It would be difficult to convince yourself that The Sun is anything but meandering and listless.

It takes a couple of good close listens to appreciate Herren’s languid songwriting; a casual listener will likely enjoy listening to only a track or two before turning off.

The big difference behind the two albums’ superficial sonic similarities lies in the direction of this one’s gaze: panoramic, rather than immediately ahead. Whereas Bang Bang Rock and Roll was drunk, It’s a Bit Complicated is sober enough to think about being drunk.

Idealism has some fun with memorable new electro (“The Pulse,” “Home Zone,” “Idealistic”) and nu-rave cuts (“I Want I Want,” “Pogo”). But these guys can’t possibly think fans will believe this fifteen-track behemoth, mostly lacking in subtlety and invention, is the big party they half-seriously claim it to be, over and over and over again.

Era Vulgaris gets better with each listen, and that’s mostly due to the fact that the melodies take time to sink in.

Version has its share of undeniable clunkers, but its successes are so immediate and so animated that no reasonable listener could possibly begrudge Ronson for forcing them to rely on their track-skip button.

Riot! is immediately appealing because it focuses on sounds that have been neglected by the genre’s frontrunners. This is an uncomplicated album comprising of strikingly uncomplicated music, entirely lacking in 15 word song titles, Jay-Z guest appearances, and theatrical meta-concepts about performing in a rock band.

The majority of these upbeat songs have howling vocals, scything guitar and, unusually for a current Brit group, a rhythm section that manages to be danceable without having to go out of its way to prove it--but it’s the slower tracks that end each side that turn the album into something cohesive.

Memory Almost Full is as good as an album as this devotee of frivolity can make in his mid-sixties.

MoM, for their part, sound more and more comfortable with a vocalist in front of them.

Predictably, the Orchestra works considerably better as a symphony band than an orchestral accompaniment.

His career for the last decade is basically that of a chicken with its head lopped off, running around the coop unawares whilst coughing up a never-ending stream of blood. If you couldn’t guess, Eat Me, Drink Me is where the fowl finally falls over and collapses in a pile of its fellow poultry’s fecal matter.

The price of diversity is cohesion and there are points where Maths + English veers wildly off track.

Dear’s third album proves a wealth of open-window micro pop fit for summer gusts and unexpected flints of lightning.

Can’t Wait Another Day is another album of what Ladybug Transistor does best: distilled pop and folk from another era, part doppelganger, part contemporary sheen—an indie rock album in its Sunday best.

It’s the most consistently entertaining and lasting of R. Kelly’s albums yet.

Boxer is a National album through and through but blessed with a restraint and self-assuredness of a band on top of its game, resulting in a startling masterpiece on par with Turn on the Bright Lights, Bows & Arrows, or any other austere tribute to urban alienation you care to name.

Battles unite process and expression, making playing that’s as quantized and mechanical as Kraftwerk sound as wild and urgent as Albert Ayler.

Voxtrot remains a compelling enough statement to justify the inordinate amounts of excitement thrown around the band, yet nowhere near a fulfillment of the enormous potential they’ve shown.

There are dozens of bands that do this kind of stuff better, including Wheat themselves.

Were the album as sleek and steely as “Makes Me Wonder,” we would be crowning and mitering Maroon 5 as master purveyors of white-boy funk.

Lies for the Liars is a funny, befuddling, and altogether unexpectedly enjoyable record.

Plague Park shows him mostly nailing the fine bristle of “Modern World” and “Same Ghost Every Night.”

Van Pelt teases enough sonic frontiers and has enough madcap charisma to mildly triumph where others would have failed.

The Horrors aren’t horrifying and Strange House is nowhere near strange enough.

The results are often wonderful.

Just about everything on Sky Blue Sky, even soft-shoe skiffles like the title track, will likely sound better live.

It isn’t the sort of artistic statement that promises to change anyone’s life, but it’s no less a great work of escapist art, the sort of essential record I’d pick for any hypothetical list of desert island necessities.