Preoccupations - New Material: I like the old material better.

Pianos Become The Teeth - Wait For Love: Decent, but not as good as earlier works.

A Perfect Circle - Eat The Elephant: I always expect heavier, but this was really good.

The Alan Parsons Project - I Robot: Good for what it is.

Parquet Courts - Wide Awake: AOTY contender.

Owls - Two: Anything from the Kinsella brothers is worth your time.

Ought - Room Inside The World: Disappointing.

Origami Angel - Quiet Hours: Cool little emo band from DC.

Open City - City of Ash: Great little EP.

The Only Ones - The Only Ones: I have so much to learn about '70s punk.

Okkervil River - In The Rainbow Rain: Just never hits me like it does others.

Of Montreal - White Is Relic Irraelis Mood: Big return to form.

No Age - Snares Like A Haircut: Pretty good, but high bar for success.

Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour: Much better than her last album.

David Murray - Blue For Memo: Jazz plus Saul Williams is a mixed bag.

The Most - Mostified: Bonkers but great.

The Messthetics - The Messthetics: Worth a single listen.

Martha - Blisters In The Pit Of My Heart: Big improvement.

Martha - Courting Strong: Perfect encapsulation of their live show.

Mandroid Echostar - Coral Throne: Somewhere between SSTB and IKSSE Coheed.

The Longshot - Love Is For Lovers: The softer side of Billie Joe Armstrong.

Knocked Loose - Laugh Tracks: No laughing at the great hardcore album.

King Krule - The Ooz: Some cool songs, but not enough of them.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Gumboot Soup: Leftovers from an astonishing year.

The Kids - The Kids: Classic punk from the '70s.

Jason Isbell - The Nashville Sound: Slight too clean, but great songs.

Iceage - Beyondless: Not very engaging.

Death Grips - Year Of The Snitch: A lot to unpack here, but Streaky in album context is way better than as a single.

I Create - All We Are Is Now: Transcendent post-hardcore/screamo.

I Create - Make The Years: Pretty standard post-hardcore/screamo.

Husker Du - Zen Arcade: Whoa.

Hurray For The Riff Raff - The Navigator: A little too inside the lines.

Hop Along - Bark Your Head Off, Dog: Swinging for the fences and clearing them has to be a great feeling.

HIRS - Friends, Lovers, Favorites: Noisecore at its finest.

Tylisha Haskins - Goya Boy: Huge step up form ...All That Jazz.

Guyver-One - Discography: Pretty great screamo.

Guilt - Comprehensive Guide To Anger Management Composed In Drop D: Starts off pretty decent, but the back half is Slint-influenced hardcore.

The Go! Team - Semicircle: Always sucked in by a single or review or snippet. Usually disappointed.

Gasoline Heart - You Know Who You Are: Perhaps a response to Texas Is The Reason, they occupy a space between Gaslight Anthem and Hot Water Music.

Fury - Paramount: Bands like Fury give me hope for hardcore.

The Fix - At The Speed of Twisted Thought: Essential and inexplicably off my radar for far too long.

Fiddlehead - Springtime and Blind: Not sure how to describe this major Album of the Year contender.

Fiddlehead - Out Of The Bloom: Looking forward to more.

Father John Misty - God's Favorite Customer: Another excellent album.

The Fall - 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong: I mean, they can, but not about The Fall.

Eminem - Revival: Maybe this was the album he needed to make in order to have a real revival?

Disfear - Live The Storm: Amazing.

The Dickies - The Incredible Shrinking Dickies: Come for the Paranoid cover, stay for the vital punk.

The Decemberists - I'll Be Your Girl: Not sure how I feel about the new direction yet.

Dead Boys - Young, Loud, And Snotty: Essential punk.

Richard Dawson - Peasant: Strong contender for album of last year.

Dashboard Confessional - Crooked Shadows: Still searching for that Top 40 hit.

Czarface and MF Doom - Meets: Anything Doom related it worth checking out.

Company Flow - Funcrusher Plus: A bit long in the tooth, but refreshing.

Citizen - As You Please: More melodic, but far better.