What's disheartening about In Waves is its lack of a clear identity; the band seem to be targeting too much at once.

If this is the caliber of what Braid's writing nowadays, though, I'll hold out hope for a full effort.

In its totality, Haven exhibits an effortless balance between hip hop and Borth's archetypically haunting, transcendent aural backdrops.

Where Good One goes wrong is in the selection of jokes. Almost every bit on the album will make you laugh, if not giggle, but so much is lost in the purely audio translation.

Influence-dropping aside, Dom excels at their particular brand of synthetically nostalgic, lyrically self-aware ear candy, even if they're not covering new ground.

You won't find a "Don't You Want Me" on this disc, but you will find a band that's aged a lot better than many of their contemporaries, as well as a few tracks that will stand up well alongside those of their modern-day followers.

This is a really pleasing album. Just don't listen too hard to the words.

Nothing can be accomplished if someone doesn't stand up and act as the new gold standard. Kanye West and Jay-Z have proven themselves to be, at the very least, kings of just that notion.

The flowing, multivalent music helps to keep things out of the monotonous emotional doldrums, but Lambert's slow, building, prying questions truly force the listener to examine every bit of the album and the self.

Even a few shiny remixes can't save a floundering sophomore album like this one.

Nevertheless, Vacation is an all-around solid effort, undeniably fun and would serve nicely as a soundtrack for the rest of summer.

My Damnation serves as minor evidence that Chelsea Grin might not become a throwaway copycat. Fans can only hope polish doesn't push these Utah rockers away from their current path and towards the poppier territory of their more famous neighbors.

Although the most audible change between Beauregard and Red Velvet is the newfound immediacy of the instrumentation and the explosive collaborative spirit, Singh's refreshingly strong vocal performance is equally as important.

This is a complex, fascinating record that punches the shoulder for attention.

This CD is worse than a nu-metal reprise, in that it doesn't give true ragers an outlet, but instead facilitates the same false machismo that tribal tats and fake bench-press numbers suggest.

Any listener that's ever heard a twinkly-guitar emo/screamo band and found its vocals a bit melodramatic and its arrangements boring should give The Appleseed Cast an honest shot.

If you're willing to dig around a little bit, you'll unearth a small handful of moments showing Hiatt at his very best. You just have to get your jeans a little dirty.

The album bears Rogue's signature yet versatile voice and simplistic guitar-driven arrangements that recall his eponymous band's first album with the occasional grand gestures of Rogue Wave's later work.

If anything, the extras better inform the choices eventually made on the band's debut, highlighting just how great a record it turned out to be (since, basically, they'd been doing it from song one). Put simply, Icky Mettle is a gem of early '90s rock worthy of a place in the indie Smithsonian.

Essentially, Tripper is not a drastic change for Fruit Bats but an homage to expansion and trying new things–while still knowing where home is.

He literally gives over five minutes of shout-outs, thanking people for their patience, but by the time we get here, our patience is run ragged.

After 41 minutes, Leave Home doesn't linger like a flashback, it sticks like a demented structure that's mysteriously magnetic and, in the end, really fun. No wonder this stuff is addictive.

Let It Beard might be the weirdest but most original album of the year.

It's a strange album, for sure, but the merging of the two musical styles creates something that's rather unique, and should be sampled by any electronic music fan.

Though his lyrics still reveal the same somewhat troubled, fascinated, inquisitive, frustrated, self-aware, and bewildered soul as always, the music itself is pretty bare bones.

The majority of a record being submerged in noise certainly won't please everyone, but Prom stands as a solid second release from a group that certainly has a lot of growing left to do.

While the best part about the tape is its track-for-track coherence–unlike most of Mane's releases, there isn't a single atrocious or incongruous moment here–the worst part is that there isn't much difference between its peaks and valleys.

Old Blood offers a glimpse into the world of Richard Buckner that serves as an ideal starting point for new listeners.

They know what they do well and they accentuate that time and time again. While the stories can get drawn out at times, there is still enough here to sustain a solid listen.

Despite the ability to place this on a continuum, this is a record that sounds so dissimilar from its kin, a unique new version of an old favorite.

And while logically such vast variation should produce a choppy outcome, the album proves to be quite fluid on the whole.

Every number attempts something at least a little differently, and succeeds for the most part.

Nothing, be it labels or names or even time itself, can hold Theophilus London back from making great music.

If you already like 3 Doors Down (and plenty do), then Time of My Life will be another album worth listening to; if you're one of the people who liked "Kryptonite", it's probably not worth bothering.

With Everything's Fine, The Summer Set offer enough of a glimpse to prove that they have just enough staying power to stick around.

The sheer quality that Red Hot + Rio 2 maintains over the course of its two discs and 33 tracks makes this a very noteworthy effort.

Giving the Just Once EP a listen should quell any doubts regarding his versatility, because it's almost like hearing How to Dress Well again for the first time.

This hybrid, mixing tracks that would be at home on a Sufjan Stevens or Dirty Projectors album with strong hip hop beats, creates a unique sound, showing that Serengeti is carving himself a niche in this overcrowded hip hop market. But it's his brilliant lyrical stylings that will pull you in and make you want more.

In summation, for a band that received little limelight in the beginning, Little Dragon showed immense talent and work ethic to earn their keep in the world. Our question is this: Where were those two items when recording Ritual Union?

Thee Physical is music ready for a dance floor (just as much as past Pictureplane releases have been), but it's also a disc that shows growth towards a better ability to blend the synthetic and the organic.

Universal Pulse is the band's best release since 2001′s From Chaos.

It has a sense of Englishness that people might associate with Pulp, The Kinks, early Pink Floyd and Blur, and maybe even The Beatles.

The energy and quality of this record are nothing short of addicting–indicative of a promising future for a young band.

Though Big Talk doesn't deviate from the trusted rock-pop path with a few bluesy stepping stones, it's a satisfying listen in which this drummer-turned-front man holds his own incredibly well.

Sublime With Rome is its own creature, and Yours Truly is a very decent jam album.

On this album, the tracks that are lacking in length often sound as if they–well–are lacking in something else as well. Not to say In the Mountain is a poor effort; it merely seems like it would benefit from a bit more development.

Unfortunately, "Besides You" is the only song really worth mentioning. Everything else is so awash in a wall of buzzing noises, you'd think you were at the World Cup and surrounded by vuvuzelas.

Dripping guitars and distortion follow Crystal Antlers' predictable style, but the messy trajectory of Two-Way Mirror requires serious tolerance for walls of noise to endure from start to finish.

The 11 tracks on their sophomore record, Again and Again, compromise a brief sugar high clocking in at just under 30 minutes, the totality of the album a fun, slightly too tame summer listen.

Join Us is a throwback to the style of music They Might Be Giants built the first two decades of their career around. At long last, the duo has returned to making geeky adult music for geeky adults.

Even without the bonus disc full of rare goodies, this remastered version of Lifes Rich Pageant is required listening.

So far, he's kept a high quality to go along with the high volume of his releases, and Weekend at Burnie's is no exception. It won't be his breakout into the mainstream, but if he continues at this rate he'll be there soon enough.

Mohager takes the propulsive beats of New Order and makes it his own for the modern club set. With a better editor, Mohager's future won't let up any time soon.

He has incorporated some New Wave signposts, with a little melancholy disco, constantly refining what might be the right kind of landscape for his deeply yearning, compelling vocal.

Yeah, he hinted at this sort of consciousness on a couple of recordings in the past, but this is full-fledged social commentary.

Some could argue that the Cool Kids abandoned their original minimalism on When Fish Ride Bicycles. However, they've contemporized their old-school influences for a wider audience. By incorporating both well-known names and lesser-known artists, the Cool Kids are finally in a position to get major exposure.

The reissue of BlackenedWhite comes as a missed opportunity. Odd Future followers will likely have grabbed the expanded (and notably better) version when it was available free online a few months back; newcomers to the collective's output have better entry points elsewhere in their continuously-growing catalog.

While all of that emotional corruption may still tear their home planet apart, this trip-hop intergalactic train has reached its slice of space jazz heaven.

Not a bad album by any means, Buffalo simply isn't a good album: a couple of decent tracks present themselves but it doesn't feel like a 45-minute investment.

While little of the album bears the immediate impact of Zomby's best work ("Tears in the Rain," "Spliff Dub"), this latest offering from the spectral producer proves much more enduring a record than he seemed capable of a couple of years back and one that makes as solid a case as is imaginable for integrating dubstep into the mainstream as one of the genre's first great releases on a label not named Hyperdub or NinjaTune.

Greene's efforts of merging the decidedly low-key sounds of bedroom music and the urban thump of hip-hop represent a good first step in the continued evolution of the genre, but in the end, the resulting efforts feel warped by the confines of Greene's bedroom pop dedication.

He and Budo's work together are a perfect match throughout the album. The lines are well crafted, and poignant, and the music is thoughtfully composed to match.

There are two stellar songs on Gardens & Villa, songs that show a ton of promise, but also make the rest of the uninspired filler on the album pale in comparison.

To say this album is a complete miss would be unfair. In reality, it's a great band reaching for a completely different horizon, all with hints of their previous selves.

Friedberger has a way of nearly speaking her vocals. With Last Summer, this works to her advantage.

Manically projectile vomiting his incomprehensibles over reverb-drenched warm tones, the guy makes Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner sound like Adam Levine. He's yelling something fierce, even if we can't understand it. But the instrumentation is dynamic, powerful, and accessible enough to balance things out.

While consistently solid, Galactic Melt is ultimately just underwhelming. Instead of any real flaws, the indistinguishable nature of the songs is its true weakness.

Kids on a Crime Spree don't bring anything new to the surf rock trend, so they'll likely have to branch out more if they want their music to be remembered.

At this point in their career, Loewenstein and Barlow had found the perfect balance between their creative powers, and it shows quite brightly on Bakesale. To that end, any amount of extra proof that Sebadoh can dig up to prove that point should be welcomed happily.

Summer needs a wistful, nostalgic soundtrack, and Player Piano has stepped in.

At 14 tracks, The Light of the Sun would have fared better if cut by three or four numbers. But that's why god invented the skip button.

From the blood-curdling yells in which the anonymous MC delivers lines about dead cops and human sacrifice, to the positively chilling Charles Manson sample that begins the album, Exmilitary is the real deal, the absolute extent of your parents' worst nightmares when you came home with your first rap album.

As a whole, the album can amount to aural overload. If there's an album that calls for a breather between listens, it's this one. But, taken individually, this is an unbelievable collection of songs that will be finding their way onto mix CDs and iTunes playlists for a long time to come.

While instrumental, the recurrent use of a glistening fanfare motif, present across the album's six tracks, gives these pieces a much stronger sense of cultural and biographical identity than most vocal music.

It's a pleasure to watch a genre change and evolve as this one, and a pleasure to watch dudes as experimental and committed to the scene as Mount Kimbie.

Their sense of naked honesty makes them so vulnerable that it is hard to believe they put it down on record, but that is part of their intriguing beauty; their willingness to fall is because they are pushed by the hands of true experience, and they also create the softest of musical landings for themselves and us.

All the musicians on Rave On Buddy Holly run such a gamut that it's hard to dispute Buddy Holly's continuously far-reaching influence in music. At the same time, if these songs weren't on a covers album, it would be easy to mistake them for a Lou Reed original or an old Modest Mouse track.

To play with the big boys, or to call themselves champions, these brothers will need to figure out what they want to talk about. Until then, they have nobody convinced.

The leaner songwriting on Ascension could very well best Conqueror if it weren't for the scratchy production (why do the drums sound ratty, the synths sound tinny and everything else really seamless?), but it's still Broadrick's best Jesu record since then.

There is no perfect Weird Al album. Each of his records act as a cross section of culture. They become time capsules.

Like Miles Davis or Jimi Hendrix, Jones' inner soul permeates through his instrument and his voice is unmistakable.

They've created for themselves a unique soundscape and vibe to explore in future releases. In short, they've proven that knowledge is great, but a rocking album trumps all.

While it may not be as primal as Street Horrrsing, or as concise as Tarot Sport, Blanck Mass's self-titled debut packs the same sort of punch, and that punch is one that goes directly to the gut.

Lerche's pretty falsetto around an unexpectedly funky beat before blossoming into a harmonious choral chant that evokes the kind of hard-won joy depicted at the end of movies, where people with tear-stained but smiling faces sway back and forth with their arms around each other.

Gold Cobra props itself up as the best thing we've seen from our most hated band since even 1997, and the two albums following that had enough singles to fill a greatest hits compilation one record ahead of schedule.

With an album that highlights the lowlights and vice-versa of being an MC, Big Sean has crafted an effort that makes room for himself on the rap spectrum.

The rest of the album sees the group continue to rip from the history of punk to make something decidedly fresh.

Between doing more of the same old goodness and boiling everything down to its most essential lethality, Beyoncé also makes room on the album for more grandiose tracks that would sound right at home in Broadway musicals.

The album is a shoo-in for being a timeless great, no matter what we say. Vernon's got the magic touch. But it's lacking that original sense of urgency that flowed so freely in and out of For Emma, making it so genuine and so incredibly listenable.

Sound Kapital exemplifies form mirroring content and vice versa. The electro-industrial synthesizers and drum machines convey the Handsome Furs' lyrical convictions better than the band's earlier, less bombastic combinations of synths and guitar.

There's a certain magic in being able to shake your booty to music with heavy themes, and YACHT nails that duality perfectly here, whether they're discussing God, love, or the space-time continuum.

Despite the years spent on it, the Original Cast Recording of Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark is a mixed bag. It would seem that Bono and Edge went into this score thinking it would be quick, easy, and painless. The truth is that Broadway musicals are none of those things, and their lack of knowledge washes over these 14 songs.

The grandeur is only slightly greater than it was before, but they've discovered a certain pop sensibility that was previously absent. And not only have they discovered this attribute about themselves, but they have honed in on that particular trait and made it the focus of the entire album.

There is an air of melancholy that cloaks her work, from The Saga of Mayflower May (2005) to Songs III: Bird on the Water (2007) to Little Hells (2009), and her self-titled record is no exception.

Nothing stands out too much, though, and that's a trait it shares with the rest of the band's ouvre. Nonetheless, this is another good effort from a great band who are coming close to veteran status.

You Can't Teach An Old Dog New Tricks stays true to its title, not really introducing any new elements to this Seasick Steve's canon, but perfectly satisfying if you're coming in not looking for a revelation in his sound. Expect the expected and this album won't disappoint.

On a major label debut, there is very little room to mess around and get experimental, but that's precisely what he's done. It's not a great effort from either end of the duo, and it frankly leaves one wondering what could have been for such a promising pair.

Morrison has a talented voice, but you might as well stick to Glee to hear it.