Less dense than New Brigade but equally as prowling, You’re Nothing spits and stuns.

Austra do a stellar job of navigating a sea of vintage synth sounds and applying them tastefully and appropriately so that they sound at once both retro-cool and strikingly forward-thinking.

He knows his job is to play us music, but he's got to do it for him, too. 

By the end of the year, expect Harris' star to steadily rise as 18 Months continues to devour the calendar-and the universe.

While topping Smoke Ring outright nearly seemed insurmountable, Daze is (at an impossibly neat 70 minutes) a larger, more diverse and heavier experience.

Most of Living With the Living is in fact very good--which is to say that only some of its songs emerge as equals with the best of Leo's personal catalogue. [#24, p.90]

A blush to the cheeks means the music is working.

Mirroring the lack of linearity in Lanegan’s career is the contrarian approach to this collection.

Lanois' impeccable production outshines his songwriting, but it's truly beautiful what this man can build. [Winter 2008, p.100]

A lot of bands pepper blues and soul influences into their work, but Joe Lewis is genuinely capturing the spirit of those styles and making them relevant to modern audiences. No easy feat, and it's damn fun hearing him do it

Unhurried, deliberate and raw.

Lisbon, solemn overall, plays like a jukebox at closing time, wrung out but ready for a new day. 

[John Reis] and compatriot Gar Wood have injected the fire of Hot Snakes into The Night Marchers.

Though they never reach full roar on Lion, the sinister growl of songs like "Patient Eye" and "Coral Den" are enough to send chills down any cinephile's spine. [#24, p.97]

Aheym is a moving work but it is also challenging: The quartet saw and slide with impeccable skill with Dessner as their captain.

Through and through, fans will be happy to see their former drinking buddies up to their old antics.

The success of Bromst is in Deacon's ability to stretch his compositions out, giving space and finding a better bridge between saccharine hooks and sampling experiments than he was able to provide on his previous LP. [Winter 2009, p.98]

This is a fine pop album; it bites as well as bops. [Spring 2009, p.96]

Simple without being simplistic. [#14, p.98]

At times, it sounds downright lively, even as Eitzel paints a lyrically bleak outlook and focuses on character creation over self-examination. [Winter 2008, p.92]

That the group could go from the sneering jauntiness of 'Girls And Boys' to the paranoid anxiety of 'Song 2' with no drop in hook-effectiveness is startling in itself; that it managed to continuously and effortlessly navigate th incomprehensible expanse between The Kinks and Brian Eno is an utterly singular achievement. [Summer 2009, p.94]

Resurrecting ghosts of endless summers past, Allah-Las are modern surf and psych-rock at its best.

The second disc of this deluxe edition makes Brighten The Corners's faults more difficult to accept as hard truths. [Holiday 2008, p.98]

Otherworldly, weird and downright gorgeous. Siouxsie oughta be proud.

However, even with the musical trappings of contemporary conventional rock, Siouxsie’s voice and look, blessedly, remain the same.

There is a lot going on here, sonically and substantially. [#11, p.98]

II is the perfect 21st-century escape from so much banal guitar music.

This is a promising new approach and one that Tycho sounds genuinely thrilled to be exploring.

Frontman Tim Booth grapples with emotional instability and alienation, a lyrical content the band has layered over an appropriately modern and very British rock sound. One can't help wishing, however, that the band would have released a proper full-length instead of an admittedly disjointed and ultimately less-than-ideal collection.

A delicate collection of near-gospel songs for the brokenhearted.

Attest[s] to the group's pummeling might off vinyl. [#16, p.87]

On Departing, there's no lack of that rawness or emotion, and the crippling nostalgia still reverberates throughout.

From the album's opening electro-tribal groove to Tunger Hnifer's distorted bass and scratching vocals, the instrumentation throughout Who Killed Sgt. Pepeer? is both massive and of the varied type. [Winter 2010, p.98]

Think piano, think cabaret, think somber. [#8, p.104]

Gone is the blissed-out sunshine of earlier Vines releases, and instead rampant paranoia comes to the fore. [#20, p.91]

The record does sound like the soundtrack to a bad dream--but you won’t want to wake from it.

With Afterparty Babies, he proves he truly belongs on the other side of the speakers. [Winter 2008, p.105]

Every album tells a story and, thankfully, Wolfe’s story changes all the time, a morphing type of self-expression with completely pure intent.

The indie scrappers' fifth album is as cocky, defiant and shouty as earlier efforts.

The Dan Deacon machine returns from Bromst-land (relatively) leaner, (relatively) focused and (absolutely) teeming with sound.

He forges yet another new vision: one that involves psych rock, quirky funk and bossa nova as much as it does hip-hop and electronica. [#19, p.104]

Super Taranta! cements further the untouchable status of Gogol Bordello.

The result makes sense, too, but is a bit more refreshingly unexpected.

Mayer Hawthorne's sturdy sophomore effort boasts "aw, shucks" love songs gift-wrapped in a silky Curtis Mayfield falsetto.

Cheers to Torche for proving a heavy-rock band can be optimistic and sincere-without sacrificing any of the edge.

With the influx of worshippers only getting stronger these days, Active Child is a welcome addition to the pulpit.

Sometimes Petkovic’s confessional urgency takes its toll, but those hooked by ferocious rock riffage might be too stoned to hear the lyrics anyway. It’s all in the title: Petkovic’s love letter to his hopeful future is a loud one. Mission accomplished.

Amazingly, only a couple of times does the broadness of what is going on get in the way or misfire... and at album's end, you can look back in wonder at how in the hell a barrel of cartoon monkeys managed to pull it off again. [#15, p.93]

Here, they iron it out into something more epic and exploratory. Strange basslines float under guitars that riff on high-life note-picking and fractured, heavy rhythms.

The problem with any attempt at sleazy blues metal is that you’re somewhat doomed by comparison to everything Led Zep has ever done. But Mssrs. Plant and Page might even flinch at the ferociously unrepentant scuzz of “Blue Blood Blues” and “Hustle and Cuss,” with its spooky Hammond and heaving dynamics.

Despite their penchant for over-the-top tribute, Kings of Leon recycle classic rock 'n' roll with such earnestness and ebullience, that it's hard not to sing along. [#6, p.88]

From the album's very first strains, you know something mysterious, maybe even mystical, is afoot.

Despite the classic rock pastiche, Cosmic Egg somehow manages to strike a balance between being a carbon copy of a legendary rock album and a tribute to an era--call them the Quentin Tarantino of hard rock.

On Mouseman Cloud, Guided By Voices frontman Robert Pollard is up to his same old genius.

It’s no leap forward, but surely no step backward either.

Weightlifting isn't unusually exceptional; it simply keeps the chain of magnificence unbroken. [#12, p.101]

Darlings is enormously enjoyable but it is also familiar, sometimes overly so--comfortable in a way that implies Drew is content to rest on his impressive laurels.

As a whole, Eagulls is a refreshing, unrestrained album, a cool drink of insta-nostalgia for the best of the late ’80s, early ’90s rejecters of the mold.

Oneida have blossomed into a welcoming landscape all their own. [#21, p.102]

Appropriately, the Brooklyn ambient-musician’s incandescent-yet-stentorian release acts as a warm and pacifying salve for the heartbroken and exultant alike.

Missing the debased lo-fi fuzz of its previous 7-inches, Best Coast's first LP is still a clear good vibration in complication amour, resonating through hot, stoned days of West Coast love and lonely, sleepless nights of unanswered phone calls.

Although it perhaps lacks the wasted acrobatics and distracting volume that populates today’s popscape, Give The People What They Want nevertheless reminds us that it’s both range and heart that helps compelling soul music survive both a century of cynics and existential close calls.

Drones with the grit of a band that means it this time. [#9, p.103]

Think Damien Rice fronting Coldplay minus the unabashed bombast--and reveal a future of nothing but promise.

While the dotty cant of Mahon's guitar playing skews in Sleater-Kinney's direction, Internal Logic is largely an exhibition of the dramatic power of restraint.

Swimming's arrangements and harmonies speak to a contemporary sensibility--one well aware that, for all the beauty of living in the moment, the moment still passes by. [Spring 2008, p.94]

While [Hamelin's] lyrics are less likely to be mistaken for emo (good), they're also less evocative (bad). [#20, p.102]

The band's third self-titled album deviates not an inch from the brutal style that's served them well since 2002. [Holiday 2008, p.92]

Still vital at age 53, he's delivered another cantankerously great Fall album in Your Future, Our Clutter, a bristling suite of relatively spacious, always unpredictable songs clammy with mutant distortions that are never less than electrified.

Not only is Bury Me in My Rings a pleasant segue into warmer seasons, it also serves as a reminder that there are more Rilo Kiley members besides Jenny Lewis worth keeping tabs on.

The Terror is simply the latest (and darkest) report from those reaches, one that generates holographic intensities of the dire straits this band has seen throughout its 30-year career.

There are crisp and slow electro beats, echo-drenched vocals and an absolute well of soul that touches immediately, deeply and profoundly. Whatever these guys think they're doing, the music is heavenly.

Vile has -- to paraphrase something that David Foster Wallace said -- his own way of fracturing reality, and it's so true that you'll feel it in your nerve endings.

It's not so far from under The Shadow, but that doesn't hinder this album a bit.

An album awash in electronics and found sounds, Tomorrow Morning is as warm as it is weird and the perfect listen for anyone who wrongly believes happy people are all the same.

His deftly executed--and surprisingly eclectic--debut features flourishes that Liam never would have allowed.

The practice spent fiddling with slower and more methodical tracks on the excellent "Purpleface" EP shows its effectiveness plainly here. [Summer 2009, p.100]

Their unholy powers combined, they give us Hair, a raucous, psychedelic guitar skirmish that transcends descriptions of its creators' individual works.

It’s an album that wears its weirdness on its sleeve, but it’s the best kind of weird, and a joy to listen to.

On Singles, their first for 4AD, the band perfect the persuasive and pervasive nature of pop.

Sounds like something made by a gifted producer who has a great voice, an earnest way with words, a vast well of fantastic ideas, and a serious OCD complex. [#12, p.95]

Rather than trying to funk up and freak out the tunes with oddball sonic contributions, the fivesome rely heavily on the strength of their three-part harmonies and the head-bouncing guitar hooks. [#10, p.90]

Throughout, this is gorgeous; every tune swelters in a setting sun, his voice honeyed in harmonies. Essential.

Truelove's Gutter ranks right up there with the rest of his vastly underrated catalog; it's as ambitious as it is simple, elegant as it is morose. [Fall 2009, p.92]

A mainline noise-punk onslaught that roundly refused to cease and desist.

While Hannon's aesthetic/literary weltanschauung is rather haughty, it succeeds by sheer force of intellect and style. [#11, p.95]

It's the post-apocalyptic sonics, the industrial-strength bombast and buzzing bondage-core that mightily sustains its frightening 16-track, one-hour run-time.

The brevity is a disappointment and the songs at times feel like B-sides of something more un-inked, but Radiohead are (and definitively always will be) musicians capable of emotion at the rawest base and somehow binding it to melody and lyric-forever haunting and influencing future generations too numerous to count or imagine.

Finds [Beck] consolidating his considerable talent by combining all his disparate influences into one coherent collection of songs. [#15, p.90]

Big Wheel and Others represents McCombs’ most transient yet memorable volume of song-carved verse yet.

Morrison turns his ever-honest eyes towards fatherhood and commitment, while the band balance his emotional vulnerability on thin lines of guitar, dangling the whole thing over a churning ocean of rhythm.

It's so extravagant, trecherous and cocksure that it could almost make Interpol sound like a pleasant chamber quartet. [Mar 2008, p.94]

Lex Hives won't start a revolution, but it's enough to keep the ghost of CBGB mighty happy in her grave.

Digi Snacks shouldn't be considered or approached as a complete meal, but it should tide you over till the next full serving of Wu. [Summer 2008, p.94]

A little unbalanced, Anything in Return nevertheless showcases again just how good its maker is at his craft.

Although the songs carry recurring tropes of eagles, devils and the sea, as well as her signature intricate guitar picking, the most haunting aspect is--considering this accomplishment--realizing the potential that is yet to come.

Anywhere I Lay My Head is a starling achievement not because Ms. Scarlett has simply managed to cleverly re-imagine some assemblage of Tom Wait songs, but rather, because she has seized upon precisely why they affected us so much the first time round. [Spring 2008, p.91]

Atlas, the ever-weighty third album, finds this cohesive crew, past and present now in lockstep, considering how best to turn their internal dialogue outward and beyond.