Between lead vocalist “Ninja” who raps into a penis-shaped microphone attached to his crotch and his freakish, circus-like sidekick Yolandi Visser, it’s no surprise that their sophomore album, Ten$ion, is just as shocking and discombobulated as the personas they have created. These South African natives have certainly made a name for themselves in America, but perhaps for all the wrong reasons, seeing as it is their violently explicit videos instead of their music. The videos have become so popular because they are so shocking that it’s hard not to watch. Although their debut, $O$, has somewhat of the same explicit lyricism and odd song concepts, Ten$ion just blows it right out of the water in terms of freakishness and leaves the listener questioning the group’s sanity.

Let’s start with the cover art, for instance, which features Yolandi Visser topless with angel wings and black, demon-like eyes, devouring what seems to be a bloody heart. Although the group is known for featuring sexually and violently explicit images through their videos for their debut singles “Enter the Ninja” and “Evil Boy”, this album cover is much more shocking than what I had expected and ultimately reflects the overall violent atmosphere of the record.

The title track “Never Le Nkemise 1″ kicks off the album with an unexpectedly sorrowful string ensemble underneath a tribal chant which seems promising, but unfortunately gets ruined by a dubstep-inspired breakdown and Ninja’s line “I’m indestructible” which leads into a rap/dubstep mess. Yolandi Visser is featured on the single “I Fink U Freeky” which,  based on the title, is really hard to take seriously. The techno undertone throughout the song sounds like something out of a video game or maybe something you’d hear in a nightclub on the Jersey Shore and the repetition of Yolandi’s line “I fink u freeky and I like you a lot” makes you finally have to turn it off to save your eardrums from the irritation.

Perhaps the strangest aspects of the record are the “skits” which feature the spoken word of Ninja and Yolandi.  The first skit entitled “Pielie” features Ninja speaking in Afrikaans for all of 9 seconds and the other is a really weird interaction between Ninja and Yolandi in which Ninja plays a character named “Uncle Jimmy” and speaks suggestively to Yolandi, who is supposed to be his niece. The catchiest song on the album is probably “Baby’s On Fire”, but that doesn’t mean that it is musically valuable by any means seeing as the overproduced sound and unoriginality of the techno melody just sound like any other catchy techno song.

The ridiculousness continues with “U Make A Ninja Wanna F***”, another techno-inspired hip-hop track which doesn’t really do much besides make the duo seem like freakish nymphomaniacs. I will, however, venture to say that the usage of Afrikaans in some of the tracks is quite interesting and leaves you wondering about the culture in South Africa. Is it normal to eat blood-gushing hearts on album covers down there? I have no idea, but I just can’t imagine that it will work for anyone here in America.

Recommended Track: Baby’s On Fire

Released on December 21 immediately after Drake dropped his video for “The Motto” at midnight, it seemed like the OVOXO team had a plan for people to marvel over their work until the wee hours of the morning.

The mixtape opens with a cover of Michael Jackson’s “Dirty Diana,” called “D.D.” It is a pretty ballsy move to open with an untouchable classic, but the moody track is a good pairing for the emotive singer. “Montreal” has an eerie 80s vibe with its heavy-hitting bass and ghastly harmonies.

One of the highlights off Echoes of Silence is “XO/The Host.” Its trippy intro is reminiscent of the singer’s debut mixtape House of Balloons; the track is horrifyingly addictive yet slightly messy, ripping your eardrums in three different directions. “Initiation” has a similar feel; it’s a bitter track that haunts your inner core as Tesfaye’s vocals shift from helium-filled to codeine-induced without warning. The terrifying track takes you back to a place in time where you hid under your covers as an imaginary monster tore down your bedroom door.

The album slows down with “Next,” which begins with a heavy-hearted piano riff that refreshingly brings the mixtape into a cool ballad.

The Weeknd began the year with his killer drug overflow of House of Balloons and continued the momentum with Thursday. Echoes of Silence is the perfect way to end the artist’s Balloon Trilogy—when the sun rises on the streaky window after the rave is over.

Recommended Tracks: XO/The Host, Initiation, Same Old Song

So, it’s like I said: Skrillex has found an incredibly fruitful niche and is adored within it. The problem is that the niche is small. Plenty of people occupy this little space, but let’s face it: Skrillex’s brand of roid-rage dubstep is entertaining in a sweaty room of gyrating 17 year olds covered in gyrating 17 year olds, but few other places. Skrillex’s music is pure, sonic adrenaline (à la Andrew W.K. in many ways), and in the end it’s all just a ways too much unrelenting womp-wompy madness.

And Bangarang isn’t even a long-play record! It, like Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites, is quite long for an EP, a duly noted testament to Moore’s impressive prolificacy. But the point is that Bangarang might have been a chance for Moore to show that Voltage might approach some level of digestibility.

This isn’t to say it won’t; Moore isn’t an idiot, and his own music taste is diverse enough that one can expect him to break up the madness a bit on Voltage. But so far, he isn’t really showing that Skrillex can be as multi-faceted as Moore himself is. He’s sticking to the tricks that have worked in the past, like a shout before a colossal beat drop. Some might call it a trademark, but I’m not convinced. On Voltage, Sonny Moore is going to have to really take the risks—the kind of risks he failed to demonstrate that he’s willing to take on Bangarang.

Recommended Track: Right In

“Making Mirrors” and “Easy Way Out” are short and sweet numbers to start off the album. The first is a shoe-gaze track that somehow artfully meanders at just one minute long, whereas the second is a pure burst of retro rock. These act as quick stepping stones to the one-two punch of “Somebody That I Used to Know” and “Eyes Wide Open.” The former, featuring emerging Australian singer Kimbra, became the longest running #1 song in Australia in over a decade and has been enjoying a whirlwind of success internationally. “Eyes Wide Open” is a bit of a rumination on fear, using the metaphor of “walking the plank.”

Setting Gotye apart is the sheer variety of influences that carefully craft each note.  “I Feel Better” is reminiscent of Gotye’s previous hit “Learnalilgivinanlovin,” dripping with so much Motown-style soul one would half-expect a cameo from Martha & The Vandellas or The Temptations. And if DNA could be carefully extracted from Wham! and Hall & Oates, the result would be the almost-too-cheerful “In Your Light.”

The backend of the album is a natural decrescendo from the highs of the middle section, though it doesn’t quite match up lyrically or creatively to the high standard Gotye sets in the album’s other songs. It acts as a cool-down lap around a track: it’s a necessary and gratifying end, but not the highlight of the run.

Arguably the best aspect of Making Mirrors is the music videos, which add so much to the meaning and emotions conveyed. “Don’t Worry, We’ll Be Watching You” as one of the less memorable songs is amplified by the creepy dystopian animated music video accompanying it. Gotye tiptoes through the song, but with the addition of the video, touches upon the fear of Big Brother. “Eyes Wide Open” is a trippy, unnerving and alien-filled adventure across a desolate planet, and “Somebody That I Used to Know” takes a beautiful, if minimalist approach at charting the course of a romance. About half of the songs on the album have official music videos, creating definitive and satisfying story arcs. The result of Making Mirrors is a cohesive and ambitious work that concludes 2011 on a high note.

Recommended Tracks: Somebody That I Used to Know (feat. Kimbra), Eyes Wide Open, I Feel Better

Yet, it hasn’t gotten old. El Camino, at nearly 18 minutes shorter than last year’s Brothers, amps up the rock and trades some of their soul flair for funk; but it remains true to the sound that has continuously brought them acclaim from critics and fans. The two-man band of Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney achieves a full sound, one that comes across as effortless, proving that less can be more.

The album opens with the early single “Lonely Boy,” an upbeat jam with a rousing pop chorus. Auerbach sings, “I’m a lonely boy” in a way that makes you question why he wouldn’t have people flocking to keep him company. And only he could make so many whoas and oohs sound like a language in their own right. Throughout the record, The Black Keys strike a balance between anticipation of the familiar – like seeing old friends who haven’t changed – and the element of surprise, evident in voices fading into psychedelic harmonies and abrupt tempo changes.

One of the enjoyable parts of listening to The Black Keys is the sense that they don’t take themselves too seriously. They seem to relish in humorously overblown and gaudy lyrics, such as “oh, she was milk and honey / oh, she was filthy money” on “Money Maker.” They sound like they’re really just having fun, and when it comes to rock and roll, that’s the best you can ask for.

Recommended tracks: Lonely Boy, Gold on the Ceiling, Little Black Submarines, Nova Baby

A year and a handful days after Fantasy, we find ourselves with this: The Roots’ tenth studio album. In the same way that the full band of Philadelphia’s iconic crew is an 8-man personality foil to West’s solo juggernaut of significance, Undun is the stylistic antithesis of Fantasy.

On Undun, The Roots are storytellers, spinning the tale of Redford Stephens, a fictional embodiment of a tragic criminal hero who escapes his impoverished life of crime to be underwhelmed by the ill-begotten fortune he discovers. The story is told backwards, starting with “Sleep,” in which Black Thought murmurs Stephens’ deathbed reflection, “Oh, there I go from a man to a memory. Damn, I wonder if my fam’ will remember me.”

The disillusioned Stephens realizes the folly of his fortune on “Make My” (“They told me that the ends won’t justify the means”), and he eventually descends his own material ladder back to the depression of “Lighthouse” and “I Remember” before an intimate instrumental outro that features guest composition from Sufjan Stevens.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasty is the farce that is Kanye West’s life. Undun is the reality of the voices you don’t hear; the lives of the people that don’t get to rant out of turn at awards shows or on national television. It is a story of people whose problems aren’t products of their own character flaws, but rather of the environment they were handed. Undun is a masterpiece conceived with humble respect for its subject and executed with absolutely baffling grace.

Recommended Tracks: Sleep, Make My, One Time, Stomp, Lighthouse, I Remember

“Only If For a Night” is a dramatic opening, sounding like something out of a dream sequence. The surreal and symphonic sounds set the tone for the rest of the album. “Shake It Out,” the first single from the record, is one of my favorites. The upbeat rhythm is a nice change for the band.

 Ceremonials centers around dark and thrilling sounds, which is shown in the track “What The Water Gave Me.” The gospel organs give a chilling sound. It’s folk-inspired with its vocal layering; lead singer Florence Welch’s voice is softer and less intimidating for a change. Yet the record begins to lose steam with the latter half of the album, including the draining “No Light, No Light.” I would save it for something to play in the background of a dramatic television show a la “Gossip Girl.”

The 60’s inspired “Breaking Down” picks up the speed with its unexpected simplicity. The track is a moody take on classic surf-pop; I appreciate that Welch isn’t shouting at the listener like she tends to do in most of her songs. The Lucifer-infested “Seven Devils” is soulful, evil, haunting and otherworldly; it is the strongest track from the record.

 Ceremonials begins with a strong fury, yet loses steam quickly as the songs begin to sound uncomfortably repetitive. How much longer could the band members stretch out the gothic/dark theme? With their debut album the band dived into different sounds that all worked together. Yet with Ceremonials, the one sound they got stuck on just became exhausting.

Recommended Tracks: What the Water Gave Me, Shake It Out, Seven Devils

Of course, the ‘double album’ label is a bit misleading, as Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is only about fifteen minutes longer than M83’s last album, Saturdays = Youth. However, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming packs in twice as many tracks, with the average song length a little under three and a half minutes long. This is partially due to a number of short ambient interludes, but also due to a general shortening of all songs to a more pop-friendly length.

Unfortunately, this ends up having a somewhat flattening effect on the album. Even though the songs, when heard in isolation, can have a greater impact, the act of listening to the album as a whole just amounts to listening to huge emotional climaxes, with little in between. It’s ultimately a matter of diminishing returns; by the time you’ve reached the second disc, these moments just feel like the norm and hardly seem to matter anymore, let alone feel powerful.

Luckily, before it’s given you a chance to tire of the act, the album opens with a number of its best songs, a number of which benefit from longer-than-average lengths, with more room to stretch out and explore a given concept. The sequence of the first six tracks is probably one of the best sections on any M83 album, mixing straightforward pop songs like “Midnight City” with slower builds like “Intro” and “Wait,” along with one of the album’s best interludes and a stupidly catchy song featuring a child telling a story about a magical frog. However, everything begins to feel progressively duller, with songs that seem to present an interesting idea, but then end before doing anything.  Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming has far too many good qualities to be something that could rightfully be called bad, yet it feels like less than the sum of its parts, and a profound disappointment from an artist who has shown himself capable of more.

Recommended Tracks: Intro (feat. Zola Jesus), Midnight City, Wait

Parallax

The vocal arrangements, however, are a highlight; Cox navigates his instrumental compositions with ease and a pleasant disregard for conventional pauses. His ramblings seem to flow from one measure to the next, and it helps to add a bit of formlessness to otherwise linear tunes.

Additionally, Cox has a top-notch songwriter’s ear that he owes to his modest approach. Most of the hooks on Parallax are the throw-away discoveries of 10 year olds learning their twelve-bar blues, unsatisfied that their creation sounds nothing like Eric Clapton like they’d hoped. For Cox, reaching for astronomical complexity isn’t part of the game; he has the rare gift of hearing a clean, four-note guitar loop and crafting a song out of it.

In the end, though, it’s all just a bit too much of the same thing. Parallax ambles to nearly 50 minutes of fairly consistent fare and Cox’s mirage-like production accents can’t suppress my yawns. By the time “Doldrums” rolls around, I’ve had about enough of the record, although closer “Lightworks” is one of the better tracks.

In the end, I have to concede that Parallax has all the makings of a great album, but something went a bit awry in execution. I can’t help but wonder if the lack of a backing band led to the loss of the ability to hop between sounds with the dexterity that Halcyon Digest, Deerhunter’s latest record, did.

Recommended Tracks: The Shakes, Parallax, Modern Acquatic Nightsongs, Angel is Broken, Lightworks

Putting the disappointment aside, Hello Sadness has to be credited with some heavy lyrics. After all, Los Campesinos! have been capable of crafting a reflective piece bringing about some tears in the past. This album features this talent amongst their many others. Naming the album Hello Sadness just might have been their way of forewarning us to these 40 minutes of solitude and despair.

One of the best ways to enjoy Hello Sadness would be to skip straight to the title track, “Hello Sadness.” The familiar pairing of soft voices with  Gareth’s strong, uneven voice is executed with full force. Whenever Gareth feels around for the line “It’s only hope that springs eternal and that’s the reason why this dripping from my broken heart is never running dry,” it is hard not to feel your insides melt. The genuine nature of the band is still there, it is just the lack of high, strong instrumentals within the album that is missed.

It is hard to accept an album with such little variety. There are definitely some solemn stories to be told, but the execution just does not successfully translate like their previous albums. A couple tracks could become long time favorites, but the rest stand small amongst the songs of their past.

Recommended Tracks: By Your Hand, Hello Sadness, The Black Bird, The Dark Slope

The soundtrack opens with The Joy Formidable’s “Endtapes,” which could have easily been on their debut album The Big Roar. Loud power chords, heavy drums and Ritzy’s prominent vocals are the recipe for an excellent song. Like many artists who are featured on the Twilight soundtracks, if a Twi-hard didn’t know who The Joy Formidable were before this soundtrack, they will probably soon be scrambling to find their music, which you have been listening to for over a year now.

Sometimes though, the Twilight soundtrack can catch you off guard and introduce you to artists who you haven’t heard before (gasp). Cider Sky happens to be that artist for me. Their song “Northern Lights” is electronic-based, but has a quiet, soothing feel to it. It’s almost like laying in a field of pretty flowers in the middle of the forest with no one but your sparkling vampire boyfriend. Just kidding. Realistically, it’s more like taking a stroll through the autumn woods as the falling leaves are twirling down in the setting sun. The chorus is a little cheesy: “I want to fly into this beautiful life/I think it’d be nice with you,” but this is Twilight we’re talking about here, so the music is expected to have some cheesy lyrics.

Although this soundtrack is quite laid back, and way more lovey-dovey, comapred to the previous Twilight soundtracks, I have two major issues: the wedding version of “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” and Bruno Mars. “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” did not need to be touched. It was perfect the way is was before Twilight capitalized on it. I don’t care if it was the first song Edward and Bella danced to together to at prom; just because they’re getting married doesn’t mean the song needs to be stripped of its painstaking emotion. Then there’s Bruno Mars. “It Will Rain” might as well be a continuation of ”Grenade,” and will be overplayed to the point where you want to throw your radio, laptop or any device playing said song off the top of the highest building.

Alas, the best song on the album goes to “Neighbors” by Theophilus London. It was quite unexpected to hear compared to the other music genres on the soundtrack, but the hip-hop feel is welcomed in a soundtrack mildly bogged down by quiet, conventional ballads.

Recommended Tracks: Neighbors, Northern Lights, Endtapes