The Further Adventures combines the absolute best aspects of well thought-out and researched studio work with the spontaneity and showmanship of live performance.

Ghostface and Younge’s filmic vision comes together with great aplomb, and yields one of the bloodiest, most ambitious, and straight-up funnest hip-hop albums of 2013.

The rich, roomy tonal fidelity on display is a big part of what makes Angel click.

Church Gone Wild/Chirpin Hard may not be exactly groundbreaking or revolutionary, but it's the kind of idiosyncratic release that reminds experimentalism to laugh when something's funny.

Garden of Delete is the exceptional post-performance of the readability conjured in the wake of OPN’s work, and as a result, it critiques experimental culture’s desire to fetishize.

The music enables Vega’s voice as his best accompanists have: providing the expository setting and minimalistic bedding necessary for Vega to project his scene upon and float above. His delivery will sound strange to those unfamiliar, but it will be oddly cozy to those who have known it all along.

With a less captivating vocalist, this kind of genre-hopping might have felt inconsistent, a potpourri in constant motion, too scattered to register an impact. But Polachek’s range, her penchant for leaving her gasps and deep breaths in her vocal tracks, her carefully thought-over phrasing — these tie Pang together into one very earwormy book of spells.

Easily the blissful equal of jj or Memory Tapes, A Sunny Day In Glasgow are diffuse enough to avoid easy classification, and Ashes Grammar is easier to enjoy than it is to write about.

Each of the nine songs here (this album, unlike Why There Are Mountains or Lenses Alien, feels less like a suite and more like a collection of individual songs working together toward a theme) merits extensive and attentive lyrical consideration, though such an analysis deserves a treatment not feasible in a standard-length review.

Divers steps outside of itself. Its lyrics are obscure, and its melodies are more variable and complicated than those of the “overstuffed gorge” some saw in 2010’s Have One On Me. At particular moments, though, it is plainspoken and personal.

So, if you're with indie-pop’s backward-gazing contingent, or if you prefer it when ‘achingly beautiful’ actually aches, or if you want an example of style-versus-substance as a false dilemma--then get this record.

The only problem with this album is the difficulty you're going to have explaining what the hell it sounds like to your friends after they hear you raving about it.

Stetson very literally breathes life into his instrument, and in turn, like the statue transformed from stone to flesh, his music softens our hardened selves--it reminds us that we were once made, too.

On Merriweather, their art reminds us that immersion in Western tropes need not be met with scorn, that not all of its idioms have yet been exhausted, that embracing optimism and melody can still be so relevant--and it aches in the most soulful of ways.

Crack the Skye has the feel of a classic metal album, steeped in impressive musicianship and stylized construction; it’s the kind of album you can repeatedly rock out to without ever feeling the desire to skip even one moment of its sprawling majesty.

Everything that Happens Will Happen Today is the product of one of the better collaborations that modern music has known.

Art of the Improviser is a testament not only to the improviser's art, but also to solo and group composition, both in the immediate and overarching sense.

The timing may be off, but Total transcends trends to be one of the year's best dance records, and a likely cult classic in the making.

DS2 finds a hellish, motivating power by articulating how it’s possible to have the best time of your life during the worst time of your life. And it all sounds so good.

Sad music has never sounded so uplifting.

It's an album from a songwriter at the peak of his powers, having tempered his imaginatively destructive impulses with his affection for all things old, rough, and beautiful.

Now, on On the Water, they've paced themselves, slowed down the tempos, and left room for ambience, such that the album's fevered points hit much more poignantly.

This is complex, life-affirming music that's both serious and playful, steeped in tradition yet as highly original and forward-thinking as anything you're likely to hear this year.

These are performative anthems, which use the sonic and affective history of their sounds to construct towering emotional peaks. It is essential inasmuch as it succeeds in touching on something inherent, drawing from a pre-conscious set of sounds to create music that is as striking as it is affecting.

Daniel has successfully harnessed this concept to produce an impressively cohesive art object on all fronts, one that yields perhaps the most provocative statement any musician is likely to make all year. It just might be a little too provocative for some.

m b v is good, Slowdive is great.

Volta is Björk’s best album yet.

Riveting from beginning to end, Now Here Is Nowhere is a delightful record filled with memorable and often astonishing songs, showcasing a young band that has set the foundation for one exciting future.