching, cohesive and deeply seeped in their own character as The Clientele have here.

It’s been years since he sounded this responsive and attentive.

Secret Wars feels like a keeper, like an album I’ll pull out and play and still love ten years from now.

With Change... The Dismemberment Plan feel little need to show off with self-conscious musical ostentation and excess, instead choosing to focus themselves on making a fantastic, understated and involving record.

Underneath the surface of these grand productions lies hidden undercurrents of malice, disgust and social commentary- all things that would seem to be at odds with a beautifully constructed pop song.

A record for the creeping darkness of a hot summer night in which the night seems to last forever and the heat, the same.

Out Of Season is both a remarkable record of beautiful music, and an outstanding, awe-inspiring performance inducing near-irresistible feelings and sensations. This album is a sublime example of the art of the singer, and of the art of music.

Fiasco is actually an absolutely dazzling emcee and a genuinely nuanced personality, and both of these things are incredibly rare in hip-hop in 2006.

With Game Theory, the Roots have finally delivered on nearly every once-broken promise.

They’ve cleaned up their grungy guitar lines (thank you Sub Pop), reworked a few of the best songs from their early EPs, and the result is undoubtedly the best contender for the Arcade Fire/Broken Social Scene-helm of 2005.

Figuring out where each part is originally from will be fun for the fanatics, but isn’t necessary to enjoy the mix.

The songs here are superb, the arrangements and production nearly perfect, and Jackson’s singing is the best of his career.