Hercules & Love Affair is a testament to the great foresight and control is required in a disco producer to keep the track from lunging into an abyss of low-blow kitsch, and to be able to stimulate the ears and feet at the same time.

McCombs still has an ear for language and roll-off-the-tongue singing. His voice coats the lyrics like thick warm caramel on this one. Though often obtuse and twisted, McCombs includes some straightforward lyrics, as well, with some political commentary to boot.

As expected, the album's highlights are its patient explorations.

Of all the group's works, Pick a Bigger Weapon has a greater sense of inclusion and belonging.

A noticeable departure on Kiss Each Other Clean is that Beam seems to be having a genuinely good time on the album.

If there's one thing made clear by the satisfying catharsis and musical quantum leap of In And Out Of Youth And Lightness, it's that Patterson should ignore his earlier advice more often if it results in albums of this caliber.

Wild Flag is the creator of an absurdly good album, one of the most vital of 2011. Wild Flag is not a supergroup. They are a super group.

What makes Marling engaging is that her music presents scenarios without deliberately sounding like poetry or art. Her songs do not emphasize the beauty of sounds or musicality of words so much as clip insightful observations from conversations.

On their fourth album, Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free, they've simultaneously intensified and refined that blend, even as they've shaved off one of their original four members.

If there's ever been an advertisement for allowing bands to develop before they blow up, Native Speaker is it. You'll probably listen to more immediate albums this year, but few will have the down-the-rabbit-hole quality that marks Native Speaker for success.

To call the album the band's most accessible to date is no slur. There's nothing wrong with accessible indie rock when it's this pristine and polished.

On Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!, Cave weaves yet another tapestry of characters.

Donuts is a big black pot of sonics, comparable only to Madlib's 2002 effort, Blunted in the Bombshelter, the difference being that this is all original material.

If Donuts was Jay Dee's swan song, The Shining is a glimpse of what his work may have sounded like in the future.

Ali can do this, can take the familiar, the overly confrontational, even the trite and overdone, and make it riveting, because he has a voice that strains syllables so that the meanings of his words are made perfectly clear--you can't escape what he's saying--and a flow that loads and unleashes relentlessly.

The Body, The Blood, The Machine is the holy grail of anti-political/anti-religion records to come out in the last seven years.

By investing a now-classic catalog with immediacy, freshness and a delicate, humbling charm, Sugar Mountain not only stands as the best argument for the Archives series and illumination it could provide, but as a classic live record in its own right.

Return to Cookie Mountain makes Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes look almost silly by comparison.

This Is for the White in Your Eyes is a come-out-of-the-gate winner.

Ballad of the Broken Seas is mysterious and theatrical and totally cool.

Mono has upped the post-rock ante with You Are There.

Vast in scope and breathtaking in its beauty, Illinois may very well be the album that heralds Sufjan Stevens as one of this young century’s most talented artists.

Where You Go I Go Too takes the meaning of the term "full-length" quite literally, stretching his already epic electronic disco into works of effortless symphonic grandeur.

The songs sound as modern and fresh as if they were recorded last year.

Under Great White Northern Lights is a perfect explanation of the band's significance to doubters, now and in the future.

Case's genius as a writer, evident from track to track, stems from her ability to write lyrics that conjure up amazingly clear images but that still leave the songs as a whole up to interpretation.

This time around, Zomby isn't constraining himself. This record sounds big.

With In Ghost Colours, Cut Copy have created a record that is both en vogue and timeless, familiar yet fresh, full of glossy optimism, and unforgettably gorgeous from start to finish.