The most wildly inventive, exploratory, unafraid, surprising, nonsensical, and flat out funkiest single I’ve heard all year.

Musically, Holland could be considered the more eccentric and authentic second cousin of Norah Jones.

On Sung Tongs, the group has deftly combined all the traces that ran through their earlier work into a vibrant and beautiful collage that flows as smoothly as Here Comes the Indian, with all the mood of Campfire Songs, and even more pop hooks than Spirit.

Strongly, boringly decent.

True, Think Tank is flawed. There are many, many things wrong with this album.... But the record’s peaks are extraordinary.

It doesn’t matter how well you can thrash or shred if it doesn’t sound good, and rarely does a section of Bang Bang Rock and Roll sound as if it wasn’t well thought-out and created with the intent to entertain.

It’s mostly top-flight crudity, though admittedly the album’s intensity wanes over its second half.

My Morning Jacket has come into its own here, transcending underground fetishizing to become the kind of band that can make jaws drop and tears fall anywhere it damn well pleases.

The Sunset Tree is one of the most volatile, affecting and coherent records he’s made yet.

A good and often great debut.

The squeaky-clean production of Misery Is a Butterfly has been smudged, sanded, and weathered.

Snaith’s newest album, Andorra, merges "Milk’s" heady sense of immediacy with a clear and consumable swiftness.

Enjoyable rather than revelatory, and quirky rather than profound.

An album of many highlights but not much visceral or emotional impact.

More inventive song writing and a less antagonistic stance could have helped Sigur Ros create something as equally stirring as their previous album.

While the commercial potential of her new album may be up for debate, as a showcase for Rosin Murphy’s talent, Overpowered is an enormous success.

Kano has spent the last several years making “grime” records, but for better or worse, Home Sweet Home isn’t one of them.

Anyone that expects the pulsating You Guys Kill Me would be better off sitting this one out, but Elliot has pulled off a tricky feat here: stripping down his sound to more orthodox "rock" instrumentation, without losing his edge.

In a year that’s produced first-rate albums by OutKast and Lucinda Williams, Bubba, a self-proclaimed redneck from rural Georgia who most people pegged as a probable one-hit wonder three years ago, has beaten the odds and made both the hip-hop and country album of the year.

Pyramid is not Songs: Ohia but the musical equivalent of A Season In Hell, not something one can take in often, but which is beautiful for the fact that it was completed at all.

It could be the soundtrack to death, love, pain, strength, joy, suffering, courage, despair, and faith all at the same time.

It’s the rare reunion project that actually adds something of significance to the band’s catalogue.

Bachmann’s transition from indie curmudgeon to singer-songwriter is complete: his arrangements are now horn- and string-fattened creations of grand sophistication; his songs now contain hope and broken spirit simultaneously; but the most significant growth displayed on Red Devil Dawn, and the reason this album is Bachmann’s finest moment since his Barry Black days, is that you can now see Eric Bachmann as the subject of most of his songs.

While there is lots of good, even great music out there, not much of it even begins to touch Neko’s passion.

Watch out for this guy’s next album, because I can guarantee it will contain a Top 40 hit. Go ahead and listen to him now so as to impress your friends later.

Though it loses its momentum in the final few tracks, and prevents me from giving it the downright slobbering it might otherwise deserve, Broken Social Scene, much like its release day partner, You Could Have it So Much Better..., is a cinder in the eye of all the indie-haters.

It acts as a perfect counterpart to Rejoicing in the Hands, featuring the same elements that made its successor such a valued release, while incorporating enough new ideas to make it much more than Rejoicing in the Hands: Part Deux.

A much more consistent and coherent album, equaling Gorillaz’s high points and easily besting its shortcomings.