| Iceage New Brigade | 3.5 |
| Neutral Milk Hotel In the Aeroplane Over the Sea | 5.0 |
| When you were young, you were the king of carrot flowers... |
| Radiohead OK Computer | 5.0 |
| Claustrophobic, paranoid, unsettling music that is disturbing yet familiar. The perfect soundtrack for the disconnected coldness of life in the 21st century. |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven | 5.0 |
| And when you penetrate to the most high God,ryou will believe you are mad. You will believe you've gone insane. |
| Arcade Fire Funeral | 5.0 |
| I woke up in the darkest night, neighbours all shouting that they found the light. (WE FOUND THE LIGHT) |
| The Dismemberment Plan Emergency & I | 5.0 |
| If I play this album enough then maybe the broken pieces of my heart will stay together, but ain't no turntable can spin forever. |
| Capital Cities In A Tidal Wave of Mystery | 1.5 |
| "Support for Capital Cities comes from lazy hooks." You got that fucking right. |
| Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra Born Into Trouble As the Sparks Fly Upward | 3.5 |
| mewithoutYou Brother, Sister | 4.0 |
| Mogwai Rock Action | 3.5 |
| Iceage You're Nothing | 3.5 |
| Muse Showbiz | 3.5 |
| Classixx Hanging Gardens | 3.0 |
| Spiritualized Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space | 4.0 |
| Wolf Parade Expo 86 | 3.5 |
| Burial Rival Dealer | 3.0 |
| Pixies Surfer Rosa | 4.0 |
| Burial Untrue | 4.5 |
| DJ Shadow Endtroducing..... | 4.0 |
| Melt-Banana Fetch | 3.5 |
| Childish Gambino Because the Internet | 2.5 |
| Lady Gaga Artpop | 2.0 |
| Kyary Pamyu Pamyu Nandacollection | 3.5 |
| Mono Hymn to the Immortal Wind | 3.5 |
| Tame Impala Lonerism | 3.5 |
| Joy Division Unknown Pleasures | 2.5 |
| I'm not as enthralled with this as everyone else is for the same reason that I've never been too into Interpol or Bloc Party or The National: this persuasion of post-punk just really isn't for me. |
| Lorde Pure Heroine | 4.0 |
| Krallice Years Past Matter | 4.0 |
| Warpaint Exquisite Corpse | 3.5 |
| Self Defense Family Try Me | 4.0 |
| Wildlife On the Heart | 3.5 |
| Animal Collective Centipede Hz | 3.0 |
| Sometimes it sounds like a fantastic blend of the colourful fun from Strawberry Jam and the shapeless noise from Here Come the Indian, but often it sounds too much of a muddy clusterfuck of an album to be compared to anything between Sung Tongs and Merriweather Post Pavilion. |
| The Knife Deep Cuts | 3.5 |
| It's just a pretty solid synthpop album. Kinda weird too. In a good way, anyway. |
| Kendrick Lamar Section.80 | 4.0 |
| Mogwai Happy Songs for Happy People | 4.0 |
| Shabazz Palaces Black Up | 3.5 |
| Kanye West 808s and Heartbreak | 2.5 |
| Childish Gambino Camp | 2.0 |
| Darkside Psychic | 3.5 |
| Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy | 4.0 |
| Kanye West The College Dropout | 4.0 |
| Kanye West Graduation | 3.5 |
| alt-J An Awesome Wave | 4.0 |
| Father John Misty Fear Fun | 3.0 |
| Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate) What It Takes to Move Forward | 4.0 |
| Deerhunter Monomania | 3.5 |
| Dead Kennedys In God We Trust, Inc. | 3.0 |
| Oneohtrix Point Never Replica | 3.5 |
| Ghost Atlas Gold Soul Coma | 3.0 |
| Even though it kinda follows the style of bands that represent everything I hate about the direction post-hardcore has taken in the past several years, this is actually slightly impressive. |
| Kanye West Yeezus | 3.0 |
| Sounds like a much less gritty and much less edgy Death Grips album. Even though only a couple of tracks on the album really entertained me at all, I see how it could serve as a good, accessible entry point to the more sludgy, industrial side of hip hop. |
| One Direction Midnight Memories | 1.5 |
| The Knife Shaking the Habitual | 3.5 |
| This is a primal, visceral, and raw album, totally stripped of any inhibitions or obligation to musical convention. It's so weird and so crazy in such a good way, even if some parts like the fleetingly short primeval songs or the forbiddingly long ambient tracks could use a little more work to keep them interesting. |
| Thom Yorke The Eraser | 3.5 |
| I've never really been crazy about the stuff Thom's been doing recently on The King of Limbs and Amok so I went into this pretty sceptical, but I was actually pretty impressed, and it's safe to say I enjoy this more than either Radiohead or Atoms for Peace's most recent albums. |
| Pixies Doolittle | 4.5 |
| Green Day Dookie | 3.5 |
| If Green Day ever really were punk, this is when they were. |
| Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band Trout Mask Replica | 4.0 |
| Anti-Flag The Terror State | 4.0 |
| Thursday Full Collapse | 4.0 |
| Animal Collective Ark | 3.0 |
| Dead Kennedys Plastic Surgery Disasters | 4.5 |
| Death (USA-MI) ...For the Whole World to See | 4.5 |
| Maybe I'm the only one around here who thinks this album sounds fucking revolutionary. |
| God Is an Astronaut Origins | 3.0 |
| Death Grips Exmilitary | 4.0 |
| Green Day 21st Century Breakdown | 3.0 |
| It's actually pretty fun, just as long as you don't take it seriously. At all. Also, although I really dislike musical purist movements, especially in punk rock, calling this anything other than pop-punk (with a big emphasis on the "pop" part) would be a stretch. |
| Logos Cold Mission | 2.5 |
| The Flaming Lips Transmissions From the Satellite Heart | 3.5 |
| Earl Sweatshirt Doris | 3.0 |
| Grizzly Bear Shields | 3.5 |
| Jordan Klassen Repentance | 3.0 |
| Definitely not without its fair share of weak tracks, but overall an enjoyable and decently solid folk pop album. I am impressed with this dude and intend to see him live. |
| Between the Buried and Me The Parallax II: Future Sequence | 4.0 |
| Sky Ferreira Night Time, My Time | 2.5 |
| Even though it's a fairly enjoyable experience, Sky Ferreira's debut album really doesn't have anything on it that would set it apart from a run-of-the-mill album from a mainstream pop artist in terms of depth, colour, or originality. I honestly believe that people wouldn't be raving about her if she were more popular and well-known to the general public than she is. |
| Disclosure Settle | 3.0 |
| Muse The 2nd Law | 2.0 |
| There's not really too much musically offensive material on most of the tracks on The 2nd Law for those familiar with Muse's sound, unless you count being remarkably formulaic and predictable as musically offensive. I actually like Panic Station and Explorers, despite them being practically made of cheese, and I kinda dig the dubstep influence on Follow Me. What makes this album amazing is how spectacularly it derails itself and completely falls apart so unforgettably in it's last several tracks. |
| Metronomy The English Riviera | 2.5 |
| Nothing really badly made on here, just thoroughly unentertaining and forgettable. |
| Future of the Left How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident | 3.5 |
| The musical equivalent of being repeatedly punched in the face by a Welshman angry about the recent decline of popular post-hardcore. |
| Frightened Rabbit Pedestrian Verse | 3.5 |
| Beach House Teen Dream | 4.0 |
| Mogwai Mr. Beast | 4.0 |
| Probably a good introduction album for Mogwai (and post-rock in general) newcomers. Neither as introspective or as cosmic as their earlier work, but that's not the point of this record. The point is to rock, and they really succeed on that front. |
| of Montreal The Gay Parade | 4.5 |
| 65daysofstatic We Were Exploding Anyway | 4.0 |
| Grizzly Bear Yellow House | 3.5 |
| LCD Soundsystem This Is Happening | 4.0 |
| Colin Stetson New History Warfare Vol 2: Judges | 4.0 |
| Animal Collective Campfire Songs | 3.0 |
| Death Grips The Money Store | 4.5 |
| Endless abrasive, aggressive, experimental, and unforgivingly noisy fun. The hip hop equivalent of listening to a Battles LP. |
| Explosions in the Sky Take Care, Take Care, Take Care | 3.5 |
| Animal Collective Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished | 4.0 |
| Katy Perry Prism | 3.0 |
| As repetitive and formulaic and lacking in any surprises whatsoever as it may be, there's actually not a lot on here that would be offensive to those who listen to music on a "deeper" level. Sometimes (actually, almost throughout the entirety of the album) the lyrics are vapid, but Ms. Perry is still a good vocalist on this album of infectious, foot-stomping, radio-friendly pop anthems. |
| Black Flag Damaged | 3.5 |
| Grizzly Bear Veckatimest | 4.0 |
| Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d city | 4.5 |
| This'll probably be the album that'll be remembered by my future self as the album that got me into hip-hop; the LP that really made me realize how relevant, deep, and sobering music of this genre really can be. |
| Warpaint The Fool | 3.0 |
| Chance the Rapper Acid Rap | 3.5 |
| Washed Out Paracosm | 3.5 |
| The Weakerthans Left and Leaving | 4.0 |
| Sweet, straight-from-the-heart indie rock. I'd definitely recommend this album to any fans of Bright Eyes's I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning or Death Cab for Cutie's Transatlanticism. |
| Death Grips Government Plates | 4.0 |
| Brand New The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me | 4.0 |
| Run the Jewels Run the Jewels | 4.0 |
| Mount Eerie Pre-Human Ideas | 3.0 |
| Wilco A Ghost Is Born | 4.0 |
| of Montreal Satanic Panic in the Attic | 4.0 |
| Bright Eyes Cassadaga | 4.0 |
| Destroyer Kaputt | 3.0 |
| It was alright, I guess. My score is subject to change in the future, though, as it's definitely possible that I'll discover why everyone loves the hell out of it. |
| Baths Obsidian | 3.5 |
| Iron Chic The Constant One | 4.0 |
| Caspian Hymn For The Greatest Generation | 4.0 |
| Can't say I was exactly in love with either the demo or the remixes on this album, but the original material on here was so fantastic this just might end up being my favourite EP of the year. |
| Washed Out Life of Leisure | 3.0 |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan Ire Works | 4.0 |
| Bright Eyes Digital Ash in a Digital Urn | 3.5 |
| Absolutely nothing wrong with this album; I actually really enjoyed it. However, Bright Eyes's music is really better suited for a more sentimental, acoustic sound rather than the stuff on this darker, melodrama-soaked, mostly electronic album. Often reminded me of a less refined Postal Service (in a good way). |
| 65daysofstatic One Time for All Time | 4.0 |
| Aidan Knight Versicolour | 4.0 |
| Failure Fantastic Planet | 4.0 |
| Aidan Knight Small Reveal | 3.5 |
| Wilco Summerteeth | 4.5 |
| M83 Saturdays=Youth | 2.5 |
| Saturdays = Youth occupies a pretty average and underwhelming spot in the middle of the road between the more lo-fi, shoegazy drama of Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, and the epic, arena-ready synthpop jubilation of Hurry Up, We're Dreaming. |
| Bright Eyes Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground | 4.0 |
| Sleeping With Sirens Feel | 1.0 |
| Oh my fucking god. I'm usually open to more cheesy or melodramatic genres of music but I honestly didn't know things this bad existed. |
| The Black Keys Rubber Factory | 3.5 |
| Wilco The Whole Love | 4.5 |
| More pleasantness in a single album than most artists can fit into an entire discography. Almost rivals Yankee Hotel Foxtrot for me. |
| The Flaming Lips Peace Sword | 4.0 |
| Mogwai Come On Die Young | 3.5 |
| Young the Giant Young the Giant | 3.0 |
| Echosmith Talking Dreams | 1.5 |
| Wilco Sky Blue Sky | 3.5 |
| Bright Eyes A Christmas Album | 2.5 |
| Beirut Gulag Orkestar | 4.0 |
| Beirut's Gulag Orkestar has so much nostalgic beauty and earnestness and love in it it brought me to tears rupon first listen. |
| Talk Talk Laughing Stock | 4.0 |
| Bad Religion Christmas Songs | 2.5 |
| Russian Circles Memorial | 4.0 |
| The Lumineers The Lumineers | 3.0 |
| The Beatles Revolver | 4.5 |
| The Smashing Pumpkins Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness | 4.5 |
| The Academy Is... Almost Here | 4.0 |
| Sunn O))) Monoliths and Dimensions | 4.0 |
| Ominous and dolorous, but strangely beautiful and uplifting as it progresses. Good entry point into the genre for those new to drone music and doom metal. |
| Interpol Turn on the Bright Lights | 3.5 |
| Earth The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull | 4.0 |
| Nine Inch Nails The Downward Spiral | 4.0 |
| The Decemberists The King Is Dead | 3.0 |
| Easy and somewhat likeable but mostly forgettable. Listening to this thing gives me the impression that it's probably intended to be a "cool down record" for The Decemberists after the two sprawling and ambitious albums that preceded it. Too bad it couldn't be more entertaining while serving that purpose. |
| Kyte Dead Waves | 3.5 |
| Frightened Rabbit The Midnight Organ Fight | 4.0 |
| Now THIS is what folk-rock/folk-pop should sound like. |
| Arcade Fire Reflektor | 4.0 |
| Shockingly dense and by no means an easy listen, Reflektor can be forbidding with its existentialist themes, daunting length, and epic scope, even by Arcade Fire's standards. Will probably take many listens to fully understand, but this is the band's most intricate and meticulously planned album yet. |
| Yeah Yeah Yeahs It's Blitz! | 4.0 |
| Swans Children of God | 4.5 |
| Music from the most horrifying recesses of the abyss. Absolutely bone-chilling. |
| Death Cab for Cutie Codes and Keys | 3.5 |
| Volcano Choir Repave | 3.5 |
| The Zolas Ancient Mars | 2.0 |
| To me, a spectacular from grace for the Zolas. Was not expecting something so mediocre and commercial. |
| Feist Metals | 3.0 |
| Strangely primal and ethereally beautiful, but often the album really does seem to drag and leaves the listener wanting a lot more to grab their attention. |
| Modest Mouse No One's First, and You're Next | 3.5 |
| Arstidir Svefns og vöku skil | 3.5 |
| Algernon Cadwallader Some Kind Of Cadwallader | 4.0 |
| The Decemberists Her Majesty the Decemberists | 4.0 |
| The Decemberists Castaways and Cutouts | 3.5 |
| LCD Soundsystem Sound of Silver | 3.5 |
| Wolf Parade Apologies to the Queen Mary | 4.0 |
| Modest Mouse We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank | 4.0 |
| Modest Mouse's most accessible release so far, and much more cohesive and focused that its predecessor. While they have their strong points and their weak points, Modest Mouse are as edgy, raw, and idiosyncratically weird as ever, despite what hipsters will say. |
| Swans The Seer | 4.0 |
| Arstidir Arstidir | 4.0 |
| The New Pornographers Challengers | 3.5 |
| Band of Horses Cease to Begin | 3.5 |
| Baths Cerulean | 3.5 |
| Streetlight Manifesto Somewhere in the Between | 4.0 |
| Coldplay X&Y | 3.0 |
| The Microphones Mount Eerie | 4.5 |
| Propagandhi Failed States | 3.5 |
| Bright Eyes I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning | 4.0 |
| Dinosaur Jr. Farm | 4.0 |
| Mr. Bungle California | 4.0 |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan One of Us Is the Killer | 4.0 |
| Vali Skogslandskap | 4.0 |
| James Blake Overgrown | 3.0 |
| No Age An Object | 2.5 |
| Caspian Waking Season | 4.0 |
| Giraffes? Giraffes! Superbass!!! | 3.5 |
| Holy Ghost! Dynamics | 3.5 |
| Panic! at the Disco Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die! | 3.0 |
| And So I Watch You From Afar All Hail Bright Futures | 3.0 |
| Mount Eerie Clear Moon | 3.5 |
| Bibio Silver Wilkinson | 3.5 |
| Deafheaven Roads to Judah | 3.0 |
| What keeps Roads to Judah from being really great is definitely no shortcoming in the capacities for talent any of Deafheaven's band members might have, but really in the somewhat messy production and a sound that is big but could be so much bigger. |
| Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros Here | 3.0 |
| Mount Eerie Dawn | 4.0 |
| of Montreal Lousy With Sylvianbriar | 4.0 |
| The Tallest Man on Earth The Wild Hunt | 4.0 |
| Oneohtrix Point Never R Plus Seven | 3.5 |
| City and Colour Little Hell | 3.5 |
| The Dismemberment Plan Uncanney Valley | 2.5 |
| Occasionally catchy, sometimes even danceable, but The Dismemberment Plan's idiosyncratic, relatable neuroticism and inimitable ironic and introspective genius that made Emergency & I so special to me will be sorely missed. |
| Swans Soundtracks for the Blind | 4.5 |
| Animal Collective Sung Tongs | 3.5 |
| Dinosaur Jr. I Bet on Sky | 4.0 |
| HAIM Days Are Gone | 4.0 |
| A very impressive debut album from a group that may be one of the most promising indie pop acts I've heard this year. |
| Kayo Dot Hubardo | 4.0 |
| Earth Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II | 3.0 |
| Broken Social Scene You Forgot It in People | 3.5 |
| Frank Ocean channel ORANGE | 3.5 |
| Dinosaur Jr. You're Living All Over Me | 4.0 |
| The Zolas Tic Toc Tic | 4.5 |
| If "prog-pop" is a genre, these guys definitely put a catchy, campy, unique spin on it. |
| Earth Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I | 3.5 |
| The New Pornographers Electric Version | 3.5 |
| Lit A Place In The Sun | 3.0 |
| Marianas Trench Masterpiece Theatre | 4.0 |
| Colin Stetson New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light | 4.0 |
| Justin Timberlake The 20/20 Experience | 3.5 |
| Flying Lotus Cosmogramma | 4.0 |
| The Format Dog Problems | 4.5 |
| The Mars Volta Noctourniquet | 3.5 |
| Swans My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky | 3.0 |
| Talk Talk Spirit of Eden | 4.0 |
| The National Trouble Will Find Me | 2.0 |
| Touche Amore Is Survived By | 4.0 |
| Few modern screamo bands are really able to tug at your heartstrings like these guys are able to while still holding your attention and being able to have comprehensible lyrics. |
| Touche Amore Parting The Sea Between Brightness And Me | 3.5 |
| Muse Black Holes & Revelations | 3.5 |
| Pulp Different Class | 3.5 |
| Animal Collective Feels | 4.0 |
| Slower, more still, lyrical and ambient compared to AC's other stuff. Has what are easily some of the band's most heart-stoppingly beautiful material on it. |
| Animal Collective Strawberry Jam | 4.0 |
| Atoms for Peace Amok | 3.0 |
| Battles Gloss Drop | 4.0 |
| Phoenix (FRA) Bankrupt! | 2.5 |
| Steven Wilson The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) | 4.0 |
| Camera Obscura Desire Lines | 3.0 |
| Beach House Bloom | 4.0 |
| Battles Mirrored | 3.0 |
| Into It. Over It. Intersections | 4.0 |
| Deer Leap/The World Is A Beautiful Place... Are Here To Help You | 4.0 |
| The World Is a Beautiful Place... Josh Is Dead | 3.5 |
| The World Is a Beautiful Place... Formlessness | 4.0 |
| My Bloody Valentine m b v | 4.0 |
| Bad Religion Stranger Than Fiction | 3.5 |
| The Flaming Lips Embryonic | 4.0 |
| Tycho Dive | 4.0 |
| The White Stripes De Stijl | 4.5 |
| Grateful Dead American Beauty | 4.0 |
| Pity Sex Dark World | 3.0 |
| Have a Nice Life Deathconsciousness | 4.0 |
| Boards of Canada The Campfire Headphase | 3.0 |
| Purity Ring Shrines | 3.5 |
| Queens of the Stone Age Rated R | 3.5 |
| La Dispute Wildlife | 4.0 |
| Ryan Adams Ashes And Fire | 3.5 |
| The Neighbourhood I Love You. | 1.5 |
| Depressingly meritless. Cringeworthy lyricism and annoying vocals. Not a single song on here that's worth returning to again. |
| Band of Horses Everything All the Time | 3.0 |
| The Antlers In the Attic of the Universe | 4.0 |
| The Antlers Burst Apart | 2.5 |
| The Antlers Hospice | 4.5 |
| Anamanaguchi Dawn Metropolis | 3.5 |
| Anamanaguchi Endless Fantasy | 3.5 |
| Incomparably greater in size and scope than its predecessor Dawn Metropolis, and even though it can get exhausting listening to an album over an hour and fifteen minutes long of the same style of super sugary electropop over twenty-two tracks, this is as good as serious chiptune music gets. |
| Pacific Air Stop Talking | 3.5 |
| Oasis The Masterplan | 3.5 |
| Oasis Definitely Maybe | 4.0 |
| Oasis (What's the Story) Morning Glory? | 4.5 |
| Mumford and Sons Sigh No More | 2.5 |
| Mumford and Sons Babel | 2.0 |
| Joie de Vivre We're All Better Than This | 3.5 |
| The Format Interventions and Lullabies | 3.5 |
| Fall Out Boy Infinity on High | 3.5 |
| Big Black Delta Big Black Delta | 3.0 |
| The Album Leaf In A Safe Place | 3.0 |
| American Football American Football | 4.0 |
| No Age Nouns | 4.0 |
| Violent Femmes Violent Femmes | 4.5 |
| Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot | 4.5 |
| The Wooden Sky Every Child a Daughter, Every Moon a Sun | 3.5 |
| CHVRCHES Recover | 4.0 |
| At the Drive-In Relationship of Command | 4.0 |
| Phoenix (FRA) Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix | 3.5 |
| Boards of Canada Music Has the Right to Children | 3.0 |
| Boards of Canada Tomorrow's Harvest | 3.5 |
| Muse The Resistance | 3.5 |
| Muse Absolution | 4.0 |
| Muse Origin of Symmetry | 4.0 |
| OneRepublic Waking Up | 2.5 |
| OneRepublic Native | 3.5 |
| Noah and the Whale The First Days of Spring | 2.5 |
| Noah and the Whale Heart Of Nowhere | 3.0 |
| The New Pornographers Twin Cinema | 4.0 |
| The New Pornographers Mass Romantic | 4.0 |
| The New Pornographers Together | 3.5 |
| Nathan Fake Drowning in a Sea of Love | 3.0 |
| The National High Violet | 2.5 |
| Minus the Bear Planet of Ice | 2.5 |
| Smart and intricate, but sometimes the most notable merits this album has also make it (and really everything else Minus the Bear have made) seem cold, calculated, and soulless. |
| Mineral The Power of Failing | 4.0 |
| Maritime Human Hearts | 2.5 |
| Margot and the Nuclear So and So's The Dust of Retreat | 4.0 |
| M83 Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts | 3.5 |
| M83 Hurry Up, We're Dreaming | 3.5 |
| The Knife Silent Shout | 3.0 |
| Of Monsters and Men My Head is an Animal | 4.0 |
| Foster the People Torches | 2.5 |
| I was under the impression that the purpose of pop music was to create infectious, catchy music that is instantly memorable, but I guess I could be wrong... |
| Diamond Dancer Will You? | 4.0 |
| Brand New Deja Entendu | 4.0 |
| Beirut The Flying Club Cup | 4.0 |
| Beirut The Rip Tide | 3.5 |
| Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago | 3.0 |
| Bon Iver Bon Iver, Bon Iver | 4.0 |
| Blur 13 | 4.0 |
| Blur Blur | 4.0 |
| Blur The Great Escape | 3.0 |
| Blur Parklife | 4.0 |
| Crash of Rhinos Knots | 3.5 |
| Broken Bells Broken Bells | 1.5 |
| Broken Bells's appeal is one of the great mysteries of music in my opinion. Go back to The Shins, James. You're drunk. |
| Deer Leap Here. Home. | 3.5 |
| The Front Bottoms Talon of the Hawk | 4.0 |
| Franz Ferdinand You Could Have It So Much Better | 4.0 |
| Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand | 4.5 |
| Franz Ferdinand Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action | 3.0 |
| Imagine Dragons Night Visions | 3.5 |
| Into It. Over It. Proper | 4.0 |
| Liturgy Aesthethica | 3.5 |
| of Montreal Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? | 4.0 |
| Prawn You Can Just Leave It All | 3.5 |
| God Is an Astronaut All Is Violent, All Is Bright | 4.5 |
| Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our | 4.5 |
| Wintersleep Welcome To The Night Sky | 4.0 |
| Weezer Weezer | 4.0 |
| Weezer Pinkerton | 4.5 |
| The Stone Roses The Stone Roses | 4.5 |
| Stars Set Yourself On Fire | 4.0 |
| Foo Fighters Foo Fighters | 3.0 |
| The Smashing Pumpkins Oceania | 3.5 |
| The Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream | 4.5 |
| Said the Whale Islands Disappear | 2.0 |
| Russian Circles Empros | 3.5 |
| The Postal Service Give Up | 4.0 |
| Radical Face Ghost | 3.0 |
| Propagandhi Potemkin City Limits | 4.0 |
| Propagandhi Today's Empires, Tomorrow's Ashes | 4.0 |
| Passion Pit Manners | 3.0 |
| Passion Pit Gossamer | 4.0 |
| Super sugary pop music paired with lyrics about depression, loneliness, exclusion, economic disparity, and disillusionment with the very ideas of love and happiness. Though some tracks might initially be annoying at first, it really becomes a great album when you listen past the sounds on top and really get to the meaning behind the songs. |
| On An On Give In | 3.5 |
| My Chemical Romance Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge | 4.0 |
| My Chemical Romance The Black Parade | 4.0 |
| The Libertines Don't Look Back Into the Sun | 4.0 |
| The Libertines The Libertines | 4.0 |
| The Libertines Up The Bracket | 4.0 |
| Jonsi Go | 4.0 |
| The Killers Hot Fuss | 4.0 |
| The Killers Day & Age | 3.0 |
| My Bloody Valentine Loveless | 4.5 |
| Mogwai Young Team | 4.5 |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada | 4.0 |
| The Gaslight Anthem Handwritten | 3.0 |
| Kodaline In a Perfect World | 2.0 |
| The Flaming Lips The Terror | 3.0 |
| Modest Mouse This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About | 3.0 |
| Modest Mouse Good News for People Who Love Bad News | 3.5 |
| Though it has some of what is undeniably some of Modest Mouse's best material on it, sometimes the album's seemingly deliberate messiness and sudden, total shifts in genre and tone detract from the experience. |
| Modest Mouse The Lonesome Crowded West | 4.5 |
| Modest Mouse The Moon & Antarctica | 4.5 |
| Solemn, desolate, and lonely, but so earnest and beautiful too. Modest Mouse's finest record and an indie rock landmark of the 2000s. |
| The White Stripes Elephant | 4.5 |
| The White Stripes White Blood Cells | 4.0 |
| Jimmy Eat World Bleed American | 4.0 |
| Jimmy Eat World Clarity | 4.0 |
| Jimmy Eat World Damage | 3.0 |
| The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin | 4.5 |
| The Flaming Lips Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots | 4.5 |
| Filled with awe and wonderment at our beautiful world, but also with melancholy and sorrow. So sad it makes you laugh, and so happy it makes you cry. |
| Explosions in the Sky Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die... | 3.5 |
| Explosions in the Sky All of a Sudden, I Miss Everyone | 3.5 |
| Explosions in the Sky The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place | 4.0 |
| Daft Punk Random Access Memories | 4.0 |
| The xx xx | 3.5 |
| The xx Coexist | 3.0 |
| Death Cab for Cutie We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes | 2.5 |
| Death Cab for Cutie Something About Airplanes | 2.5 |
| Death Cab for Cutie Transatlanticism | 4.5 |
| Death Cab really outdo themselves on Transatlanticism, making what is by far their most emotional, most fluid, most cohesive, and most rocking album. Ben Gibbard really got his shit together for this. |
| Death Cab for Cutie Plans | 3.5 |
| Death Cab for Cutie The Photo Album | 3.0 |
| Death Cab for Cutie Narrow Stairs | 3.0 |
| Balance and Composure Separation | 3.0 |
| Balance and Composure The Things We Think We're Missing | 3.0 |
| Arctic Monkeys AM | 2.5 |
| CHVRCHES The Bones of What You Believe | 4.0 |
| "Purity Ring lite". Melody-loving, hooky synthpop that knows almost no equal when it comes to writing electronic pop songs that penetrate even the most cynical, elitist hearts. |
| Streetlight Manifesto The Hands That Thieve | 3.5 |
| Deafheaven Sunbather | 4.5 |
| Impeccably produced, accessible yet genuine black metal. Overlaps the genres of black metal, shoegaze, post-rock, and screamo seamlessly to make an uplifting, triumphal, larger-than-life album to knock your socks off, especially if you're new to extreme metal. |
| Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes EP | 3.5 |
| Fleet Foxes Sun Giant | 4.0 |
| Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes | 4.0 |
| Fleet Foxes Helplessness Blues | 4.5 |
| Coldplay Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends | 4.0 |
| Not exactly as much of an album of fiery anthems for the revolution as the cover art and title would have you think, but a surprisingly great album of catchy, well-written, radio-ready pop-rock singles. |
| Queens of the Stone Age Songs for the Deaf | 4.5 |
| Queens of the Stone Age ...Like Clockwork | 4.0 |
| Dan Mangan Nice, Nice, Very Nice | 4.5 |
| Dan Mangan Postcards and Daydreaming | 3.5 |
| Dan Mangan Oh Fortune | 4.0 |
| Rise Against Appeal to Reason | 4.0 |
| Rise Against The Sufferer and the Witness | 4.0 |
| The Microphones It Was Hot, We Stayed In The Water | 4.0 |
| The Microphones The Glow Pt. 2 | 4.5 |
| Full of an almost incomparably honest, heartfelt, and sincere love of nature and the world. |
| Say Anything ...Is a Real Boy | 4.5 |
| Say Anything In Defense of the Genre | 3.5 |
| Dashboard Confessional A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar | 2.5 |
| Dashboard Confessional The Swiss Army Romance | 1.0 |
| Maybe the single most unenjoyable album I own. Unbearable from start to finish. Not a single redeeming quality or aspect in the songwriting, lyricism, vocals, instrumentation, structure, etc. |
| The Dismemberment Plan The Dismemberment Plan Is Terrified | 4.0 |
| The Dismemberment Plan Change | 3.5 |
| The World Is a Beautiful Place... Whenever, If Ever | 4.5 |
| Vampire Weekend Modern Vampires of the City | 3.5 |
| Vampire Weekend Contra | 4.0 |
| Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend | 3.0 |
| MGMT Oracular Spectacular | 3.0 |
| MGMT Congratulations | 4.0 |
| I can understand how this album would disappoint some of the fans MGMT made with the pop single-heavy Oracular Spectacular, but really I wasn't expecting the band to prove themselves to be so well-read, self-aware, creative, and original. Props to these guys. |
| MGMT MGMT | 3.0 |
| Dense, claustrophobic, psychedelic, and weird, and all in a good way, but sometimes I think MGMT are trying a little too hard to hammer the final nail in Electric Feel's, Time to Pretend's, and Kids' family-sized coffin. Nevertheless, anyone who still wasn't convinced by Congratulations that these guys deserve to be taken a little more seriously has probably changed their minds after listening through this record. |
| Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion | 4.5 |
| Animal Collective's most accessible, most lush, most varied, and most fun album to date. A perfect culmination of all the brilliant sounds AC has been responsible for bestowing upon us in the past. |
| Arcade Fire The Arcade Fire | 3.5 |
| Arcade Fire The Suburbs | 4.5 |
| Arcade Fire Neon Bible | 4.0 |
| AJJ Can't Maintain | 4.0 |
| AJJ Knife Man | 4.0 |
| AJJ People Who Can Eat People are the Luckiest People | 3.5 |
| Sigur Ros Agætis byrjun | 4.0 |
| Sigur Ros ( ) | 4.5 |
| Sigur Ros Takk... | 4.0 |
| Sigur Ros Med Sud i Eyrum vid Spilum Endalaust | 3.5 |
| Sigur Ros Valtari | 4.5 |
| Sigur Ros Kveikur | 2.5 |
| The Strokes Angles | 3.0 |
| Nice to see The Strokes' new sound is starting to materialize, but at this point it does seem a little forced and difficult to swallow. |
| The Strokes Room on Fire | 3.5 |
| The Strokes First Impressions of Earth | 2.0 |
| Starts off decent, but quickly deteriorates after the fourth track and becomes what's easily The Strokes' most bloated, boring, confused record. |
| The Strokes Is This It | 4.5 |
| The Strokes Comedown Machine | 4.0 |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! | 4.5 |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Yanqui U.X.O. | 4.0 |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor F♯ A♯ ∞ | 4.5 |
| fun. Aim and Ignite | 4.0 |
| fun. Some Nights | 2.0 |
| There is no way Nate Ruess doesn't know this album is bad. The dude's made really, really great pop music before, whether it be fun.'s first album or the stuff he did with The Format. That was good pop music. This is an album of party-rock anthems for pre-pubescent tweens. |
| Radiohead The King of Limbs | 3.0 |
| Radiohead In Rainbows | 4.5 |
| Radiohead Pablo Honey | 3.0 |
| Radiohead Amnesiac | 3.5 |
| Radiohead Hail to the Thief | 4.0 |
| Radiohead The Bends | 4.5 |
| An almost perfect rock record. Cryptic lyricism and great production with tons of variance throughout Radiohead's most grungy, badass album. |
| Radiohead Kid A | 5.0 |
| The Shins Oh, Inverted World | 2.5 |
| The Shins Chutes Too Narrow | 3.0 |
| The Shins Wincing the Night Away | 4.0 |
| It knows it can't change the world, but its greatness is in the fact that it doesn't try. |
| The Shins Port of Morrow | 3.5 |
| The Decemberists The Hazards of Love | 4.0 |
| The Decemberists Picaresque | 4.0 |
| The Decemberists The Crane Wife | 4.5 |
| Colin Meloy has an exceptional talent for storytelling, and what I believe to be the finest Decemberists record to date allows him to really shine in that aspect, writing a fluid and creatively structured album made of short, catchy pop tracks to make us sing and dance, and longer, quasi-prog-rock ballads that really are surprisingly deep, moving, heartfelt, and extraordinarily well-written. |
| Neutral Milk Hotel On Avery Island | 4.0 |
