It represents the peak of their career to date, excising the self-indulgent tendencies of before and replacing it with raw, spontaneous, and unfettered power and release that simultaneously addresses the visceral and refined.

Above all, One Second Of Love is a triumph of atmospherics and arrangements.

The ideas it presents of consequence and scars, and the deep pathos with which they are conveyed, are often compelling, but the songs themselves work better here when they sand down the fangs a bit, a concession Stewart is rarely willing to make.

It ultimately lacks cohesiveness and direction to evolve into something truly outstanding, but still remains intriguing enough to possibly earn points with the more adventurous listeners.

If that presentation doesn't always hit the mark, the sentiment behind it often does, and the album never completely derails.

A polite, undemanding excursion--frustratingly stuck to its own sonic landscape.

Here, Mind Spiders achieve what every delirious party-goer wants: a celebration that stretches to infinity.

I Am Gemini is all jerky distortion, an endless sputtering, as if Cursive set out to intentionally make ugly music.

Instead of it being just another Earth 2.0 album though, the completed Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light is a successful experiment in sounding absolutely huge while doing so little, and the confirming masterstroke of Carlson's new direction.

Parastrophics is a capable release that can soundtrack a Bacchanalian night in the city.

Her melodies sound tired and her deliveries sound rushed.

While the unabashed pop moments on Interstellar are truly great and welcome, Rose easily proves she's capable of more daring things.

For all the noise and bluster they kick up to start off the record, Toward the Low Sun is at its best when it's an unassuming return, when the beauty and power of the songs sneak up on us.

Most of the songs on Ester are like partially frozen ice cubes tossed into a drink on a warm day: they work for a little while, but they never turn into something truly solid, and end up dissolving pretty quickly.

Dudes may not be your mom's secret recipe for home-made pancakes, but the music is consistent, healthy, and in the right mood, quite delicious.

There's no doubt that Grimes has drawn from a sea of influence to craft her dark, structured, idiosyncratic sound, but those influences have all passed through a filter so thorough, have been pulled so far from context, that the most striking thing left is Claire Boucher's point of view.

Thorburn anchors every note, every contribution with a personal outpouring of emotion and heartbreak, the likes of which we've never seen from him before.

on Arrow, it's more fun when they swagger around like the road-tested ramblers they've become.

Plumb is one of the top-shelf albums of 2012 so far because of Field Music's openness to continually tinker with pop music's DNA.

Young and Old may not be of the moment, it may not be sophisticated, it may not be ground-breaking, but it's a record that's hard to turn off once you put it on, and sometimes that's all it takes.

Each song here, when attention is paid, is gut wrenching, honest and unabashedly sad while maintaining a sense of resigned acceptance... The arrangements and production, however, tend to drown out Perfume Genius's ability to juggle his subject matter, leaving songs that just don't quite break your heart.

Reign is more nuanced and varied in sound than Treats was.

It's clear that Young Magic have all the tools and instincts down pat; even without meaning to, this album delves happily, though briefly, into pop excellence.

The more these songs scratch at that dried surface, the more fertile soil they reveal underneath.

True to its title, it finds the pair plowing away dutifully and deftly at the furrow that's been their focus from the beginning.

Mux Mool has managed to produce another album as solid as it is thwarted by its limitations.

Errors have built a subdued and often gorgeous album with very little that needs deciphering.

The outright space exploration of Lindstrøm's previous musical outings is sometimes lost here. His dancefloor is fun, but its been grounded this year.

It is in this tension--the struggle to find hope and comfort quickly and the realization that you can't--that Mr. M exists and shines.

Their change between 2007 and now may be incremental, but it's enough to qualify as a definite improvement on their debut.

Control and ambition can go together, and Meiburg proves that, in the right hands, the combination can yield some exciting results.

It holds its cards close, but it's the kind of album that rewards patience and a willingness to dig into the album's complexity and deeply personal nature.

For Van Etten, it's a logical next step in her upward trajectory.

This record is the sound of a young musician being given the right chance at the right time and knocking it out of the park.

It's a restatement of relevance, a testament to strong songwriting, and ultimately, a legacy enhancer that they desperately needed.

Paralytic Stalks is a record made by a genius or a hoity-toity psychopath depending on your perspective--call it whatever you want, but it certainly isn't boring.

A funeral is a termination, but can also be a clean slate. Lanegan completely "gets" that duality--and wields it expertly.

On the whole, the jams and spaced-out scuzz rock of circa-Sweet Sixteen Royal Trux might most closely represent the vibe of Black Bananas' debut.

If Hotel Sessions had a layer of banished songs or the context of label-drama, that would be one thing, but as it stands it's a very boring, commonplace, and unneeded part of music-biz procedural that never needed the light of day.

After that highpoint ["Video Games"] things head downhill quickly.

What we're left with feels like a big blur--an entertaining and wacked-out trip to Wonderland, but not one that I feel particularly compelled to return to.

Vanity Is Forever is understated and bare, an oxygen-deprived world with only super-sized synths and O'Connor's bleak narratives.

The standout tracks are the featureless "Flame Throwers," "Odds Cracked" and "Auralac Bags," the latter of which boasts a noir-ish, alleyway-chase-scene type of beat.

Provincial is an immensely enjoyable album, to be sure, but the suspicion lingers that it could've been pushed into "career highlight" territory with just an extra little push.

It's encouraging to watch a band shift and grow and manage to stay essentially true to form-such is the case here, as is for the album in entirety.

In the end Hospitality is a solid pop album through and through.

The sleekness of the production--this is far gauzier than the straight-ahead brilliance of On--can get in the way sometimes.

The Horror's assault is quite capable of speaking for itself, and that's what makes it so memorable.

On Invitation Dominant Legs have all of the parts of a "sound," there's just a little more assembly required.

The 10-track album is heavily front-loaded--while the texture and tone remain relatively consistent, the writing "relaxes" a bit about halfway through, and there's little in the record's second half that's as intensely arresting as any of the aforementioned songs.

Show[s] only a hair's breadth of progress from previous albums. That's not entirely a ruinious outcome, but it's not always an enticing one.

Cloud Nothings have produced a transfixing head rush of a release and one of the well-wrought examples of '90s revivalism.

Finn's best songs are the ones when he's fully in the present, in tune with every emotion and every detail his protagonists might experience during a particular moment.

[Remiddi's] fastidious mentality manages to keep this song suite afloat, even if the sails aren't always full of creative wind.

Ladies is a strong debut and, overall, it presents a pretty unique environment to get lost in.

The album certainly has its moments, but on the whole it's bogged down by too much middling material.

So while this new set of Civil War-era songs is an often beautiful listen, they end up obscuring Kenniff's musical vision rather than illuminating it.

It feels like a resurfacing, like a promise, and it's a grand closer for this classically GBV (collection) album.

The Roots manage to craft another interesting hip-hop experiment with undun.

How does this sucker sound? Not very good.

What makes BAYTL really frustrating is the fact that besides V-Nasty's appearances, the album has a chance to be excellent.

The Dreamer, The Believer reestablishes Common's place in the upper echelon of hip hop.

While Lioness may not be the perfect Amy Winehouse album, it's all we have, which seems to be enough.

Not to give the Belles short shrift (they play with skilled abandon), but the record sounds like White... straight-ahead crunching blues-based guitar hooks that sound as if they were ripped from Zeppelin II, staccato bursts of noise, oceans of feedback, driving back beats and howled vocals.

Bestival offers the opportunity to take a tour of the band's long, fruitful career, stopping at each stylistic turn in their journey to take in the sonic scenery, but it also adds the freshness that only a live performance can bring.

The bulk of El Camino keeps that approach fresh by twisting their rock sound into a pop sensibility that may feel nostalgic, but here--in this concentrated, potent dose--reveals itself to be just as eager to move forward as it is to revel in the past.

Office Of Future Plans reveals itself as quite possibly one of the most brilliantly sequenced albums of 2011.

There's still plenty to like about the insular production and engaging melodies of Wild One, but I can't help but think North Highlands have a lot more to offer that doesn't always show up here.

Carrion Crawler/The Dream captures the band in psychedelic bulldozer mode instead, delivering ten blistering cuts at a furious pace.

[Out of Boris' three albums released this year] New Album remains the victory lap, a cap to yet another year of successful experimentation.

It's hard to view Radioactive in any context that doesn't label as it a total artistic failure, to see the totality of Yelawolf's rolling over to commercial demands as anything but truly disheartening.

This is a carefree release that is meant for our "reptilian" brain.

The fact that this debut hews closer to the Noel we know certainly shouldn't be a disappointment.

He uses his angelic croon to beckon us to listen to him, sounding so damn desperate. Combine that with the rest of the band's driving, yet ambient build-ups and we have one of our most lovely and earnest records of 2011.

There's no doubt of Sproule's ability on I Love You, Go Easy, both as a songwriter and musician, and her reservoir of talent is far from dry.

Fuck Death, compelling as it is, never quite finds the same charged feeling of purpose [as Skin of Evil].

We have an airy, understated collage that acts more as a stopgap teaser to keep the spotlight on the young lad from London, before something more cohesive and fully-realized can be recorded.

Mostly though, Pusha seems lost.

Not necessarily a mix for ages, but a mix that's pretty easy to come back to, be it road-trips, background music, or a personal headphones-odyssey.

Thankfully, their lovable debut has more of the former than the latter. They know the importance of consistency and pacing and are only left with the task of fine-tuning their band on the road.

Hello Sadness offers the lumbering and deflated version of Los Campesinos!, hiding away their most alluring energy in favor of glum inactivity.

CAMP is an imperfect album, to be sure, one that both succeeds on its incongruities and occasionally stumbles on them.

Like many of the instrumentals on this record, a New Age gauze covers most of these productions. It may not be every listener's particular cup of tea, but An Album is a dazzling song suite for an autumnal release.

Glowing Mouth isn't the ultimate revelation it sets out to be, but Milagres put on a charming show.

Though he's still in the spotlight, only time will tell if these more brutal, free-jazz brass tendencies will alienate Stetson from the melody-seeking set.

Throughout it all, it still feels like essential, singular Waits, like moody and manic are two sides of one very marked coin.

Tycho is worth any self-respecting electronic fan's time.

As a series of a mood pieces detailing the luxury lifestyle of hip-hop's one-percenters, Take Care is fairly captivating. As a portrait of the artist at the top of the mountain, however, it's pretty frustrating.

The Vision shows that thus far Joker works better pushing out erratic singles than within the format of a full-length.

In Panic of Looking, he keeps speech in the realm of analog, not digital, and still makes it into music.

Social Climbers is a valuable document of its time, place, and a reminder of the greatness that might get away.

It's deeply dreamy pop, not unlike Beach House (with whom Lanterns share a UK label in Bella Union) or Mazzy Star, though their songwriting isn't quite up to snuff with either of those.

It does two things that disparate types of electronic music do, and manages to bridge the gap between ambience and glitch so seemlessly they feel much closer than you might have first thought.

Even if you've got Smoke Ring for My Halo, go get this one (it will be available as its own vinyl pressing), because this thing is way more than just some tacked-on companion piece.

Veirs' delicate, informed touch makes the album a worthwhile listen for anyone interested in taking the first step toward delving into America's back catalogue.

The EP does have some great moments, and ironically it's when Blake drops the dubset and channels his classical piano roots.

Humor Risk proves that striking a balance doesn't necessarily imply stasis.

Producer Brian Eno has guided them towards more expansive instrumentation and bombastic atmosphere, but the center of the music often lacks real heaviness.