This is mature, considered, powerfully expressed stuff, anti-hipster in its refusal to draw explicit attention to itself, commercially questionable in its lack of instant-gratification melodies and structures. What a breath of fresh air that is.

Grinderman might actually be Cave’s sappy hopeless romantic testament. That he accomplishes it without orchestral arrangements and mopey strings is truly impressive.

A restless, questing work.

Without interesting stories to tell, it all feels like an empty-calorie exercise in vapid songcraft.

Because of the Times... reveals a band growing musically and revealing the requisite growing pains.

Mostly he just wants to make big, fun, Bowie-esque declamations or work out a nervy punk jones.

Clearly, what we’re dealing with here isn’t a new Modest Mouse, but one with a few new, calculated tricks.

An unflinchingly grim set.

Leo hits a few bull’s-eyes.

The arrangements are lovely, as always, but it’s Bird’s openness (as opposed to his inscrutability) that pays the greatest dividends on this exquisite, resonant work.

Person Pitch is a paradoxically personal yet expansive work, a set that seems incredibly intimate to Lennox but universally open to a world of possibilities.

In the end, underneath the strings and the percussion and the guitars, that is what The Arcade Fire has been about: making us want to do. That the band again achieves that goal, after changing its scope and refocusing tis sound, makes Neon Bible a success.

The Search is protest music for the cryptology set.

For better or worse, RJD2’s talent is beat-making. While it’s easy to applaud him for following his dreams, we can’t give him extra marks for his output.

Give Tobin credit for shaking things up, but Foley Room is more an example that proves he should stick to his strengths and go back to the vinyl-filled crates for material.

All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone is not that perfect album that reinvents the genre, but it is a primer on everything good about it.

Perhaps an unrefined but fiery bar band would have been better suited to accompany such nakedly raw material.

You want back-to-basics? This is it.

The hooks are much more muted than on the band’s debut Oh, Inverted World, and overall Wincing the Night Away assumes a less assertive stance than sophomore standout Chutes Too Narrow.

Kingdom Come is exactly the kind of rote product Jay-Z seemed to want to avoid when he "retired": It's a victory lap without a victory, a rare instance of a rap superstar blowing his own horn and yet sounding half-hearted about it.

Orphans is a bravura showcase for the instrument of Tom Waits’ voice.

The narrative plot of each song retains the best features of Newsom's previous work, and is gloriously wordy. Here might be the album's one weakness, since it's simply hard to understand a line like "Scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?" when it's set to rhythm, to say nothing of back-and-forth dialogue.

+44's first effort is an enjoyable diversion, but it's not apt to stop anyone's heart.

As with many concept albums, the concept itself gets buried beneath the show-off virtuosity, the band's ringing need to not only impress but bedazzle the listener.

An album that feels a bit self-conscious in its adult-contemporary skin.

Shadow simply holds together better than recent Jurado efforts.

Unlike the groups' prior albums, Remember the Night Parties carries less heft due to its shimmering pop mindset.

What sounded fresh and spontaneous a decade back now seems labored and wearying.