Kyle Ryan

When all of the elements hit, Activated feels like the work of a budding superstar.

Always Ascending has its moments, even if it’s not the musical rebirth Franz Ferdinand sought.

Whether hopeful or wallowing, Turn Out The Lights is beautifully crafted throughout, full of the kinds of songs that linger long after they’ve ended.

Reznor and Ross are master craftsmen of mood and texture, and no one can match Reznor’s skill for translating industrial’s jagged sounds into radio-ready hooks. He has always gone his own way, making for mixed results. Add Violence is a surprising amalgam of what has preceded it in the NIN discography—for better and worse.

Each Waxahatchee album has felt like a big step forward, and Out In The Storm feels like the biggest one yet.

Informative and moving, Every Valley doesn’t exist in the traditional space of an album—it’s almost music as journalism, or a musical collage version of This American Life. If nothing else, you won’t hear anything like it this year.

Winehouse was a complicated artist who deserved a nuanced, honest look at her life. In lesser hands, Amy could be a feature-length E! True Hollywood Story, but Kapadia treats his subject with respect and heart.

While the group’s predictability has traditionally been a positive assurance of quality, it’s now more indicative of stasis. Damage doesn’t offend, but it doesn’t offer much that’s memorable, either.

Celebration Rock finds that some of the best moments in life can come from uncertainty.

Although Blink-182 has long since left its past as a bare-bones punk band behind, overwrought rock isn’t its forte, either. Neighborhoods finds a nice balance between the two, but it could still use a little less fussiness.

Considering the personnel involved, it’s no surprise Wild Flag works as well as it does, or that it picks up in a familiar place.

If nothing else, Wasting Light is Foo Fighters' first generally good record in six years, solid from top to bottom without the filler that marred the band's early records.

Weary from fighting and just hoping to get Lasers released, Fiasco conceded, and the result is a schizophrenic record that even he feels ambivalent about.

These New Puritans are still figuring out the right balance, but Hidden remains an impressive step forward.

Green Day took small steps out of its comfort zone on American Idiot, but Breakdown finds the band going bolder, mixing in elements of mariachi (“Peacemaker”) and klezmer (“¡Viva La Gloria!”). Still, the band members never spend too much time away from their bread and butter: heavily melodic punk.

This one just goes further, with more layers and cameos from Elvis Costello, Debbie Harry, Lil Wayne, and others. Costello endorsement or not, Folie À Deux won't change the minds of people who use "Wentz" pejoratively. But Fall Out Boy seems more comfortable than ever with that.

Bloc Party has a lot of ideas on Intimacy, but the band should have given itself more time to figure them out.