St. Vincent - St. Vincent: Atop many end-of-year lists for a damn good reason.

Spoon - They Want My Soul: Spoon is the band I never remember I missed.

Speech Debelle - Speech Therapy: Refreshing, innovative hip-hop that needs more recognition.

Sonic's Rendezvous Band - City Slang/Sweet Nothing: This band needs more attention.

Sonic Avenues - Mistakes: No mistakes here, fun pop/rock album.

Smashing Pumpkins - Monument to an Elegy: Short (for them), restrainted (for them), but effective rock album.

Smashing Pumpkins - Oceania: The moment i realized the parallels in career between them and Saves the Day.

Smashing Pumpkins - Adore: Not nearly as bad as anticipated. In fact, quite a good album.

Smashing Pumpkins - Gish: Why have I slept on this album so long?

Sleater-Kinney - No Cities To Love: Cannot wait to listen to this again.

Shellac - Dude Incredible: Extremely engaging post-punk/math rock akin to modern Mission of Burma.

Run The Jewels - 2: Easily the best hip-hop album of last year. Unbelievable they could top their debut, but they did.

She & Him - Classics: More of what you have come to expect.

Ty Segall - Manipulator: I want to like this, but struggling to get through each song.

Seam - The Problem With Me: What an absolutely great album.

Antonio Sanchez - Birdman Soundtrack: Pretty good on its own, but wish the sequence were drastically different.

Josh Rouse - Nashville: Pleasant enough, but would be disservice to only listen to once.

Rough Francis - Maximum Soul Power: Evokes none of those adjectives.

Rotting Out - This Is Just A Life: Black Flag meets Over My Dead Body.

Perfect Pussy - Say Yes to Love: Brash, loud, angry, fun. Yes.

Rotting Out - The Wrong Way: Less Bane worship, more awesome.

Rotting Out - Street Prowl: Something captivating about Walter's delivery.

The Roots - ...And Then You Shoot Your Cousin: Disappointing.

Roll The Tanks - Broke 'til Midnight: Great contemporaries of modern Against Me!.

Davis Rogan - The Real Davis: I will miss you, Treme.

Rodan - Fifteen Quiet Years: Worth having, but Rusty deserves to be in the rotation.

Rodan - Rusty: Very obvious Slint successor.

Right Away, Great Captain: Bitter End/Eventually Home/Church Of The Good Thief: Andy Hull starting to grow on me.

Buddy Rich - Mercy, Mercy - Drumming more prominent, but still needs to be louder.

Buddy Rich - The New One!: Wish the drumming was more prominent and louder in the mix.

Damien Rice - My Favourite Faded Fantasy: Always have a special place for O.

Restorations - LP3: This should have been on more "Best Of" lists last year.

Resist - We Want Our World Back: No Ten Yard Fight, but as close as we might get.

Ratking - So It Goes: Good modern hip-hop.

Rancid - And Out Come The Wolves: A great continuation of Operation Ivy with a bit more Clash.

Rachel's - Selenography: Their best work.

Pure Hell - Noise Addiction: Certainly not as good as Death, but maybe just as important.

The Progress - Merit: Miss Piebald? Listen to this.

Prawn - Kingfisher: Triumphant addition to the emo revival.

Pixies - Pixies: For completists only.

Pixies - Trompe le Monde: All good things come to and end.

Pixies - Bossanova: Slightly-less-than a masterpiece.

Pixies - Doolittle: Masterpiece.

Pixies - Surfer Rosa/Come On Pilgrim: Mostly good indie rock.

Pink Floyd - The Endless River: Feels like a cash grab.

Tom Petty - Hypnotic Eye: Lost some of the charm from the past few albums.

Parquet Courts - Sunbathing Animal: Start to buy into the hype.

Parkay Quarts - Content Nausea: Like a hip-hop mixtape, this collection a testing ground.

Owen - I Do Perceive: Singer-songwriter is a tough sell for me.

Ought - More Than Any Other Day: Owes much to the Talking Heads.

Open Mike Eagle - Dark Comedy: Alternative hip-hop that is worth listening to but not obsessing over.