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Four Tet | Pink

Text Records (2012)
Ironically, this patchwork of 12-inch singles is Kieran Hebden's most delectable album-as-album.

By: DAN WEISS | September 04, 2012

Maximo Park | The National Health

Straight to the Sun (2012)
Maximo Park have always slipped through the cracks in the US, a fact that borders on the criminal: besides being one of the most consistent post-Britpop acts around, the Newcastle quintet is also one of the genre's most adventurous bands.

By: ANNIE ZALESKI | September 04, 2012

Richard Hawley | Standing at the Sky's Edge

Mute (2012)
Richard Hawley's seventh studio album opens with "She Brings the Sunlight," a clouds-parting, hippy-dippy drone explosion that plays like "Tomorrow Never Knows" caught in the echo of a football stadium.

By: ZETH LUNDY | September 04, 2012

The Raveonettes | Observator

Vice Records (2012)
Attentive Raveonettes fans passed the summer anxiously, weighing the implications of the revelation that the duo's forthcoming collection largely sprang from frontman Sune Rose Wagner's Jim Morrison-inspired bender of booze and benzos.

By: JAY BREITLING | September 06, 2012

The xx | Coexist

Young Turks (2012)
The xx's sleeper electro-soul debut was defined by its silences as much as its sounds: by the pauses between dusty, cymbal-less beats, stoned basslines, and echoing guitar pings, and by the pregnant tension between the voices (the unison NyQuil croons of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim).

By: RYAN REED | September 04, 2012

Swans | The Seer

Young God (2012)
Swans albums are the unparalleled expression of multi-instrumentalist Michael Gira, who often sounds like he's either deranged with enthusiasm or deranged with bitterness.

By: RYAN FOLEY | August 28, 2012

Animal Collective | Centipe de Hz

Domino (2012)
Animal Collective deserve credit for not doing what most artists in their position would do right about now — namely, get reactionary.

By: JONATHAN DONALDSON | August 28, 2012

Bob Mould | Silver Age

Merge (2012)
Now that he's getting love as a godfather figure from both sides of the indie/mainstream divide (see No Age and Foo Fighters, for starters), Bob Mould is again playing like he has something to prove — or at least an iconography to maintain.

By: ZETH LUNDY | August 28, 2012

Deerhoof | Breakup Song

Polyvinyl (2012)
Jammy San Francisco art-noise rockers Deerhoof got us going with the clever online "Jingletron" last month and left fans jittering with excitement for Breakup Song.

By: SEAN CORBETT | August 28, 2012

Lynyrd Skynyrd | Last of a Dyin' Breed

Roadrunner Records
The eponymous track of Lynyrd Skynyrd's 13th studio album opens with a tease of gritty gusto — a skank-nasty slide riff a few ghostly notes short of Led Zep's "In My Time of Dying."

By: RYAN REED | August 28, 2012

Matthew Dear | Beams

Ghostly International (2012)
Matthew Dear has always been a producer first, DJ second, and songwriter third.

By: MICHAEL C. WALSH | August 28, 2012

Alanis Morissette | Havoc and Bright Lights

Collective Sounds
Alanis Morissette is one of those artists whose works can't be judged on anything but a case-by-case basis, due to the fact that she puts the entirety of her emotions, personal triumphs and failures into each one.

By: MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER | August 23, 2012

Dan Deacon | America

Domino
America as a country is rarely celebrated by its off-the-radar and off-kilter musicians.

By: REYAN ALI | August 21, 2012

Nathan Fake | Steam Days

Border Community (2012)
Even though it's difficult to feel a human pulse on his third studio album, Steam Days, Nathan Fake's brand of laptop-tronica remains uniquely organic.

By: RYAN REED | August 21, 2012

Nü Sensae | Sundowning

Suicide Squeeze
Grunge-punk shriekers Nü Sensae hail from Vancouver, and originally formed as the duo of bassist/vocalist Andrea Lukic and drummer Daniel Pitout.

By: ANNIE ZALESKI | August 21, 2012

The Darkness | Hot Cakes

Wind-Up (2012)
The most obvious strike against the Real Life Spinal Tap's reunion album (yup, first since 2005) is trying to find an excuse to care about it.

By: DAN WEISS | August 22, 2012

Wild Nothing | Nocturne

Captured Tracks (2012)
If critics should be harsh toward the top dogs of the music business for offering nothing new to a particular genre or sound, how should they then turn their pens on emerging artists?

By: JONATHAN DONALDSON | August 22, 2012

Yeasayer | Fragrant World

Secretly Canadian (2012)
To promote their excellent third album, Fragrant World, Brooklyn's resident art-pop weirdos sent their fans on a psychedelic audio-visual Internet scavenger hunt.

By: RYAN REED | August 15, 2012

Archers of Loaf | All The Nation's Airports + White Trash Heroes [Deluxe Remasters]

Merge (2012)
Don't let anyone who says every Pavement album is worth owning tell you that you don't need Archers of Loaf's final two albums.

By: DAN WEISS | August 14, 2012

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti | Mature Themes

4AD (2012)
Ariel Pink has never been one to limit himself conceptually.

By: PERRY EATON | August 14, 2012

Ry Cooder | Election Special

Nonesuch (2012)
Ry Cooder's spur-of-the-moment (or is it heat-of-the-moment?) political album opens like any good political album should, with a rollicking blues song told from the point of view of Mitt Romney's dog.

By: ZETH LUNDY | August 14, 2012

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