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.

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.

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.