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.