The songcraft on display here indicates that a similar crossover future is not outside the realm of possibility for these young Brits.

Radio Dept. caught flak for being derivative early in their career, but Passive Aggressive posits that they may have sounded like a lot of different bands during their run so far, but they've always just been themselves: an overlooked band deserving of more attention than the little they've received. This comp should fix that.

Although its completed form has been framed as the most explicit tribute to Fuchs on the album, it is the furthest thing from somber, rocking an insistent downstroke bass part and a series of statement-making, sunsoaked guitar parts.

Replicants is solid, displaying the conflicted inner workings of a sonically agitated man, even if its restlessness makes the album feel too frenetic at times.

You won't catch every note, every shift--he's never that transparent. But there's a welcoming feel to this record that makes it resonate longer than any jarring shift could.

12 Desperate Straight Lines is Lerner's second LP under the Telekinesis moniker, and it finds his introspection all the more labyrinthine, but his chops as a genuine architect nothing if not totally satisfying.

The self-titled release was dominated more by decaying, almost bleak instrumental meanderings than the half-cocked pop-fuzz that made the group's many singles such hot items. 2010's Nothing Fits, released on In the Red, is a near total about-face, consisting of 11 swift, fierce blasts.

It remains to be seen if the loose, congenial vibe of Sun Bronzed Greek Gods can be sustained for more than this EP's 19 minutes, but betting against Dom might be foolhardy.

Like their creator, the 10 songs that make up We Live in Rented Rooms won't demand you listen to them. But the more these songs play, the more layers they reveal.

Kind of like Brooklyn, which wants you to think it doesn't care what you think, The Babies are impressively adept at making it look easy, at making it look like they're not trying too hard. The truth is that there's as much skill and passion going into this slumming side-project than most full-time bands could hope for.

It's in that strange tug and pull from which struggle springs passion and beauty that these men seemed to effortlessly thrive. And it is there with both a genuine, relatable sadness and an unwavering resolve so rooted in the broken concrete Bradley walks upon, that No Time For Dreaming also comfortably sits.

Ultimately, there's a sense of urgency that's missing throughout Honors. The Stampers can surround themselves with more instrumentation and a fuller band, but there's still not enough suspense on Honors to make it a consistently engaging listen.

Underneath the Pine, like Causers before it, is slightly padded, with ambient passages helping bump this past the 35-minute mark.

His self-producing the album allows for complete creative control and its pure sense of cohesion as one track flows seamlessly into the next.

Little Joy never really breaks out of its mostly grey color scheme, and is an album that could test the patience of many, but these do not seem like things that concern My Disco in the slightest.

A powerfully uncomplicated rock album.

Excerpts takes it one step further and expects audiences to linger on the great tidal shifts of memory happening in our minds every day. If we manage to lodge ourselves within his cause, Alary has a whole world behind a world to open up to us.

Like every live album ever, this is pretty much for fans only. A newcomer isn't going to learn much from coming in this late, and casual observers won't find anything here they can't get on LCD Soundsystem's studio albums. But as Murphy seems content to head into retirement after this touring cycle, he's entitled to a victory or lap or two.

Don't consider Saigon's The Greatest Story Never Told his debut, but his farewell. It is a goodbye to the discarded first chapter of his career. The half-decade-in-the-making effort needed to be released in order for the rapper to move on.

Harvey's singing delivers the material by juggling unwieldy emotions with care and empathy. And she makes the experience sound natural -- like a true no-brainer.

As of right now, the main emotional component of this music is the whiplash thrill of hearing rock music played on the edge of sanity, but if we can be nudged into feeling something in our hearts more affecting or cerebral, something more powerful than an echoing warstomp, then we've got a landmark album on our hands.

Keys and effects -- including layered samples from the bands early recordings -- sound like the foundation to the songs, creating a fuzzy expanse that the players worm their way into.

Esben and the Witch sure can make a racket, but parsing out the minimal substance is the real challenge. Better than Salem? Definitely. A perfect debut? Not quite.

Kind of like the whole idea of a disco album, a collaboration with a visual artist about African-Americans' tragic history is something you would never expect from Destroyer, and yet once you listen, it seems perfectly authentic, inspired, and essential.

It would be more of a worry if Dye It Blonde's high points weren't so revelatory or well-executed because while it's not a conceptually brilliant record, there are enough triumphs to score a summer romance and get cut up on mix CDs.

It's rich in talent, even if short on crossover appeal. Tyler is gifted enough to do most anything with his guitar, and he'll move you if you let him.

Everything is more complex, more daring, and simply more produced than anything else they've done. In that sense, it's the best kind of EP, existing because of a discernable creative spark, not as a clearinghouse for also-ran songs or a victory lap following a knockout year.

Is Growing Faith feels more like an actual lost psychedelic-era gem than a revivalist record.