Man Man fans probably weren't expecting "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head"–levels of optimism from the happy-titled Life Fantastic, but the vibe on the Philly-based band's fourth album is pretty morbid, even by their standards.

The surgical-mask costumes help in that regard: coupled with their herky-jerky brain-scan riffs and malevolent aura, Clinic look more likely to perform torture surgery on your ass in some water-logged basement than give a concert.

Freedom’s Road addresses his pet topics — hard work and small-town life, not to mention freedom and the road — in catchy-enough tunes built with rootsy guitar licks, boot-scooting beats, and the occasional splash of spaghetti-western strings.

It's heartbreakingly gorgeous, and if it's sometimes easy to miss the club-kid joie de vivre Antony brought to last year's brilliant Hercules and Love Affair album, well, that disc didn't have this one's lush Nico Muhly string arrangements.

The smooth shape of this album - there's no rising or falling action - and lack of a big concept won't replace 2005's Black Sheep Boy for diehard fans, just as the superior The Stand-Ins didn't in 2008. But Elvis Costello fans should holler.

Even at Tesfaye's most awkward, it's impossible not to be intoxicated.

Tennis are still cute as a button, but now they have songs to go along with the smiles.

the Waits of Glitter and Doom Live values theatricality as much as storytelling. As on his previous live album, 1988’s "Big Time," Waits often borders on playfulness.

Everything feels dead in the desert, but Return is rife with life.

Hecker's sonics are huge and unrepentant, but they tease the ear; individual sounds are highlighted by their sustained revision.

Cautiously, I submit that Join Us, their 15th album and first non-children's release in four years, has that old-school TMBG feel, as if the Unlikely Rock Band ditched the self-conscious weirdo-geek shtick for a more genuine weirdo-geek non-shtick shtick.

It's easy to imagine her getting very famous, because Torres doesn't wash the songs out with its prettiness.

Zoo is a fine tribute to [often-compared band]Wire's heavier side, alternating between powerful, lumbering riffs and manic splatters of guitar noise.

The fuzzy guitars start to blend together as the album progresses — the point, perhaps, but Black Mountain do well to break up the repetition with 'Stay Free,' an acoustic, falsetto ballad, and 'Queens Will Play.'

Even when Fountains of Wayne are phoning it in, they're never less than professional. Think of this as a thoughtfully-written greeting card of an album.

This is the work of artists confident enough to embrace a sound that makes them happy.

The cumulative effect can be like listening to a church choir doing canons while simultaneously crushing OCs on your bicuspids, one at a bloody time.

[A] terrific, visceral album.

At their best--during the disc’s torch-lit forays inward, the piano-ballad title track and the forlorn 'We’re Looking for a Lot of Love'--Hot Chip get serious, delving into the up-late tangles and riddles of the 21st-century heart.

The band do fluidly navigate between ideas and structural experiments here, only occasionally overdosing on their newfound taste for moping and melancholy. In short, Crush turns tropical punk into a simplistic and inaccurate characterization.

VYP nonetheless shows, perhaps by design, a pretty convincing arc of maturation.

At a certain point, the xx need to turn off that reverb pedal and learn to sing above a whisper - but I'll be damned if they haven't worked their magic again.

Ear Drum doesn’t reach the highs of that far more ambitious and sprawling album ["Train of Thought"], but it’s a welcome return to form.

Hard Bargain is a gorgeous album.

Art-pop triumph "Tell Me" puts it all over the top as the zenith of Triple D's young career. That's something to be optimistic about.

For the most part Life Death Love and Freedom makes good on--and somehow makes entertainment of--its sober sense of purpose.

Guilty as charged, then: I’ll gladly let Moz, my all-too-human co-pilot, do my thinking for me.

This might not be the experimental genre-crossing venture the duo set out to accomplish, but it is a slideshow of timeless pop songs.

At War with the Mystics is as accessibly odd as Yoshimi but more scattered and darker.

Women + Country sets the standard for new-century conformist rock--a genre far less boring than that phrase might suggest.

Mirage Rock might as well be the name of a new airy-rock subgenre, with luscious, echoey story-tunes rolling in like a soft mirage-inducing mountain fog.

Shadow's densest and longest work at first sounds like an overstylized, underwritten retread with lots of superfluous cuts sporting names like "Tedium." But it eventually rewards hard listening.

When Old 97's are on--which they are most of the time on their eighth studio album--they're very, very on. Rhett Miller's writing is the definition of neatly sculpted songcraft, with every piece firmly in place, and not a bit of fat.

The majority of the songs aren't much more than bare bones, with sparse piano and spacious, airy guitars, but it's the way the women work together so naturally that promises more than a one-off experiment.

Gibbard's carving out new musical territory on Former Lives, while amplifying the broken heart of what makes his sound so wonderful.

It’s better this way, all apologies to Meg White.

Telefon Tel Aviv have always been the product of two drives (both senses), but on Immolate Yourself, for the first time, the workflows of Cooper and Eustis merge a single, renewed vision. They go a bit poppier than they've ever gone, yet it's also their darkest work.

The band's wonderfully detached mood seems born of their music's head-bouncing distractibility rather than any pretentious pondering.

These 11 tracks are mostly mellow and melodic, with some Otis Redding-style come-ons

Even when Banhart seems more in a predicament than in the zone, he’s hopelessly inventive. Several songs experience complete transformations over their modest three-minute spans, succeeding like little daybreaks.

Ascent is stuffed with psychedelic guitar virtuosity, moments where Chasny leaves this plane and enters one of those transcendental, mind-freaked, head-tipped-back, eyelid-fluttering states that few are capable of.

The thread that tethers I'm Gay to the rest of Lil B's immense, sprawling catalogue is his earnest loyalty to the central tenets of the "based" movement: love and positivity in the face of adversity.

[It] depends less on the band’s gear-smashing antics than on their sense of tunecraft, which isn’t as highly developed.

Strangelet... seems like the work of a man who hasn’t aged a day since he figured out what kind of music he wanted to make.

There's more melody here than on previous Mastodon albums; opener 'Oblivion' even has a sweetly grungy Alice in Chains breakdown. And Brendan O'Brien's production does increase the fist-pumping factor in 'Divinations' and 'Crack the Skye'--the latter of which bites some of Metallica's Black Album rumble. But this is still a forbiddingly dense piece of post-prog rock.

The History of Apple Pie aren't exactly breaking new ground in the world of indie rock, but they are the sort of band who win you over in seconds.

National Ransom isn't the midlife masterpiece that obsessives have been pining for, but its finer points are worth seeking out, in all their sepia-tinted glory.

Langford and co-vocalist Sally Timms lead listeners through tales of country, God, and man with a weather-beaten grace that would make Nick Cave fans squeal.

T Bone Burnett's trademark production has the rhythm section thumping as if you were listening to the whole thing from a booth at your favorite pub. Which suits Earle fine.

As precious as your grandma's finest china (and 10 times prettier), All Will Prosper nearly dissolves into shapeless clouds by album's end. But by then you've already dissolved into it.

Eclecticism like this can be a drag when it’s forced or disingenuous, but Friendly Fires’ enthusiasm is disarming.

The tunes are repetitive in the vein of Oakey's earliest industrial post-punk '70s rants, but with the angry friction of those heady times cooled off, like a trip to the corner after a heated outburst. And if the album doesn't quite attain the life-altering awesomeness of Dare--well, what album does, really?

Ellison excels everywhere else, keeping the beats brisk and the instrumentation organic and lively.

These New Puritans maintain a sense of prim composure that may appeal to listeners who prefer their dread to be more precise, less anarchic.

Musically, the septet are as colorful as ever, only more resonant and with fewer xylophones--plus a newfound emphasis on rhythmic muscle.

Because Seger has honed his craft to such a silver-bullet point, the album never feels like a retread; as on John Fogerty’s underrated Deja Vu All Over Again from 2004, roots-rock tradition seems renewed in Seger’s hands.

Although driven primarily by Meluch’s intrepid acoustic guitar, Temper is a many-layered affair, an engaging concoction of delicate electronics, birdsongs, and tape experiments that resonate with impossible harmony.

It's a grower--don't go in without some time to invest, or the desire to listen multiple times and peel apart these lavishly constructed layers.

Khan might be getting bolder, bigger, and more experimental, but pushing past what everyone expects or wants from you as an artist sometimes works - even the third time around.

There’s something oddly accessible about the mess the duo make on Why Bother?

You’re unlikely to encounter another pioneering techno-pop act entering its third decade with style and substance largely intact.

The title cut is the best of the lot, an anthem about the beautiful chaos of family life where wine is sipped from a jelly jar and “peanut butter is everywhere.”

Ejstes seems more concerned with texture and feel than with hooks. Translation: it all sounds better once you’re stoned.

Gutter Tactics recalls the anger of the recent past and memories we'd like to leave behind--perfect timing.

In 'Your Big Hands,' she and her pals work up a rowdy roadhouse groove worthy of Car Wheels–era Lucinda Williams. And 'Mexico City' has ringing ’60s-pop guitar twinkles that give her melancholy travelogue a welcome splash of whimsy.

On Smoke, his blog-buzzed debut, he offers a tuneful, mellow bedroom pastiche of trebly early-’80s punk funk, spirited, rhythm-rich worldbeat, and post-Beck white-guy R&B.

'(Keep Eye On) Others' Gain' and the title track sound similarly hopeful. The gloom is still there on 'You Remind Me of Something' and 'Willow Trees Bend,' but it feels less crushing. There is also more variety to the sonic textures.

Down There harnesses the core duality upon which the AC empire is built: a warm and pure pop æsthetic folded harmoniously into layers of murky swirls and drips.

On the whole, King Animal is a welcome return, and though it doesn't reinvent the wheel, it reminds us why these guys were considered the architects of the Seattle scene.

For evidence as to why labeling subgenres of electronic music is tedious, look no further than this debut LP from UK collective Darkstar.

So if Thr33 Ringz fails to shock, consider also that it fails to disappoint.

Texas Rose is moody and layered, and Raposa is adept at creating a world that is deep, enveloping, and enticing.

Romance Is Boring doesn't eschew the sugar-high, too-clever angst of its predecessors altogether, but the band have learned how to vary their song structures, often opting for a darker, more atmospheric aesthetic.

It’s this willingness to experiment with sounds and percussion that distinguishes Psapp from their electro-organic brethren.

The finished product is a cobbled-together dazzle that contorts your mouth into a 50-minute succession of grins and wows.

It's infectious, and though the album is heavy in inspirational debt, Passive's highs are tantalizing enough to lure you to come for a bright-eyed joyride.

What separates Reed from his would-be contemporaries is just how much Come and Get It! is not a pop-crossover record -- a point that is the album's strength, as well as its potential weakness.

At first, the minimalist, glitchy grooves sound like a lot of the neo-electro trend these days. But Mason’s off-kilter lyrics and psychedelic sense of melody soon overpower the thrift-store Gary Numan and Depeche pastiches and the trite S&M vibe.

He has an eerie gift for memorable melodies, and it's put to good use on this light-hearted album, which burns through 22 songs in 45 minutes.

Old-school fans may roll their eyes at this forward throwback, yet whatever conspicuous mode he chooses to work in, Merritt's songwriting remains conspicuously remarkable.

Their third album is classic hardcore punk: loud, thrashing, and out of control, but with just enough goofy humor to make it easy to swallow.

Sure, you can wonder whether there’s a need for Youth Group with so many bands trying to replicate the success of Coldplay and Death Cab for Cutie, but Casino Twilight Dogs is worth a listen.

That means you get Stickles roaring about being told he'll always be a loser over full-throttle indie-Springsteen arrangements replete with bleating Clarence Clemons saxophone lines, pavement-pounding marching-band drums, and loads of drunk-dude Dropkick Murphys gang-vocal chants.

Up-tempo club jams like "Break Your Heart," "Dynamite," and "I Can Be" sport melodies sturdy enough to support all the digital detailing, and power ballads such as "I'll Never Love Again" and "Falling in Love" do the gathering-steam thing as efficiently as more traditionally presented songs by Diane Warren or Kara DioGuardi.

As eclectic as the disc is, it never strays from that warm sense of familiarity.

Bridges has talented friends and mentors who help bring out the best in him, which is surprisingly good.

Only a music fan obsessed with the rules of authenticity and the requirements for lyrical profundity could find fault with the 11 odes to overload that make up Hot Mess.

Always ambitious, occasionally experimental, and sometimes even radio-friendly.

There’s an urban-informed edge to much of the disc.

Two Suns rarely ventures into anything truly experimental; when it does, as in the maelstromic beat of 'Siren Song' or the Scott Walker cameo in album closer 'The Big Sleep,' it makes you curious as to what Khan could deliver if she weren't so committed to her "studenty" (in the UK sense) affectations.

The template holds.

Here they make less of an effort to conceal the pop smarts percolating beneath the slop-rock surface; catchy little gems like 'Starting Over' and 'I'll Be with You' help make this the most satisfying Black Lips album yet.

'Jerks' is a scathing freakout that made me want to hear Sonic Youth's cover of the Untouchables' 'Nic Fit' all of a sudden; '7/23' is a clopping, slightly flat, strangely iridescent love note; and the focus that disperses over the course of six hazy minutes of 'State Numbers' takes the opportunity of "The Ricercar of Dr. Clara Haber" to slap itself in the face a few times and the shimmering outburst of 'The Lighter Side of... Hippies' to remind you why you made it so deep into this oddly arresting album in the first place.

This album is infectious.

The reason Father, Son, Holy Ghost is so uniquely, imperfectly swell is because the band plainly give fuck-all about convention or stylistic uniformity.

Instead of wandering into opaque experimentation, as they’ve been known to do in the past, they corral those unruly elements into a series of hummable, memorable tunes.

There's some obligatory Velvet Underground deference, like the jumpy "Hey Jane," but for the most part the new disc is more in line with the soaring sing-a-long brilliance of "So Long You Pretty Things" and the simplistic "Too Late."

The first thing they did right was actually to be a band: to write songs, and tour with them, before recording. The result is a tight, energetic sound with elements of punk, heavy rock, and new wave.