Beach House’s debut is consistently candlelit, worn at its lacy edges, and at once vertiginous and embracing, somehow residing both at the hearth and on an icy precipice.

Unlike its Fridmann-produced predecessor Dreamt For Light Years employs a stripped-down approach more akin to its debut.

Knives is a quietly simmering LP.

Human Animal comes off as a less directly brutal assault than its predecessor. It sounds a hell of a lot better cranked to ten, though, its contours more explicit, the sounds sharpened to a steely point.

Release Therapy may not be the mature Ludacris record it purports itself to be, but that isn’t to say it doesn’t have some jaw-dropping confessional moments.

As an introductory My Morning Jacket mixtape, Okonokos is top-shelf.

The songs here are superb, the arrangements and production nearly perfect, and Jackson’s singing is the best of his career.

Rather than winning over new converts, AWOO’s main achievement might be to delineate, skilfully but inescapably, the outer boundaries of its creators’ artistic reach.

Ben Kweller may not sum up Kweller, but it’s a worthy personal statement from a popster whose chops keep getting better.

It’s been years since he sounded this responsive and attentive.

Fiasco is actually an absolutely dazzling emcee and a genuinely nuanced personality, and both of these things are incredibly rare in hip-hop in 2006.

TV on the Radio have crafted a work of immense, cataclysmic, almost overwhelming power and righteous fire.

The transition from tracks to songs forces the group to rein in a style that needs to be no-holds-barred. When Basement Jaxx uses this restraint to their advantage... it’s easy to buy the direction they taken. When it doesn’t, Crazy Itch Radio just makes the group appear dense.

Where Last Exit was indebted to the clubbier side of dance pop--with its tendency to wind songs around Dark’s close-clipped beats--So This Is Goodbye is a post-aught pop record first and foremost, an elegant, spacious collection of flash-frozen R&B and soft disco laments.

Pieces of the People We Love is a great funky dance record with guitars, and not much more. Luckily, it doesn’t need to be.

No dispute: Usher, Beyonce, Christina, Britney were just keeping the seat warm: The King’s back on his throne.

Mostly though, it’s status quo.

Buckner’s interest here is in a wallowing mouthful of atmosphere—dominant drums, throbbing guitar, and a fair amount of piano. This has always been the case, but the compositions are seamlessly edited and cleanly brought from instrument to recording.

An album of many highlights but not much visceral or emotional impact.

The language barrier and discord makes the record incomprehensible, but nearly everything is still as intoxicating and entertaining as hell.

Electric Six make junk music for junk times, and they’d be nigh-unbearable if they weren’t so much fun.

Beyoncé has a presence, a character which is totally unique to her, and B’Day’s utterly imbued with it.

A masterful record.

Gala Mill realizes rock polemicist Joe Carducci’s ideal of real-time give-and-take as fully as many of the SST releases he touts in his 1990 book Rock and the Pop Narcotic.

It’s an intriguing and thoughtful and occasionally lively record, but it’s not the rollicking, randy good time some folks would lead you to believe.

With Game Theory, the Roots have finally delivered on nearly every once-broken promise.

Wu diehards will see it as a 35-minute core of classic Method Man, while critics should view it as a 60-minute behemoth that's a marked improvement over Tical O and Judgment Day, but still padded with pointless skits and Charmin-soft rap & bullshit.

There’s an attention to detail and storytelling nous built up by those previous concept albums that makes further listening and exploration of Happy Hollow that much more rewarding.