Don't expect anything in terms of experimentation--this makes stellar mixtape fodder for an indie-pop prom night also scored by Dum Dum Girls and the Morning Benders.

Here Mega Dave isn't even that annoying. Perhaps it's because the music is so strong, or maybe it's that he's giving exactly what you expect and doesn't try to be anything else.

On his third Iron & Wine full-length, he goes for his biggest sound yet, but the production is mere window dressing for some of his best songwriting.

But the kicker, for both music and lyrics, is Xiu Xiu's version of a pep talk, "This Too Shall Pass Away," where Stewart shows that being the most tortured musician of all time makes his fleeting flecks of hope doubly heartfelt.

At times, the free-association gets to be a bit much, but it's all held afloat by trampoline beats from a stud cast that includes the likes of Diplo and El-P, all channeling Magoo-era Timbaland, Kelis-era Neptunes, and Hov-era Panjabi MC.

Their wail-and-bash raison d'etre continues to bring more intense, absurd listening pleasure than any other noise band on the planet.

Rook is flush with the hallmarks of Shearwater’s style, from high-wire drama to near-hymnal stillness. Although its songs aren’t as uniformly good as those on 2006’s "Palo Santo."

The beats are eminently funky, the rhymes tight, and the topics decidedly old-school: plain-spoken boasts, the rejection of greed, and an acknowledgment of our communal evolution indicate the overall tone.

That patented caterwaul is in fine form.

There aren't many punk stalwarts who can weave a tale of being down and out quite like Mike Ness, and for the most part he's in top form on this seventh studio release from Social D.

A merger made in musical heaven.

Luckily for fans of music and controversy alike, Madonna's compulsions reap musical dividends as she continues to bang into a dance-tastic G-spot, and the results are part sour, part sweet.

Loose, loud, and fun.

In This Moment are up to some weird, wild, wonderful stuff.

One must reconcile with the absurd fact that Lulu exists before realizing how genuinely brilliant it is--when it's working.

Their signature '80s homage is consistent across their songwriting, lyrics, album covers, and design - even their videos. And despite their claims to the contrary, the duo have enough self-aware irony to rise above the level of a throwback novelty act or a one-trick nostalgia pony.

Their stuttering, airy synths would serve as an appropriate soundtrack to a nightclub in Heaven.

There’s some exceptional songwriting here.

Although it packs 20 songs into nearly 70 minutes, Field Music (Measure) feels remarkably concise and well-plotted — a series of harmony-rich guitar-pop ditties and resonant motifs that are covertly part of a larger package.

Sonically, it's jaw-dropping, particularly on headphones: every cymbal splash and synth squiggle purr up-close and personal. But most of these 10 tracks are so subtle, they might drift past unnoticed if you're not listening hard enough.

Past Time was mostly content to present Grass Widow's aesthetic--cooing, ethereal gang vocals, sinewy guitars, a general state of breeziness--as opposed to Internal Logic, where those things are part of far more memorable songs.

See The Light has an airy feel that is more suited not only to actual dancefloor dancing (rather than the thump-until-blackout oblivion of most current electro) but to the gentle torch-song pull of Ruiz's emotive bleat.

On their debut, the young Beach Fossils separate themselves from the rest of the pack by coloring the ubiquitous surf-pop sound with a listlessness that makes them seem like weary veterans.

The result bounces all over the place, from zippy new-wave rave-ups to tinkly twee-pop lullabies to handsome folk-rock jams with trippy guitar sounds.

Anyone up to date on the current dance-punk scene would have little trouble taking most of these 11 songs as outtakes from recent albums by such higher-profile acts as Soulwax, LCD Soundsystem, and Simian Mobile Disco.

Songwriter Stuart Murdoch often makes good on Morrissey's promise to deliver songs that live up to their titles.

This latest entry in the old-icon-meets-young-iconoclast trend is lit up by the sparks between the principals.

The disparate riff-based writing can be too heavy on cue cards and too light on connecting the ideas, but it's that same friction that makes the band worth listening to.

His crafty postmodern bubblegum is a treat well worth chewing.

In Light is an impressive step forward--it seriously contends for the title of this summer's go-to indie-pop record.

The results unfold like a well-plotted novel.

Mixed Emotions is a shiny bear-hug of an album--sometimes short on fresh ideas, but never lacking in heart.

What they lack in consistency they make up for in intentions. It's soul for all the right reasons.

Recorded with his working band the Blokes, the album isn’t without its misfires (the obvious 'The Johnny Carcinogenic Show'), but it is Bragg’s most assured statement since hooking up with Wilco a decade ago to give life to lost Woody Guthrie lyrics.

Luna fans will be pleased.

With Martine's fine-grain arrangements giving texture to Veirs's accounts of paddling down rivers and dreaming of silver silos. It's all exceedingly lovely stuff.

The bilious frontman has aged like a cheap wine: embittered, but with enough kick left to make for a good time.

Their sixth record reminds me quite a bit of that Metric album that came out last spring. You could put this reaction down to Sainthood’s understated, idiosyncratic electronic elements, or to the whole Canadian elevated-indie-pop thing.

Ditch the first 20 minutes and open the album with the stunning, nearly seven-minute "The Violent Bear It Away," which is tucked away toward Destroyed's end, and here's a career-defining work.

I Was Trying doesn't top "Is Dead," but it does keep Crime in Stereo on track toward the strange and unfamiliar. That might be the best compliment of all.

World Wide Rebel Songs is Morello at his most confident and musically expansive.

Although rooted in history, this album’s themes and passion are timeless.

Kanye is after a very specific sound on this release, the dead-eyed, auto-tuned vocals and canned pianos contributing to a harrowing vision of emotional shellshock. The songs bleed into one another; only 'Love Lockdown,' with its magnificent drum breakdown, really grabs you by the throat.

There's nothing all that intelligent about anything SSLYBY have said or played, and Let It Sway is no exception--but someone will always love pure, simple, feel-good pop rock.

The many-splendored guitar blitz of Major rings in the return of good old-fashioned butt rock, but played to the squarely measured rhythms of '90s emo and Northwest indie stuff like Built To Spill.

His words are layers of palpable atmospherics; subtle and pleading at times, worried and demanding at others, mainly steeped in a falsetto that rarely wears thin - note "rarely" - it occasionally causes the eardrums to glaze over.

Ratatat never get as Daft funky or as outright punky as you’d want. But they never linger for too long in one place, and they throw more than enough cerebral curveballs to keep you on your musical toes.

Here, as on 2005’s "Takk," Sigur Ros have chosen to distill their rapture epics into shorter, more accessible bursts of swelling beauty. Yet this album still offers all the signature touchstones that make the band so deliciously unlike their post-rock contemporaries.

Beta Love is the best of both worlds: surprisingly slick and danceable, while subtly amplifying their art-school charm.

The spotlight stays fixed on his darkly soothing intonations throughout, keeping the smoky, low-key aesthetic unvarying despite some stylistic and instrumental adventurousness.

Yet if the title is straightforward, the music often isn’t, with LaVette teasing out new emotional details from songs that seemed to have given up all their secrets decades ago.

Moorer takes an approach opposite to Lynne’s on the stripped-down Lovin’, giving each track its own distinct personality: Gillian Welch’s 'Revelator' is droning folk rock, Simone’s 'I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl' an organ-led torch song, June Carter Cash’s 'Ring of Fire' a drum-looped twang-hop. They all deserve a little spotlight.

It's not as challenging as previous Ducktails recordings, but a pleasant pop record nonetheless, and the band's most universally accessible yet.

So what subgenre tag is appropriate now? Is this discogaze? Funkwave? Only time will tell.

Disorienting at first spin, Wild Smile rewards by reconciling the easily digestible and the weird with each subsequent listen.

It's nice to be reminded that the world is shit and we're all gonna die. Editors have mastered the form.

There's much beauty in the modest moments: the gentle, dreamy guitars in the ballad 'Detlef Schrempf,' the Uncle Tupelo–ish tumble of 'The General Specific,' and the instrumental interlude of 'Lamb on the Lam (In the City),' which sounds like the Cure lost in the Appalachia.

This showcases Stewart's proclivity for macabre imagery and borderline perversion waging war with his pop-songwriting expertise.

Brothers finds the Black Keys digging their own space, one that needn’t be geographically defined.

Free To Stay is all about hyper, exuberant tunes as accessible to Kidz Bop kids as they are to parents.

Her magnetic debut album doesn't aim to break new ground, but her rustic, Stevie Nicks–ish voice unifies the myriad sounds that position her as both a radio-ready alt-country chick and a young, hip folkstress who pulls off online covers of Lady Gaga and Kid Cudi.

Lysandre inevitably feels a bit skimpy. It's still an unnervingly tuneful warm-up: freed from his hipster shackles, Owens is harnessing the power of the incredibly uncool--and he's all the cooler for it.

After the brilliant five-track sweep that opens Ritual Union, which peaks with the entrancing "Please Turn," Little Dragon take an unfortunate turn toward light experimentation and hard-nosed repetition, emphasizing pocket-sized click-clack rhythms and downplaying

It is her most authoritative and cogent statement.

In spite of its self-depreciating title, this odds-and-sods collection of the usual B-sides and other spare tracks lives up to some of the best material the Las Vegas foursome have delivered.

Her fourth album brims with sunny hooks on its best tracks, and the alluring opener, 'Little Black Sandals,' affords her a rich, layered backdrop.

It's exactly the kind of album one imagines Bird could whip up on a lazy Sunday afternoon after a cat-nap.

Although his results can be flimsy, when his creations get legs under them, Terra is the bomb.

CD2’s smoking live versions are where AC/DC defend their reputation as a well-oiled machine, as oiled up as the jugtastic fembots that permeate the music’s hyper-hetero fantasia. And the band’s testicle-laden metaphorical fodder is brought to life on the DVD’s music videos.

Their tracks bounce lovelier than Joe Budden's girlfriend on that trampoline (consult YouTube), and they exhibit a flair that distinguishes their cross-continental steeze from that of any other beat team.

The stylistic hopscotch on Harlem River Blues--he flits easily from real-deal rockabilly to soulful power-balladry to roadhouse-ready honky-tonk--points to a restlessness that serves him well.

Koushik finally attempts to transcend his impeccable record collection.

Throughout, Leo and his stalwart Pharmacists (who include James Canty of the Make-Up on guitar and keyboards) reflect the singer's unified worldview with hooky, sharp-angled guitar jams that somehow seem catchier the thrashier they get. Chalk up another win for one of the good guys.

Although they love drama, AFI never abandon believability here. Which means the arena-rock trappings don’t make the music feel fake -- they just make it feel more exciting than life.

His deadpan honk of a singing voice calls to mind a less caustic Mark E. Smith, and he arranges the 12 quick songs with a gift for effective repetitive hooks and reductive structures.

Having graduated from knuckleheaded threats to a more hardened ghetto perspective that sometimes blossoms into tender complexity, Freeway sounds at home, particularly over the sweetly weeping keyboard loop that grounds 'Reppin’ the Streets,' the album’s best track.

Peaches sharpens her synth hooks, varies the electrogrooves, and serves up 13 tracks that are just amusing enough in their risqué behavior to keep the smiles coming while also standing behind the political point of the title.

At their best, though, Handsome Furs do for the disaffected what the Postal Service did for sentimental Death Cab cuties: they deliver more of something not quite the same.

Les Savy Fav's fifth studio album finds the veteran Brooklyn quintet further channeling the gonzo energy of their live show, and with winning results.

Megafaun have promised a full-sized follow-up to last year's stellar Gather, Form and Fly by year's end, but this six-song appetizer will serve nicely for anyone pining for new material from these North Carolina avant bards.

To Willie could have a lost ballad and a roadhouse jam for variety's sake, but Houck's thoughtful curating makes it more than a fans-only stopgap.

There are times when Upper Air could be some clandestine jam session in the wilderness.

It's all good fun, but (mostly) all been done before.

Crafted with worn elements of the electronic cannon, his third LP as Shed doesn't offer much that's fresh. Rather, it's nostalgia and recontextualization that drive this effort.... [Yet songs, I Come By Night, You Got the Look, and Follow the Leader] are all indicative of mastery.

The new BSS album may already have a lock on most dynamic record of the year.

Seven great tunes... and... three dull ones.

This could prove strenuous, but the album is more contemplative than didactic--a (k)no(w)here that’s difficult to study but easy to inhabit.

There is no mistaking, Parade is Keene at his best.

Dream Date does more than achieve its purpose, which is to get bottoms leaking.

Novelty is only part of what makes pop work, and on Don’t Stop, Annie brings enough of the other stuff--hooks, grooves, and a combination of sass and sincerity--to make you forgive her tardiness.

Aficionados of ambient music might moan over Florine’s sometimes frustrating lack of low end, but for those with an open mind, a long drive, and/or a large joint, Barwick provides one of this winter’s prettiest half-hours.

Throw It to the Universe, number six on the docket by the sextet, keeps pace with past efforts despite dragging at times.

The warmth and the easy familiarity enable The Trials of Van Occupanther to stand on its own.

Even if the disc’s too long and there’s too much coasting here and there to qualify it as near-classic, there’s more than enough to convince doubters that Snoop can still deliver.

For all its robust, pristinely recorded eclecticism, Rhine Gold holds together beautifully, thanks to Makrigiannis's angelic tenor, which soothes and stirs in equal measure.

Whereas some attempts to hybridize indie rock and electronic music are forced or awkward, Miike Snow gets its right by paying as much attention to their uncluttered celestial melodies as they do to their beats.

For a band known more for untamed drones and out-there sonics, Totaled's tempering of pop and experimentation is a welcome new feel.

Dark, spry pop that’s thick with synths and noir guitars and indebted to OMD, Roxy Music, the Human League, and “Let’s Go to Bed”–era Cure.