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The Front Bottoms – The Front Bottoms Did your 2011 lack the dark comedy lyrics of folk punk, the danceable melodies of your favorite 2009 synth-pop band, the belting choruses of your emotional middle school years, and the DIY New Jersey attitude? Have no fear,...

Frank Ocean – Nostalgia, Ultra. With his first major release, Frank Ocean emerges as a broken-hearted sensitive crooner (a.k.a. an oddball) in the OFWGKTA crew, the angry youth-driven group that the public has deemed to be the worst thing since unsliced bread....

In 2011, one DJ’s guilty pleasure was another‰'s song of the year. At some point, your favorite embarrassing Top 40 jam probably earned a spot among some publication‰'s best tracks of the year, from the overwrought (“Someone Like You‰Û) to the nonsensical...

The Drums – Portamento The Italian word “portamento‰” means a transition musically from one pitch to another, and it’s a fitting title for the Drums’ grim, somber second album. The Drums as we knew them were the lighthearded buzzband (see:...

Afuche – Highly Publicized Digital Boxing Match Afuche dances. And I don‰'t only mean musically. I mean that if you look at videos of them they‰'re just boogying away. But that‰'s not what makes Highly Publicized Digital Boxing Match a great album. There‰'s far...

Portugal. the Man – In The Mountain In The Cloud Portugal. the Man always releases albums that almost feel like a single giant song. Everything on the album has one overlaying tone that ties the whole thing together, which also seems the case even with their...

Vusi Mahlasela – Say Africa South African singer-songwriter Vusi Mahlasela achieved a certain level of global exposure when he became one of the featured musicians for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, an event which was (much to my delight) just as much an...

A$AP Rocky – LIVELOVEA$AP As 2011 comes to an end, 2012 should be ushered in with the clanking of wine bottles, half-witted New Year‰'s Resolutions and a long overdue moratorium on the word “swag.‰” If not for the word‰'s blatant overuse, the moratorium should...

Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges Think of everything you believe a saxophone to be capable of. Over the course of the 45-minute New History Warface Vol. 2: Judges, Bon Iver/Arcade Fire associate Colin Stetson burns those notions to the ground...

Real Estate – Days For a genre teeming with pale, skinny, upper-middle-class dudes, its surprising that an indie group didn’t deliver The Suburbs much earlier. But while Arcade Fire drenched its Grammy award-winning semi-autobiographical album in weirdly...