#2978 Sandy's - Chime

A beautiful sense of space, that astral living room on the cover says it all. Steel guitars and swooning ambience run through endless reverb, with just enough pop structure to keep it from falling apart in your hands. William Tyler meets Tycho, a refreshing little 23 minute driftaway 4/5

#2461 Not Waving - Animals

Slowmoving layers of buzz and drone and fractured samples and surging energy shift over eachother slowly, never quite of the same world - that cover art's perfect. Atticus Ross anxiety and momentum ooze from every measure, a listen filled with the pins and needles of anticipation 4/5

#1346 King Creosote - From Scotland With Love

Patient, spare little songs built on the wing of Kenny Anderson's lilting Scottish croon. Drums heartbeat alongside the barest twinkles of piano and accordion and guitar and whatever else is on hand, all so that croon can twang and wing through the reeds. And despite being a blueprint for a castle to house my hatred of the singer-songwriter the towers crow with a sound I can't but praise.

This is small and fragile and beautiful, packed with nostalgia of the half remembered - its faded postcard cover saying it all.

There are stretches that drag, and upbeat bouncers like Largs seem out of place (put there maybe to prevent even more dragging?) but if you can slow your pulse to match it, and find your way to the heartbreaking 1-2 of For One Night Only and Bluebell, Cockleshell, well, there's soul to spare here. An album for few times and perfect for those 4/5

#1289 Lone - Galaxy Garden

Loops come in and loops come out and they all turn and glow like that wonderfully cosmic cover art.

Better suited for stroking beards than bobbing heads (to say nothing of moving asses), this'd be ambient if it wasn't so busy, sounding at times like two ambient-era Aphex tracks playing at once (I swear I've heard those exact 4-beat surges on Lying in the Reeds somewhere else before). Perfectly good to tuck into if you're bored with your Orbital records, with production quirks in the details, but it's all too scattered to and distantly familiar to really catch my attention 2.5/5

#1213 Warpaint - Warpaint

When you see overlaid images of ladies on an album cover you know what you're in for in 2014: ladies singing over ethereal instrumentation. This at least takes it a step farther: even the singing is rendered ethereal, voices coming and going at wildly different volumes and spatial velocities, so that it's often not so much a duet or harmony or chorus, but a series of ghostly presences wheeling about eachother.

And it kind of works. And at least someone's trying to nudge this staid genre a notch. It wears out its welcome and disappears into itself by the end, but at least you've got atmosphere, rolling bass, and some glimmer of innovation to warm yourself by while you slip away 3/5

#1099 Daedelus - Drown Out

The album art is telling, with its little man sinking to a drowned world, exploring or returning home or dying or...

Earlier Daedelus albums were steeped in history, in dusty details, in the analog crackle of the past, samples tripping past as memory. But on Drown Out, you enter a fluid and alien world, with beats that get lost in the larger rhythms, with notes that bleeed and blend. Sampling and looping are still part of the program, but where vintage records once formed the backbone, there's now a much greater reliance on buzzy tones, sequenced arpeggios, analog/additive/subtractive synths. Little stands out, there are few big moments, few strong melodies, just swoops and whorls that swoon and intersect, and in the end it doesn't quite work. It's not as hypnotic as more traditional ambient music, not as danceable as more traditional electronic music, and lacks the heart of more traditional instrumental hip hop. You can't help but admire the guy for trying to keep moving, but here he's lost the thread of what makes his great stuff great 3/5

#1046 Arcade Fire - Reflektor

Aren't we due for another disco bubble to burst? Daft Punk and Arcade Fire aren't exactly the Bee Gees, but they're your-dad's-heard-of-em big, and they've had two of the most hotly anticipated releases of the year, both indebted to disco, nicking its fundamental backbeat and icy cool without providing any particular dancability. At least the short-lived dancepunk thing of 10 years ago knew to emphasize energy over trappings. This is like post-dancepunk. ugh.

Like RAM, Reflektor is a bloated, compelling, frustrating listen; aloof and hollow and majestic. It's important. Professorial. The kind of album that would have statues of mythological people on the cover. The kind of thing a band with a show dress code would put out. When the big beats kick in on Here Comes the Night Time, you're expected to dance. And you'll want to! Its a great moment! But it feels like a directive more than an invitation, one many from the magistrates of rock.

When Butler mutters "do you like rock and roll music...?" at the start of Normal Person it feels like a taunt. What kicks off next is the only great song on the album, a thrilling stomper full of offkilter guitar lines, a slinky Bowie-worthy verse or three, and even a Blur-worthy skitterey kickout. It's one of the few moments when you feel like you're listening to a rock and roll band instead of a dissertation on rock and roll. "I don't know if I do..." Butler demures. Well no wonder.

Musically the album's overloaded and unfocused, but sure, so was Funeral and I liked that one just fine. And frustratingly, as a whole, its a pretty epic listen that will hold your interest for an hour or so. But there's no songs on it (Normal Person excepted), no heart, no voice you'd want to hear. It all goes back to the "would you want to be in this band?" test. Good god I bet this is a miserable joyless tour going on right about now, just look at the stage patter that drips from the opening of that one good track. Look. These guys put a fake live intro on one of their songs and intentionally made it sound like they didn't even want to be there. Maybe that tells you everything you need to know right there 3/5

#1038 Soft Cell - Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret

Tainted Love tells you more or less everything you need to know about this album: like most of their ilk from the 80's, Soft Cell found their synth sound, found their basic attitude, and stuck to it out of a supreme confidence, consistency, or a lack of imagination.

Soft Cell justify that consistency better than most though: the album's all needing wanting more, grasping for that greater thrill, chasing that next high, a treadmill in molasses at a million miles an hour. The songs loop with sparking heels and neon buzz, words drip from mouths with pre-Blur disdain, we wander through identical clubs, down identical streets, through a night that never ends, through nights that never end, highs and lows blur together. Over the top, saxes scream, girls chant, and voices whisper "sexxx dwaarff" in dimly lit underground Love Shack raveup comedown. It's cool, it's weird, it's exciting, it's boring, it's endless and over too soon. It completely cancels itself out and does it so well that it comes out ahead 4/5

#921 Wampire - Curiosity

Here it is, the natural conclusion of the decade's revivalism: an album that deals in swirling psychedelia revivalism (see Tame Impala, Alt-J, et al), AND wistful 80's synthpop revivalism (see Twin Shadow, Cut Copy, et al et cetera.).

The album goes down smooth, smearing reverbey washes over reverbey solos over reverbey beats, letting the whole thing bleed as watercolor nebular as its cover art. It's noisier and more adventurous than most of those namedrop victims, but nothing really sticks, leaving listeners with nostalgic daydream memories and a faint wellness that fades on waking 3/5

#786 Sam & Dave - Hold On, I'm Comin'

These are two cool dudes, belting out tales of wanting and taking and getting, sounding like they really care without sounding like they're really trying. It's a neat trick, all backed by brisky, funky Stax backbeats and horns, hooky and hitched with a thrilling, ragged edge, like a couple of laid-back James Browns.

Also, add this to the list of albums where the cover sums it up: Sam and Dave are slow but unrushed, suited up and cool, even in a cartoon turtle wonderland.

Whatever it is you need, they know when you need it and that's exactly when you'll get it 4/5

#784 Black Moth Super Rainbow - Cobra Juicy

Saccharine, slippery pop built on big basslines and big bass beats, slathered in synthy wobble and autotune croon. Fun and weird and annoying and sweet and crammed up in your joy slits, it sounds like its batshit cover art looks. But as with any good tooth-rotter, what starts off delightful soon loses its thrill. This is good mix fodder, maybe all-the-way-through fun for just the right kind of party, but otherwise the sound is too one note to sustain a complete album. This'd have made a gem of an EP 3.5/5