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Bibio
Ambivalence Avenue

[Warp; 2009]

8.3

Bibio released Vignetting the Compost just five months ago, and it seemed to cement his status as a pleasant one-trick pony. So it's shocking how utterly and successfully he rewrites his playbook on this Warp debut. While Ambivalence Avenue is an excellent album by any measure, Bibio deserves extra credit for venturing outside of his established comfort zone. He began his musical career trying to emulate Steve Reich and Boards of Canada on no-fi equipment. He was fascinated by the physicality of media-- of degrading tape and malfunctioning recording gear. And he was interested in the natural world, letting the sounds of streams and rainshowers stand in for his own personality. Having depleted these ideas over the course of three solid albums, he's put them aside to do nearly the opposite.

Sunset Rubdown
Dragonslayer

[Jagjaguwar; 2009]

8.3

Find it at: Insound | eMusic | Lala

The prolific Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade, Swan Lake) returns with another knotty album that takes a few listens to sink in. Still, compared to 2007's, Random Spirit Lover, Dragonslayer is a lither, more athletic Sunset Rubdown record-- easier to like, easier to understand. Tension used to come from the many stops and starts in each song, but now there's drama in the drums and the quick mood changes between tracks, rather than the grand crescendos of a thousand instruments. Dragonslayer shifts from stately formality to heart-pounding new wave skitter and anxious, head-over-heels tumbles, getting more strident and noisier as it moves.

Dinosaur Jr.
Farm

[Jagjaguwar; 2009]

8.5

Find it at: Insound | eMusic | Lala

2007's Beyond, the first album to feature the original Dinosaur Jr. lineup since their 1980s heyday, was so surprisingly good it was tempting to call it a fluke. Tempting, but wrong-- two years after its release, it still sounds great, on par with the early, hallowed triumvirate of Dinosaur, You're Living All Over Me, and Bug. For any cynics still chalking Beyond up to luck, Farm should blast the scales from your jaded eyes. Energetic, confident, and catchy as a virus, is even more compelling, boasting more stick-in-your-head tunes than virtually any other Dinosaur Jr. album.

Mos Def
The Ecstatic

[Downtown; 2009]

8.0

Find it at: Insound | eMusic | Lala

The rapper's first solo album in almost three years is his small-globe statement, an album that comfortably jumps stylistically across continents on a hip-hop goodwill-ambassador tour. It's all over the map, but somehow comes together into a statement that works. It starts with the production, which touches on genres from the Caribbean and the Middle East as well as neon Euro-American club-kid slickness, but the real draw is that Mos Def sounds like actually gives a shit, that he has a stake in something greater than just one corner of the rap world.

Dirty Projectors
Bitte Orca

[Domino; 2009]

9.2

Find it at: Insound | eMusic | Lala

This is the challenging band's best, and certainly most likable, album by a mile. Bitte doesn't actually switch up their formula that much: Intricate (if roomier) full-band arrangements abound, leader Dave Longstreth largely sticks with his clear King Sunny Ade-meets-Jimmy Page guitar acrobatics, and he's still singing his strange, loping songs with his one-of-a-kind voice. But it whittles down the jarring time signatures and off-kilter arrangements and vocal bleats (er, for the most part) to create a triumphant art-pop record destined to please longtime fans and win him a whole slew of new ones.

Sunn O)))
Monoliths & Dimensions

[Southern Lord; 2009]

8.5

Find it at: Insound | eMusic | Lala

Sunn O)))'s latest album may be their best, as dozens of collaborators join on four epic tracks that run from slow metal to shimmering orchestral drone. Here they exploit a newfound spaciousness and elegance, folding in horns, strings, harp, light percussion, and voices while losing none of their visceral power. Per their long-standing dogma, "Maximum volume [still] yields maximum results." But this time, there's enough musical range and temperance to usher even the most resolute naysayer into this intricate wonderland.

Phoenix
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

[Glassnote / Loyauté; 2009]

8.5

Find it at: Insound | eMusic | Lala

Nearly 10 years into its career, the underrated French band has honed its sleek and increasingly effective bursts of pop to a fine point. This casually chic group has grown into something unique-- Wolfgang isn't a tweaked Air record or a tweaked Strokes record as much as it's a Phoenix record. Gone is the sometimes-flimsy blue-eyed soul of their first two LPs, replaced with a glossier take on the uptick guitars and sampled snare snaps of 2006's brilliant It's Never Been Like That. But while the album's 10 songs are arranged and executed with virtuoso pop-rock precision, they chronicle nothing but angst, confusion, disappointment, and despair.

Grizzly Bear
Veckatimest

[Warp; 2009]

9.0

Find it at: Insound | eMusic | Lala

Veckatimest ain't perfect; lord knows it tries. More than most any album in recent memory, it is compositionally and sonically airtight, every moment sounding tweaked, labored over. The obvious highlights are breathtaking-- the bounce of "Two Weeks", the skyward swoon of teen creeper "Cheerleader", the surefooted shuffle of "While You Wait for the Others"-- but this is Grizzly Bear, and despite an increased confidence in their pop sensibilities and an overall strengthening of melodies, they're still meanderers at heart. And here, that patient, exploratory approach serves them well. What's perhaps the most remarkable thing about the truly remarkable Veckatimest, however, is how very exciting much of it is; no small feat for a painstaking chamber-pop record that never once veers above the middle tempo.

Isis
Wavering Radiant

[Ipecac; 2009]

8.5

Find it at: Insound | eMusic | Lala

Though generally classified as a metal band, Isis can't be summarized with any one label. On new album Wavering Radiant, these self-professed Fennesz and Pink Floyd devotees have turned often-drab contemporary guitar rock into music flush with fresh emotions and ideas. Wavering Radiant continues the shifts the band made on 2006's In the Absence of Truth-- namely, more elaborate sonics and increased rhythmic variety-- while also emphasizing the finer points of tempo and, especially, melody. Melodicism not only adds a new dimension to Isis' music but another way to raise the tension, by silhouetting those melodies against their slabs of dissonance. The result is a sense of completeness and unity that recalls album-rock's golden years.

St. Vincent
Actor

[4AD; 2009]

8.5

Find it at: Insound | eMusic | Lala

Annie Clark, the musician otherwise known as St. Vincent, first gained notice through working with Sufjan Stevens and the Polyphonic Spree. Here on her excellent second album, she projects an aura of eerie perfection, but her music is not overly polite or unaffecting. On the contrary, Clark's songs hone in on precise fluctuations in mood, and flesh out complex inner worlds for the women suggested in her lyrics. These slippery characters are given life by the varied instrumentation, as when songs move out of placid, Disney-esque string accompaniment into jagged, distorted guitar passages. Lush, dynamic, and inviting, Actor is an admirable step up from her 2007 full-length debut.

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