Octahedron isn’t a representation of the best The Mars Volta are capable of, but it is a glimpse into the power they possess when they better harness their capabilities.

Whether Dragonslayer is as great as any other work is almost irrelevant; it is great and it is grand, and it is all too welcome.

Travels With Myself and Another is the best thing this crew has ever made. It’s got all you could ask for: hooks, riffs, volume, wordplay, razor-sharp absurdity, and Jack Egglestone’s incomparable power drumming.

Yes, Ambivalence Avenue is an album that defies expectations, and it is also Bibio’s most creative and penetrating release yet.

The lyrics here are sparse and, as with most of the album, indiscernible. It’s rare that a rock album could be so enjoyable without a great presence of the English language, but Person to Person certainly is.

While still retaining that exacting focus that has made Dirty Projectors the unplaceable enterprise that it is, Bitte Orca is merely the sound of an extremely talented group of musicians tweaking and, to an extent, reinventing their approach, stepping a little further away from left field.

The Eternal is accessible, listenable, and all the rest: another consistent album from the consistent rock band Sonic Youth.

Rainwater Cassette Exchange is another reason to head down to your local cassette exchange and a great nightcap to polish off one of last year’s strongest albums.

More often than not, Chung’s tireless attention to his work is well-edited, and even the most chaotic and boisterous tracks are riveting.

The very thing that animates the structure begins to ferociously explore, digging beneath its creations in order to observe itself. It is unclear whether the exploration of the structure’s depths is motivated by curiosity or by a need to undermine itself and to challenge its own creation.

Fans of Iggy Pop would do well to give Preliminaires a spin, since it showcases a side of the artist not readily visible in his other work.

It’s no "Donuts," but it’s definitely another solid entry in the Dilla canon and a reminder of how lucky fans are to have another beat tape this valuable in the absence of the man himself.

Far from the naval-gazing, self-conscious banality one might expect from such a young artist, Moondagger is filled with moments of philosophical prowess and intelligence.

The result is a piece of art that had too much pressure ascribed to it, that found its creators trying too hard to make a masterpiece when they could have followed a more natural progression.

Enjoyably dumb and agreeably psychedelic, Eating Us is easy listening for an easy-going season.

It seems to have brought a band who had so long mired itself in total darkness into the cleansing light of day, and in both cases, the results are awe-inspiring.

While the center of Blackshaw’s compositions will likely always be guitar, he has shown with this album that he can write music for several different instruments and do so incredibly well.

As a debut full-length, City Center shows much promise and can rightly provide the soundtrack to a strange summer.

This is expertly crafted music, but perhaps too intent on being discomforting: the music intentionally aims to unsettle you.

Scattergood’s voice is the star, but it can be utterly distracting, a vessel for an expressive, prolific writer who may be too afraid of the revision process.

Unfortunately, the goodwill that Eminem builds up with these engrossing and macabre Mathers family confessions are too often torn down by his tedious turns as a goofy court jester.

It’s Frightening is far from a bloodless copy of a more vivid being; it is, rather, a living, breathing creation, one that is only dubiously theirs.

On the whole, Manners mostly evens out into a consistently listenable experience, the joy of one absurdly successful track spread out in variations and reformulations across the entirety of an album with inevitable dilution in the process.

Anyone who dug Beam’s official albums will likely enjoy this odds-and-ends release.

Although Commuter is nearly musically indistinguishable from a Grandaddy record, it feels comforting to have Lytle back, to hear him working through his issues with new music.

This newest Cocker incarnation restages this conflict in a way that establishes his continuing vitality and creativity and confirms that his sardonic wit has only sharpened with time.

Yesterday and Today, the sophomore effort from The Field (nee Axel Willner), can be easily understood as part of the tradition of moody follow-ups a la In Utero: a pairing of a signature sound with willful experimentalism.

It’s certainly an enjoyable collection of pop songs, but, unfortunately, it’s mostly innocuous and not as remarkable as past efforts.