Dressy Bessy is their most forward, cohesive, and just downright pleasant release yet.

With such a pitch-perfect sonic backdrop, RJ makes it almost impossible for 'Print to fail, each track equipped with all the genetic material an emcee needs to deliver either a sage-solemn message or a quick-witted punchline.

A polished, carefully crafted set of beautiful, intense songs that lay bare the singer’s heart as honestly and effectively as anything she’s attempted before.

Burn, Piano Island, Burn is an album that must first be listened to twice: once to wrap your head around its peerless vigor and skull-rattling force, and again to revel in its restless creativity.

Betke hasn’t merely licked his wounds and retreated into familiar territory, but fused some lessons learned from his own back catalog to create a shiny new beast, at once identifiable as his work and yet something tangibly different.

Despite the chill of "Dormant Love," A Vintage Burden might just be the best summer LP you’ll hear this year--perfect timing.

Even the lesser tracks here endear themselves upon multiple listens, and the best stuff is uniquely exciting given their context of departure from a well-loved sound.

Panda Park might not be one of the easiest albums to get into this year, but given proper time, it reveals itself as one of the best.

I Am the Fun Blame Monster is totally vibrant, totally groovy, and once again, totally awesome.

What makes OK Cowboy worthwhile is not a greater emphasis on the chilly tones that made Vitalic’s initial singles so impressive and characterized some of his savage DJ sets, but the demonstration of a surprising degree of variety and even humanity within those seemingly narrow colonnades of rising and whiplash synths over soulless, mechanical drums.

Ward’s controlled voice never falters or fails, which makes his words of wisdom drill into the soul with unquestionable power.

Writer’s Block has announced the renaissance of both pop music and love.

Why Should the Fire Die? may see Nickel Creek turn further away than ever from CMT’s trappings, but it also shows the band reaching to eclipse its more generic pop-rock reference points as well.

I don't have the conscience to recommend Sojourner to the uninitiated, but as a document of what Molina acolytes already suffer, it's essential.

There are thirteen tracks here spread over 50 minutes, but not once does the quality or pace dip below thrilling. Every track is bursting with ideas and inspired moments.

Far, far better than it has any right to be, an album that sounds like a natural progression of the band’s career and one that, if they’d made it instead of San Francisco, might just have held them together for a bit longer.

A disjointed mess- brilliant songs gone so awry that I find myself no longer excited by the prospect of listening to the album through, but disappointed.

More rounded and less determinedly schizo than Fantasma, Point is a great album of delicious odd-pop made by a whimsically modest genius.

This album comes in a neat package: well-guarded and wry, artists competently displaying their hard-earned skill. It's all very professional, but no more meaningful than the titular appellations, the smile of a persona.

A wild and beautiful ride.

The Boss’ most lively release since Born in the USA.

What really makes Hawley stand out from just about every other contemporary solo artist is his modernization of the classic, silky pop sound and his adjustment of it to fit into today’s world.

The National are able to pack as much power into the songs on Alligator as any of the more heralded indie-rock bands working right now, only The National have taken the common influences and grafted them into something altogether fresh and remarkable.

It all sounds nice enough to start with, but as you hear it more and more you love it more and more, the simple charms showing themselves to be more and more complicated but no less delightful.

La Forêt has the sort of courage-minus-contrivance that is exceedingly (and ironically) rare in music of its dramatic and thematic ilk.

One of the best debut albums of the last five years.

This is their radio-rock record, and it's not a tribute, it's as close to the real thing as they've come since they actually had a chance at radio play back in the '90s.

Jarvis is strong enough, smart enough, and at home enough with its ancient rock-star concerns and unembellished songcraft, for "Running the World" to remain a bonus track. This album doesn't need rescuing.