Throughout Emerald City, Vanderslice uses his celebrated producing talent to control feedback and mold it into an instrument as vital as the guitar and piano that are so central to his music.

All the idiosyncrasies which either drew you to Waits or repelled you from him are present, and many songs hold a resemblance to past gems.

Taking a step back and struggling with that always-expected "hot band" dilemma, Why? is coming to terms with his career as a musician. Judging from the quality of these eight songs, he appears to be handling it well.

The Terror may be The Flaming Lips’ most concise statement to date.

To the outsider, this album certainly feels like a defining statement, one that has considered each and every molecule that this abstract marvel might assume.

There is just something so appealing about such guileless, honest music, music that sounds like it was easily made, and that makes it look so easy to do.

These are songs that should be performed on a rare cabaret stage in a slum.

As something along the lines of throwing an old Pink Panther soundtrack in a blender with a copy of Reason 3, every track on Denies The Day is a scene from a different film you can't quite remember seeing.

ANTI is folk music played in a video-drome circularly projecting a 360° image of sprawling, semi-wilderness on fire as a compassionate, loving apocalypse. It’s a charged bleeding heart of sponsorship and exclusivity thrown into the throat of Yosemite. It’s a white horse galloping fiend-like across the continental divide, with a hoof-print-tire-tread that could pull the land apart.

Narrow Stairs is the sound of a band falling in love with the concept of sound; as such, Gibbard’s stately lyricism largely takes a backseat--although his voice has never sounded more different and varied.

The album’s subtlety and abstract tendencies prevent it from becoming solely a work of stock collage or pastiche appropriation.

Rock music is ultimately about a wild feeling, and Milk Music are delivering it in just the right place.

Despite expectations, it’s an utter joy to listen to--a simple display of what 21 Savage sounds like when he’s having fun rapping.

All My Heroes Are Cornballs serves as an electronic manifesto for his fans, guerilla warfare of the auditory kind. Umberto Eco would be proud.

Good Sad Happy Bad is ultimately an optimistic record; it tries to bring out the positive in some of the most negative sounds around.

Pan Am Stories is an early masterpiece for Knight, an ambitious photographic travelogue constructed out of the raw materials of bedroom psych-pop.

Throughout, ego is rightfully extended through the sheer material force of his content generation. The listener must ultimately face their visceral love or hate toward his character, or, at least, observe how the majority of any given subway ride is in their feelings with his music.

There's a swagger about Dents and Shells unseen since Since.

It wipes away the dust and brings fresh ideas into the room.

While the album isn’t exactly synergistic in its coupling of the two singers--neither Kurt nor Courtney achieve their lyrical or musical apex here--Lotta Sea Lice nevertheless intimates an unrelenting kinship between its two auteurs.

The songs seemed to absorb the vista, their embers sustained underneath the settling dusk.

Theirs is an 18-year experiment in empathy, in putting themselves in the place of Others, in trawling through the muck of human experience to find sparks of connection and compassion. English Oceans isn’t the Truckers’ best record, it’s their only record.

The Magic is Deerhoof’s 13th full-length album, and it’s one of their most well-rounded, sweeter offerings, perhaps a companion to Friend Opportunity or Offend Maggie in size and spirit.

Total comfort food.

Words behave like beats on this record, raising the question: what isn’t a beat? Drops pervade the tracks. Is every beat a drop? Every drop’s a bounty, certainly.

Ambient music since its inception was about overlapping voices and how it effects perception: two, three voices are one sustained tone across and infinite period of time, where interactions intersect and combust. Visa exploits this to brilliant ends.

BSP aren't going for a concept album here (or concepts at all, really), but you'd be forgiven for expecting one given how beautifully the collection of songs coheres into a singular piece of work and retains momentum through its movements.

Exciting things are still happening amidst routine and constancy, and sometimes submitting isn’t settling or getting saved; it’s letting yourself get moved against all odds. And that may be rock & roll’s only remaining saving grace, one that Spoon continues upholding and confronting with every album.

Although Slime Season 2 bears a resemblance to its slimy predecessor, in that both have a jumbled track sequence and silly cover art, it does hold the notable distinction of possessing some much-needed confidence.

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.

This is a much better effort than anything they've done in quite some time.

It is familiar, but it is Peter's familiarity.

Fortunately, It's All True is every bit as great as their early releases promised.

The minimalist arrangements are still here. The bored baritone voice hasn't changed any. The personal-yet-guarded lyrics can be found throughout.

Lennon isn’t attempting to re-invent the wheel with Friendly Fire; he’s just writing a narrative using thoroughly enjoyable pop melodies.

Jay-Z has rebounded to make one of the year's most interesting and engaging rap records with a sense of immediacy and wordplay that no Denzel Washington film could match.

DAZE is a collection of perverted smash hits in overdrive, a keyed up, obsessively concerned, hyperbolic exaggeration along the lines of Werkflow compatriot Recsund’s recent mix for Disjecta.

There is a true communion with the brimmed-over melodies and rhythms, but a desperation that seems to know solemn silence isn’t what’s left over. Often, the listen feels like an impossible reprieve in a crumbling structure, with a rich echo helping to sell you on your own resolve. Not unlike love itself, it is a riveting, wrenching, and absurdly rewarding experience.

Dance music gets one step closer to an honest depiction of euphoria; yes, yes, you’re drooling quite heavily, but at least you’re drooling through an earnest smile.

Consistently unique and fascinating.

If we measure Q-Tip's success at "abstractionism" in terms of how his voice, message, and golden ear complement each other to bring out hip-hop's full musical potential, then Kamaal is a clear success on the artist's own terms.

On top of being instrumentally impressive, One Life Stand is Hot Chip’s most emotional release.

It's business as usual, but there is not a damn thing wrong with that when it comes to this group.

Popular Problems, his 13th studio album, has everything of which a latter-day Cohen album is popularly known to be composed: the amelodic, magical croak of Cohen’s own finely aged voice; the hyper-melodic shine of his singers, who have become as integral to Cohen’s project as he himself; a loose, blurring approach to genre and tone.

A smart, garrulous collection of folk songs.

So maybe Nothing Hurts won’t be a record at the vanguard of a movement. But it certainly moves.

There are tons of memorable hooks and verses all over 10 Summers.... All of these moments fly by and come across as natural and effortless, even “formal” in the platonic sense.

Thankfully, such peeks of inhibition are brief, and Cox spends far more time confidently beckoning us into the glorious world he's created. For the first time, this is a place where we're to be cohabitants, not merely invitees.

It’s a slicker, more professional, and more abstract matrix-y record that might put off any fans of the singer’s lo-fi confessional work.

For the most part, the pop songs work better than the mid-tempo numbers. They’re more spirited, but less moving. “Praying,” for example, is better as catharsis than as an earworm, but it’s no less powerful for that.

The music is often awesomely original.

Wilner’s talent lies in revealing the abundance of music locked inside even the smallest fractions of extant recordings.

As hard-rock takes on the shape of minimalist composition, the repeated rhythms and snatches of melody express rage and frustration long after the lyrics have ceased explicitly stating the message. It’s the kind of song that feels as appropriate today as it did 33 years ago. That kind of fervor makes ...For the Whole World to See such a blast and a defining example of the spirit that drives not just rock ‘n’ roll, but true outsider art.

Never ratcheted up over a pleasantly throbbing pulse, this is music as anti-depressant, mood enhancer, and muscle relaxant.

As always, Berman and the Silver Jews work best in their classically sharp, witty song stylings and deftly produced Americana constructions. And most of the songs here exhibit just that.

Hospice is a work of rare beauty and a watershed moment in The Antlers’ career.

I'm New Here is undoubtedly a bleak record, and given Scott-Heron's trials, it's hard to imagine it being anything else. But his take recognizes a hard-earned beauty, as well.

Quixotic was one of the best albums [in] Europe last year and Anything will be one of the best here in 2004.

A Day with the Homies is a generous record, littered with gestures of friendship. The music is pleasant and simple, the melodies nurturing and whole.

Middle Cyclone still stands out as another strong entry from a woman who is more than proving her mettle as a revered indie veteran.

Regardless of what you think of his previous and complicated output, he's proven here that he can just as easily make sick chill as maniacal IDM or ambient glitch; and he's just as strong as anyone else going.

It's a great introduction to the wide range that Broadcast works with, and it holds together as well as any of their albums.

The most subtle incorporation of drum machines, horns, and vocal effects transforms Bon Iver’s music from the quiet afterthought that characterizes much of today’s indie-folk into a sonic landscape of moods and nuances.

Post-Nothing is convincing in its candor to the point of exhaustion.

Real Estate might not be the best classicist-leaning pop record of the year (that dubious honor goes to the more stylistically varied "Album," by Girls), but it certainly is the most confident, the most assured, and the most unassuming.

As it stands, the album (along with the essential corresponding film, Icon Eye) stands as a rather moving document of the profundity of the cross-cultural and cross-generational conversation that goes on throughout all popular culture, and given the niche audiences for both Sun Araw and The Congos, this project offers a view on a very rarely explored conversation at that.

It was great listening in on Hungtai’s world, a filmic mixture of life and life-that-can-be.

There isn’t a misstep to be found here. There are a couple moments that veer close to an overly-maudlin tone (namely when the piano shows up on the sixth and final tracks), but this tone is just part of the strange alchemy of traditional singer-songwriterisms and fumbling tremulousness that make these 45 minutes so curious.

These pop-forward moments are frontloaded on No Shape, extravagant and baroque. The soaring production value is not accompanied by conceptual upending or reinvention, but rather extends into a grand sort of sequel vision of Perfume Genius.

Not only, then, is Spoils a splendid introduction to Alasdair Roberts’ repertoire, it is also a fine way to get your feet wet in the British Folk kingdom.

Pullhair Rubeye is significant not because of its aesthetic and non-conceptual disposition, but also for its dedication to instinct and brave novelty (in the best sense of the word).

True Minds continues a proud tradition of celebrating dead ends and lost causes.

Jackie doesn’t often transcend its own well-established boundaries, and it doesn’t flow as ***Flawlessly as TMT favorites Beyoncé or 1989 (much of Jackie’s most interesting moments occur in its first half), yet it is a solid alternative for those craving that rare and varied pop gem that warrants repeated listens.

An intriguing album that grows both more complex and more likeable with each listen.

This is Jack Tatum's Platonic pop record, and if it doesn't meet the expectations of critics, for lack of soupy textures or the rough edges of home recording or whatever, it's because he exceeded them.

It may not break much new ground, certainly not for instrumentation or other reasons given, but it's one of the most solid albums all year.

They’re a thrilling pair Richard Bishop and Ben Chasny], giving each other space to stretch out but staying close to cohere. Corsano matches the energy of each with an enviable malleability, staying closer to Bishop than a shadow, then turning around to throw cars, houses, and oil tankers into Chasny’s twisters.

With Swim, Caribou has transcended the confines of indie pop and electronica.

The memory of the dream’s worth nothing, but you’ll chase the feeling all day. This album is a lot like that.

It seems nothing can stop them from releasing a good-to-great album each ear, and Preteen Weaponry is another sensation that will likely be taken for granted.

The satisfaction at being amongst those who make it through to the other side threatens to supplant the sonic satisfaction, but there's nothing artificial about it; if anything, it's flat-out welcoming.

With Christs, Redeemers, they ignite a range of complex reactions designed to inspire and to petrify, the consequences of which reveal a wholly unsettling listen.

There is something martial, something insistent, to Compassion. True to his aims, Barnes has created something that denies passivity.

The hit and miss nature of Transistor Radio makes it seem more like a compilation of songs rather than a cohesive album. But in the end, the album is a winner simply due to Ward's unique voice and talent as a songwriter.

An architecture of mediated sound is being built here, flecked with the indelible traces of the locations, communities, and forms of feeling contained in the music. And, importantly, the process of this construction is suffused with joy, with the afterglow of countless nights remembered and forgotten.

Ships is a brilliant collaboration of the finest indie minds backed by only the best intentions.

These Four Walls is a consistently exciting album full of memorable songs, and one of maybe five records this year so far that I would recommend unreservedly.

Her words read and speak like a haunting.

It may be something of a litmus test for newer listeners due to its uncompromising severity and double-album length (I'd suggest either of the aforementioned full-lengths, which are somewhat more manageable), but longtime advocates will no doubt be pleased.

The depth and craft in these songs keep The Sun interesting and make its inspired moments that much better.

Fab and singer Rodrigo Amarante (of Rio De Janeiro’s Los Hermanos) affect the heavy hearts of coastal lounge singers yet retain the resilience of city kids who can’t be beat. Although backup singer Binki Shaprio is too feathery to really make an impact, the sum of Little Joy’s sincere regret and wide-eyed optimism lend a bedroom intimacy to the group’s debut.

With Childish Prodigy, his debut for indie-juggernaut Matador, Kurt Vile stretches and pulls the increasingly annoying “lo-fi” tag into interesting new shapes, distancing himself from his Woodsist-kin.

Again is probably one of the most derivative albums I’ve ever heard. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though.

Saturn Over Sunset is imperfect and timeless nonetheless.

In the end, Junior Boys' improved skills at constructing pop songs within their fantastic sonic template is more than enough to make So This Is Goodbye one of my favorite releases of 2006 so far.

Craftsmanship sets him apart, and allows Insides to be as incredibly moving as it is and always will be. It will easily be one of the best electronic albums of 2009.

Lazy Saturday mornings are meant to be had with this album.

Absolution is an emotional, philosophical, sophisticated, poetic, and beautiful piece of rock music.