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5 classic

Animal Collective Here Comes The Indian

Animal Collective Feels

Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion

Arcade Fire Funeral

Armchairpolitician Seven Segment Decoder

Clipse Hell Hath No Fury

Converge Jane Doe

Deerhunter Microcastle

Guided By Voices Bee Thousand

GZA Liquid Swords

King Crimson Red

My Bloody Valentine Loveless

Neutral Milk Hotel In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here

Sonic Youth Daydream Nation

Storm & Stress Under Thunder & Fluorescent Lights

The Microphones The Glow pt.2

The National Alligator

4.5 superb

90 Day Men To Everybody

A Sunny Day In Glasgow Ashes Grammar

Animal Collective Sung Tongs

Animal Collective Strawberry Jam

Animal Collective Fall Be Kind

Based on early versions of "What Would I Want? Sky" (not to mention the recent "Brother Sport" single with a 9-minute version of "Bleeding"), Fall Be Kind seemed poised to be a continuation of AC's experiment with repetitious pop, a style that served them well only earlier this year. And yet, this "EP" (I hesitate to even call it that, such the mini-album success it is) is a larger leap forward than maybe even Merriweather was; it embraces the possibilities behind the shared experience Animal Collective always has been and now will continue to be. This is a band excited to see us excited, evident in the transformation of the disc's clear highlight "What Would I Want? Sky" from an earlier version's anxious trance trip into full on, freak-folk trip-hop. There are no pretenses or effects to further us from the band; Avey Tare rocks the mic and we can understand him! We can sing with him! Animal Collective continue to respond to us as much as they push themselves, and we meet somewhere in the uncharted middle where a band's popularity is relative to the boundaries they push. And I haven't even talked about the other four clear highlights.

Beach Boys Pet Sounds

Belle and Sebastian If You're Feeling Sinister

Burial Untrue

Charizma and Peanut Butter Wolf Big Shots

Converge Petitioning The Empty Sky

Daitro Laisser Vivre Les Squelettes

Deerhunter Cryptograms

Gospel The Moon is A Dead World

Grizzly Bear Yellow House

Grouper Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill

More than just a pretty acoustic record, Liz Harris (a.k.a Grouper) has created a startlingly vivid and brooding shoegaze gem in Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill that works in spite of its length and sprawling, claustrophobic design. This has every bit to do with Harris’ stylistic choices, from the production’s hazy layer of feedback, to the attention on the effects of the guitar, right down to the levels at which Harris’ voice is pushed into the mix, so that every bit of Dead Deer feels personal and different. No two moments ever fully meet, and that’s what makes it captivating. If my reaction to the album is also overwhelmingly personal, then it’s only a testament to how strong I find the material to be. Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill is not an album I’d recommend to just anyone; an audience will eventually find Grouper, and when they do, it’ll be more than well-deserved.

Guided By Voices Alien Lanes

Joanna Newsom The Milk-Eyed Mender

Joanna Newsom Ys

Micachu Jewellery

Modern Life Is War Witness

Off Minor The Heat Death of the Universe

Shugo Tokumaru Night Piece

Shugo Tokumaru Exit

Craig Eley over at Cokemachineglow described Tokumaru this way: "Listening to Shugo is like watching a foreign film with the subtitles off. You can't 'know' what's being said... but you can 'understand' what's happening. You can feel. And at the end, you can say 'that was delirious and beautiful and fun.'" More so than anything, this is what makes Exit Tokumaru's best album to date, each song a different template and story. Tokumaru experiments with his sound here, employing more traditional folk, electronica and pop into his own unique, abrasive songwriting style. But the album is best because of his attention to detail, to the subtle nuances that create such an effortlessly diverse album. Exit is delirious and beautiful and fun, and it should make Tokumaru a star.

The Dismemberment Plan Emergency and I

The Flaming Lips Embryonic

See that cover? This is the same Flaming Lips, with that same childlike wonder at the limits of rock (argument: there aren't any), but hairier. Quite unshaven. Being re-birthed out of a vagina of light, all thrilled, ravaged, insane, and deeply, affectionately human. Party like it's 2009.

The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin

The Microphones It Was Hot We Stayed In The Water

The National Boxer

Wu-Tang Clan Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

Yo La Tengo Popular Songs

4 excellent

Animal Collective Spirit They've Gone, Spirit They've Vanished

Animal Collective Animal Crack Box

Animal Collective Prospect Hummer (feat. Vashti Bunyan)

Atlas Sound Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See...

Atlas Sound Logos

Beirut Gulag Orkestar

Brother/Ghost Black Ice

Circulatory System Signal Morning

Converge Axe To Fall

Cymbals Eat Guitars Why There Are Mountains

Deerhunter Fluorescent Grey EP

Deerhunter Weird Era Cont.

Kidcrash Jokes

King Crimson In the Court of the Crimson King

Modest Mouse The Moon & Antarctica

My Bloody Valentine You Made Me Realise

Neutral Milk Hotel On Avery Island

Off Minor Some Blood

Paavoharju Laulu Laakson Kukista

Raekwon Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt II

Say Anything ...Is A Real Boy (re-release)

Sonic Youth Sonic Nurse

Sonic Youth EVOL

Stag Hare Black Medicine Music

The Millennium Begin

I once saw Begin described as "if the Beach Boys covered Sgt. Pepper" and, well, yeah. Surprisingly ahead of its time in terms of implementing various structures and production quirks even if the actual melodies don't hold up to the more cherished classics. That is a small quibble considering the Millennium pack this album full of quality (and criminally overlooked) material.

Yo La Tengo I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One

3.5 great

90 Day Men Panda Park

Animal Collective People [EP]

Beirut The Flying Club Cup

In 2006, Beirut released the auspicious Gulag Orkestar, a festive, lively album inspired by Zach Condon's romp through Europe as an impressionable teen. In 2007, he grew up. Over the span of one year, Beirut had evolved, becoming mature and slightly diminished in character, more interested in fable storytelling than impressing in style. And, all the better for it, for The Flying Club Cup (even the title feels older and less cool) brings a lasting sense of melancholy to its perverse, European orchestration. Horns bombard "A Sunday Smile," violins shroud "Forks And Knives (La Fete)" in "big, glorious, over-the-top pop arrangements," and a simple ukulele commandeers "The Penalty." And Condon, though sounding slightly weary under the drama, still keeps his own, maintaining a strong head in the pop highlight "In The Mausoleum," a classically trained piece full of pianos, organs, and strings. It might not be immediate, but The Flying Club Cup is still full of that wide-eyed explorer charm, even if it takes a little digging to find it. It's more than worth the effort.

Circulatory System Circulatory System

Clues Clues

Converge You Fail Me

Daitro Y

Dan Deacon Bromst

Deltron 3030 Deltron 3030

Fuck Buttons Street Horrrsing

Girl Talk Feed the Animals

Girl Talk Night Ripper

My Bloody Valentine Isn't Anything

Regina Spektor Soviet Kitsch

Shels Sea of the Dying Dhow

The Field Yesterday and Today

Yo La Tengo I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass

3 good

Aficionado The Myth About Real Life EP

Animal Collective Danse Manatee

Animal Collective Water Curses EP

Beirut Lon Gisland EP

Converge No Heroes

Daitro Des Cendres, Je Me Consumme

Dan Deacon Spiderman of the Rings

Deerhunter Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP

Fucked Up The Chemistry of Common Life

Grizzly Bear Horn of Plenty

Grouper Cover the Windows and the Walls

Kidcrash Snacks

Modern Life Is War Midnight in America

Regina Spektor Begin To Hope

Say Anything In Defense of the Genre

The Field From Here We Go Sublime

The Flaming Lips Christmas On Mars

Why? Eskimo Snow

Yoni Wolf has always been a man who lets conviction speak for his content, where the vibrant imagery of "Good Friday" is bowled over by his lack of charisma, turning fractured pop into bursts of slice-of-Hell-hole realism (for pasty white kids in suburban hell holes, anyway). It certainly didn't hurt that Why? side-saddled hip-hop like it was going out of style. So what is Eskimo Snow? It is the band being influenced by the influences Wolf is always spouting but never really indulging. It is Wolf growing up but not out, for the first time letting his big emotions yield bigger results. It is an Indie Rock Record without the elements that made WHY? who they were, left instead to flounder about Wolf's unhinged (and unchanged) lyricism. The effect is mostly haphazard and creepy, with standout "Into the Shadows of My Embrace" highlighting all that is haphazard and creepy about what ends up being the musical equivalent of all the different words eskimos have for snow. 50 different personalities for the same basic result.

2.5 average

A Sunny Day In Glasgow Scribble Mural Comic Journal

Deerhunter "turn it up, faggot"

Fuck Buttons Tarot Sport

Grizzly Bear Veckatimest

My Bloody Valentine Sunny Sundae Smile

Regina Spektor Far

Vivian Girls Vivian Girls

2 poor

Beirut March of the Zapotec EP

Idiot Pilot Wolves

MGMT Oracular Spectacular

Say Anything Say Anything

1.5 very poor

Idiot Pilot Strange We Should Meet Here

Of Montreal Skeletal Lamping

Panic! At the Disco Pretty. Odd.

Passion Pit Manners

1 awful

Panic! At the Disco A Fever You Can't Sweat Out