Smilewound traipses all over the place, sometimes tripping as it finds it’s path. But when it does, it surges with moments of delicate finesse and threatening omnission.

For the most part, songs come off as vapid and barely take a knife to the surface of his earlier work.

Too much of the album feels as if she’s chosen the comfort of being back home, retreating from the brief spotlight she’d been slowing stepping toward since 2008.

Though the Stepkids themselves seem undecided on their signature sound, they boast a refreshing reluctance to limit possibility that ultimately translates into a truly original style of their own.

The Silver Gymnasium has Sheff getting increasingly personal, though it sometimes seems as if he has no more personal secrets left to reveal. The new experience is stunted by the fact that everything really just sounds like a memory.

Other Voices EP is a concentrated dose of American teen fun.

Maybe Khan is excessive in the thought process of his message regarding the world; maybe he is in fact understating the necessity of awareness to the problems our world faces; maybe it’s somewhere in the middle. Regardless, all of us could use a little bit of the soul the King Khan And The Shrines is willing to share on the record.

A listless cloud of heartbreak penetrates every crack and many moments teeter on the maudlin, but The Worse Things Get has fight, too.

At this point, Marshall is one of the most naturally gifted songwriters on the scene, and 6FBTM is solid evidence of that.

Sleeper will probably be viewed in hindsight as "That kinda boring Ty Segall album."

Earl’s skills are incontestable, but at times, it feels like he has nothing to prove. Doris could have resulted in one big shrug fest, if it weren’t for the ferocity in Earl’s bars--which is probably all the leverage he needs.

The album doesn’t bring anything new to the table, opting instead to build on established structures.

Like the previous three Crocodile outputs, Crimes of Passion is forgettable like a party might be. Some may get sick of it and leave early, and others may find the album similar to a one night stand who says all the right things.

It will give you, near exactly, what you put into it. That’s what makes Nepenthe relevant: its masterfully complex compositions come across as simplistic; they’re accessibly intellectual.

The album seems like it had the fat trimmed off in the studio and leaves the listener with a leaner-than-usual, but still enjoyable production. You’ll leave feeling full, but not stuffed.

I Hate Music isn’t a missive on being an aging rocker as much as it’s reflective of the wisdom and maturity garnered as a touring band in what is too often--and outright mistakenly*--only considered the realm of the young and starry-eyed. Only Superchunk does it with the same unstoppably jaunty bounce and screaming guitars that defined (No Pocky For Kitty) and redefined (Majesty Shredding) their still palpable sound and made them leaders in their genre

It’s an admiringly unorganized attempt at turning it up to 11, where both digits are represented by a middle finger.

It’s that sonic gluttony that makes Holter’s production an alluring tryst that’s hard to let go of come curtain call.

Surf City plays with a more confident and reassured sound as the group comes into its own on We Knew It Was Not Going To Be Like This.

Although Joke In The Hole is an enjoyable listen, it’s by no means an easy one.

What makes Paracosm unique from Greene’s previous endeavors is that Paracosm is like the voice of John in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, asking for balance in a world inundated by the synthetic. It gives us a little breathing room from all the heavy drops and synth-pop without totally giving the technological age the slip.

Like many psych-heavy records today, the album doesn’t say much lyrically. The lack of deep lyrical content is an easy detail to overlook due to Pond’s complex execution of instrumentation.

Whether you’re going on four years steady or trolling OkCupid nightly, Exhibitionists will hit you like a guilty post-dream high.

The group has not only improved on the directness of their music, but this album flows in a more continuous stream than their previous effort.

With a mixture of electronic guitars, field recordings and slight percussion, the album is extremely peaceful--maybe a little too peaceful.

Their sound is more pop than R&B or electronic, more domestic than futuristic, and more formulaic than innovative. But it works for them. It’s accessible electro-pop music that you can’t help but be smitten with.

Love Is The Law sounds like what would happen if The Memories took Lou Reed’s “serious musician” face and splattered it with neon-glow paint after a particularly inspirational train ride.

As depressing as it may seem for Defeater to tell a story with no happy ending, it’s only by confronting those feelings of disillusionment and hopelessness head-on that they achieve some sort of catharsis. Letters Home does just that.