Let's take a quick look at the music of the year thus far, shall we?

Nothing has leapt out at me as a great record yet in 2006, but four good ones have gotten more frequent play than the rest. The closest thing to a breakout band of the year is We Are Scientists, whose debut LP, With Love and Squalor, sounds at times like a tongue-in-cheek appropriation of Interpol. They've produced a really cohesive record with a number of good-to-great songs that are interspersed with the bad songs in the worst possible way. The tone of the record is smooth throughout, but the shifts in general quality can be kind of rough.

I also discovered Centro-matic this spring, about ten years late. Their new record, Fort Recovery, is a heartfelt rocker that really shines on tunes such as "Patience For the Ride" and "Monument Sails," but tends to plod when its not shining. This may be just more of the same for their existing fans, but what I've managed to hear of their catalog doesn't sound as good as this record. When it works right, it stands as a nice kind of adult college rock.

On the other hand, there's Rainer Maria's Catastrophe Keeps Us Together, which I think distinctly suffers by comparison to their last two albums. It's got a couple of really great songs and is pretty good for the most part, but not as good as A Better Version of Me and not as consistent as Long Knives Drawn. They spent a couple years trying to figure out where to take their sound and it seems like they never settled on an answer.

And then there's the solo debut from Jenny Lewis, Rabbit Fur Coat, which features one great new song that should be on a Rilo Kiley album ("You Are What You Love") and a handful of others whose reach exceeds their grasp. It's good, it's fun to listen to and see live, but it so clearly wants to be doing more than it actually is.

Oddly, the best record of the year so far might actually be a 2005 release. Maritime's We, the Vehicles was released in Japan last fall but only recently got worldwide distribution. It took a while to grow on me, but I like its smooth, smoky pop sound a little more every time I listen to it. I think it's unquestionably the best record Davey von Bohlen's ever made.

Meanwhile, a number of other records have disappointed. Mates of State's Bring It Back is extremely uneven, drawing on disparate influences to come up with mostly uninspired tunes. Head Automatica's Popaganda, due in June, reveals quite clearly how important Dan the Automator was to Decadance by being one of the most boring records of the year. And Nellie McKay's Pretty Little Head, leaked to the Internet but officially unreleased pending a dispute with Sony, features little of the clever melody and lyricism of Get Away From Me. There are a few records yet to come this year that I'm looking forward to (Karmella's Game, Anna Waronker, I think a new one from Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer), but at this point I'm hoping some new band comes out of nowhere to blow me away this summer.