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.

Favourite Worst Nightmare, a demonstrative record of small deviations, may pale before its predecessor but is better.

Take the pop from Guns ‘N Roses, take the pomp from Van Halen and take the piss out of uber-serious nu-metal and you’ve got one of the most inventive metal outfits in recent history.

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.