Every track on Hate surpasses the high standards set by its predecessor. Go buy it right now.

Totally brilliant, mind-meltingly good, and as different from Secret Wars as possible, except that both of these albums could change your life.

Absolutely essential!... It’s a coming-out party on the level of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless.

A perfect synthesis of modern studio manipulation and old-time pop craftsmanship, shattering all notions of what pop music can, or for that matter, should be.

It's achingly beautiful without relying on maudlin sentimentality to win the listener over. Genius.

Welcome Interstate Managers is a watershed accomplishment, surpassing the band's debut in terms of whimsical pop songcraft, lyrical astuteness and blind melodic ambition.

The Notwist can sculpt more emotional sounds and music into a compact and cutting four minutes than most can do in a career.

It is simple, winding, hypnotic and beautiful, and it makes being human bearable for a while -- without in any way detracting from its essential tragedy.

Source Tags and Codes is phenomenal. It's one of those albums that starts the listener on a seeminlgly unsustainable high note, and uses that as a launching point.

Dangerous Magical Noise is rock and roll at its pure, shaggy best. If you're tired of that, you're tired of life.

A powerful masterpiece of an album.

It's simply wonderful -- bristling with pop masterpieces large and small, and reassuringly unburdened by Smith's deep-seated malaise.

The sheer scope of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is so utterly breathtaking that repeat airings only reinforce its stunning songcraft and otherworldly sonic splendor.

A strong contender for album of the year, Shaking the Sheets is a masterpiece of fucked-up mod pop: political but not preachy, insistent yet never twitchy, respectful but never blatant.

I defy you to find a more elegantly shambolic, soulfully homespun and, indeed, heartfelt album than this.

Separation Sunday stands a chance of being one of 2005's true classics.

This is a wonderful album, full of heart, skill and intelligence, and sure to be recognized as a classic.

As perfect a brew as this is, it's Gelb's voice and lyrics that push the music into otherworldly territories.

Musically rich throughout, Everything and Nothing is a spotlight for Sylvian's stylish, Brian Ferry-inspired baritone, his fascination with eastern culture and spirituality and the beautiful orchestrations of songs like "God's Monkey", "I Surrender" and "Some Kind of Fool".

No one else is making literate, story-based pop this good.

Shine A Light is metallic, screamo-ing, ear-bursting, confused and chopping. And man, it's great.

It is completely different from either Akron/Family's or Angels of Light's work from earlier this year, and in Akron's case, represents a startling pace of artistic development.

His vision appears to be his own, and just happens to coincide with both the director's and the author's visions also, resulting in one of the best soundtracks -- and albums -- I've heard in a long time.

There's emotion, extraordinary technique, and a surprising, oh-so-welcome passion in the singing.

Like Madlib or MF DOOM, Four Tet is at the crest of the electronica/hip-hop wave, forcing the genre's evolution into new realms and making everyone else look like amateurs in the process.

Mass Romantic more than repays any musical debt owed by the good people of Canada. In fact, it’s going to take some pretty strong efforts by America's best and brightest to match The New Pornographers' achievements here.

Though the covers on American III will attract the majority of listener attention, Cash’s own material steals the show.

It's another Merritt CD that's so good, it could radically alter the world if it was broadcast from the moon.

Killing Joke feels as fresh and exciting as 1981's album of the same name.

HaHa Sound is a good example what a talented band can do in an era of infinite possibilities.

There are very few artists who could pick up where they left off after ten years, or even five. To do this after half a lifetime is extraordinary.

It is a more intimate and more cohesive work than anything else he has done, but it is decidedly difficult, tossing aside more ingratiating effects in favor of a haunting, ethereal mood and a single, thematic narrative.

Imagine a troupe of gloomy cow-punks careening down a thundering Hawaiian pipeline and you've got a bead on their wildly divergent sound.

This is one of the breeziest, catchiest discs I've heard in a while.

For a band only three albums into their career, they're showing inordinate amounts of brilliance.

She Has No Strings Apollo is, if anything, a portrait of one of the most passionate bands you'll ever hear, at a time when they've fine-tuned their improvisational telepathy.

Unlike so many of their Gang of Four-worshipping peers, Bloc Party are that rare band that can actually transcend their influences and press clippings, crushing the fervor surrounding their arrival in a hail of splintered guitars and sumptuous despondency.

Without a doubt the best Elvis Costello record that Costello never recorded.... wistfully irresistible pop confections filled with effervescent melodies and clever lyrical wordplay.

Few electronic artists working today have the balls or the skills to pull off an album as unconventional and uncompromising as Go Plastic...

Seven Swans plays like a stripped-down, less thematic counterpart to its predecessor. It's also strong enough in its own right to keep fans arguing for months over which album is better.

This is a wonderful album -- and a significant advance over the excellent Sung Tongs.

One of the best and most moving albums of the year.

For all of Walking with Thee's obvious musical accomplishments, its most impressive facet is the ability to transcend all the hype, hoopla and haranguing surrounding its release.

After you've listened to Rock Action for the first time, you may be hard pressed to believe that Mogwai merely wrote these songs; you'll feel as if they created these symphonies out of thin air, pulling gorgeous sounds from within the deepest recesses of the human soul. Eventually you'll come back down to earth and realize that Rock Action is by no means divine...but it is very, very good.

This is one of Cave's best album in years, if not an immediate candidate for a career highlight.

Nashville is further proof that Rouse is one of the best songwriters of his generation.

I Am a Bird Now is a sweet, sumptuous brace of noir-laced cabaret pop, distinctly out of step with just about every other album released this year.

This is a record in which Warren has fused elements of dance, rock, trance and folk to create exquisite pieces of crystalline future-leaning pop.

One of the best instrumental albums you are likely to hear this year.

Terroir Blues is an excellent album released by a man who knows he's at the height of his powers, whether anyone else knows it or not.

Herren takes what amounts to a series of completely artificial electronic noises and whips them into one of the most soulful, funky, relentlessly compelling albums since the Neptunes' last outing.

No More Shall We Part is a beautiful, elegant record, capably fulfilling the promise of The Boatman's Call, but it exacts a harrowing toll from the listener. This is not a record to which you can listen lightly; if used as background music it will gradually darken your mood, like poison seeping slowly into a well.

True to its title, The Slow Wonder is a much more relaxed and toned-down, yet no less complete listen than Electric Version or Mass Romantic.

Make no mistake about it, The White Stripes are the real deal, and if they can continue to kick out the jams as they do on White Blood Cells, everyone else would be well advised to get the fuck out of their way.

As wonderfully crafted an album as Reconstruction Site is, some listeners will be put off by its perceived highbrow attitude; it's too scholarly for the masses, too pop-smart for the avant garde set.

I doubt the public at large is ready for a full-scale introduction to an artist who can mesh big bands and big beats, but those of us who are ready for such a union should be glad we have it all to ourselves, for now.

This is one of those rare albums where every single track is a keeper and killer hooks abound.

The Australian band's trademark winsome optimism, clever heartbreak and bittersweet cuteness are in classic form here, only lusher and more layered.

A monster of an achievement.

Since We've Become Translucent does an almost unimaginably good job of adding heft, weight and, god I hate to say it, maturity to the garage idiom.

The songs may pay excessive homage in spirit, but their composition and divergent tones are wholly original.

Coast... sounds more logical, deliberate and downright organic than its predecessor. It's simply a more accomplished recording; because the band had enough time in the studio, they were able to fine-tune the sound to their satisfaction, creating an album that moves them forward on every front.

The album retains the trademark layered sound of earlier work, the dueling guitars, the wailing vocals, the powerfully musical drumming, yet it plunges into much darker territory than before.

An album of rich melodies, aggressive percussive breaks and richly textured atmospheres that intelligently synthesize the whole of electronic music history.

A terrific and long-overdue reissue that's sure to satiate established fans as well as the new converts it hopes to earn.

Tortoise have created another batch of distinct, inimitable songs that strike a perfect balance between the academic and the playful, the immediate and the eternal.

There is no shortage of understated brilliance on Love Songs for Patriots.

Primal and raw and powerful, the Gossip's third full-length is straight-from-the-gut punk desperation tinged with the hope of gospel salvation.

Through smart songcraft, a powerful command of pop vocabulary, and skillful track sequencing, Dios Malos deliver an album that expands and grows more complicated with every listen.

He's at the height of his powers here, as vital and relevant as ever.

His most compelling, not to mention complete, work to date.

Truly unlike anything else you'll hear this year, hip-hop or otherwise.

Pole is the sound of a restless musical talent and intellect seeking out like-minded collaborators, expanding their horizons, and producing an otherwise impossible synthesis.

The band's most realized effort to date -- a brilliant amalgam of dense future-primitive soundscapes and heartbreaking twilight flourish, bolstered by curveball arrangements and a sense of unified purpose.

The music is just as pure and personal and unintermediated as before, but it sounds better in every conceivable way.

Picks up, astonishingly, exactly where the band left off, not exactly retracing old paths but branching off of them into new and exciting vistas.

The Great Destroyer is a marvel of layered beauty -- the sort of album that makes you call in sick to work so you can spend a day with headphones clamped to your head, charting its every elegant nuance.

Secret Wars is more than a good album. It's an incredible experience, taking you out of your daily life into a mysterious and mind-changing space.

Rarely is so-called "difficult music" so rewarding, and rarely is it so simple.

It's a remarkable album.

Double Figure is as instantly memorable, not to mention listenable an IDM record as you are likely to hear this year.

A unique indie-prog masterpiece that owes as much to Hendrix as it does to Sonic Youth.

The most remarkable thing about Tournament of Hearts is that technically, it is the Constantines' slowest, jazziest, most countrified release to date, but it doesn't give an inch of intensity when it's compared to their self-titled debut or the landmark Shine a Light.

It's the sound of a man in perfect harmony with himself.

Taken alone, each of these songs sounds exciting and raw. Taken together, Low Kick and Hard Bop is further proof, if any was necessary, that this is a woman posessed of a singular talent and an even more singular vision.

Not Them, You brims with all the bravado and swagger that its title suggests.

If he's not this generation's most raggedly refined songwriting presence, then he's certainly in the top ten percent of his class -- a bona fide show-stopping tunesmith on a par with giants Elliott Smith, Ron Sexsmith and Richard Davies.

Without a doubt one of Callahan’s most inspired collection of songs to date.

They've truly hit their stride on Universal Audio.

If Boy In Da Corner marks the beginning of distinctly British hip-hop, the genre's standards are already impressively high.

Time and time again throughout Panda Park, 90 Day Men prove themselves a rare breed -- a band capable of embracing tradition without becoming overburdened by it.

The Mars Volta have not only revived prog-rock as a viable commodity; they've injected it with an electric vigor that the lumbering dinosaur hasn't witnessed in ages.

Shrewdly combines peculiar electronics with melody without ever letting either genre gain the upper hand.

It highlights their talent for finding the core of invention within repetition, and suggests far greater peaks (and much greener valleys) in their future.

This is a terrifically exciting debut, imbued with a zest, energy and songwriting flair that warrants -- perhaps even commands -- some sort of attention.

This is the album that should put Dressy Bessy on the big map.

Saying that the man knows his way around a hook is an understatement: he throws hooks around like an incandescent bulb does photons.

Rather than detract from the funkified weirdness, the guest spots from the Adult Swim crew actually add to the craziness.