Less accessible than his song-based albums (like 4 Track Songs, released almost simultaneously), Music for Falling from Trees is concise, focused, and well executed.

In the meantime, this may be a holding pattern, but it's one worth holding on to. Diminishing results are, after all, still results.

These clean, open arrangements tend to make the songs seem catchier than they actually are--the hooks don't grab, they repeat like softened incantations that never quite catch hold--but that does give No Baggage an nice, gentle shimmer that's appealing.

While the six tracks that follow don't wallow in the same waters of failed redemption as the title track, they do cling to Furr's folksier moments, resulting in a solid addendum for those who prefer Blitzen Trapper's Bob Dylan meets the Grateful Dead fetish over their visceral, vaguely psychedelic Southern indie rock jams.

When the Devil's Loose might share some reference points with another singer/songwriter with a similar offhand affection for roots music, but A.A. Bondy seems to be developing a voice of his own despite all the surface similarities, and the result is a quietly powerful album of songs that cut deeper into the heart and soul than you might expect at first glance.

Like most odds and ends collections, The Fine Print is uneven and doesn't match the consistent quality of the Drive-By Truckers' usual work, but nearly all of these tracks are too genuinely good to have been left to gather dust, and even the DBTs' scraps can make for a pretty satisfying meal.

The band sounds the most engaged on the early hardcore numbers like "Suicidal Maniac" (Suicidal Tendencies), "Thirsty and Miserable" (Black Flag), and "It's the Limit" (Cro-Mags), while nods to the metal gods such as "Ghosts of War" (Slayer) and "Escape" (Metallica) are blistering and volatile enough to warrant inclusion, but feel a little rote.

One of Hart's sharpest decisions is to keep everything short--17 songs over the course of 45 minutes, which if not quite Ramones level is still pretty brisk--while ensuring each piece has its own individual character.

The results are bustling, pastoral, indie pop that is often strangely outdoorsy and subtle--parts of Sing Along to Songs You Don't Know feel like one long song. Of course, there are standouts.

Ingram's latest doesn't fit the definition of a work by an artist, because this set isn't original in any way. It seems that he can not only live with this compromise, but he freely chose it, and celebrates it here.

They fit into the indie rock genre about as loosely as Bad Brains fit the hardcore punk stereotype or Living Colour fit in the hair metal mold. Who cares? Pigeonholing is futile, the music is boundless.

Apart from these standout tracks, it's a solid album that shows off the individual members' songwriting skills and holds together very well as a display of smart and savvy modern pop.

Even if it's not their best ever, it's a valid comeback that should appease longing fans.

Fans of his louder music might not play this often, but 55 Cadillac is another step toward Andrew W.K. putting his stamp on every art form.

Tomorrow proves Kingston can provide a whole album's worth of pool-side entertainment even without the 'Beautiful Girls'-sized single.

Scars is a worthwhile throwback to the freak attitude that kicked off their career over a decade earlier.

Spread over 15 tracks, the combination wears thin at several points, and several songs feel more like their creator's solo work than a composite product. Monsters of Folk has moments on undeniable beauty, though, and when the musicians pitch their voices atop one another--as they do to notable effect on the gorgeous "Slow Down Jo"-the benefits of teamwork are more than clear.

While Ignore the Ignorant isn't perfect--Gary and Ryan Jarman's guileless vocals don't always jell with their slick surroundings--it is unquestionably some of the Cribs' most accomplished and diverse music.

While many of the group's songs aren't quite as unusual as that string of letters seems (most of them do, in fact, incorporate choruses), the group steers pretty far from the norm on their self-titled record.

Fortunately, he hasn't matured out of his core strengths: his vitality, his expressiveness, and his knack for twisting the vagaries of everyday life for urban youth into material for songs.

Showing more than a trace of the bombast of Arm's Way, a couple of songs like 'Drums' and 'Shining' collapse under their own weight and are the only things that keep Vapours from being Islands' best work. Still, this is a welcome return to form for the band.

The album was composed by R&B's best songwriters of the late 2000s, Terius Nash (The-Dream) and Christopher Stewart (Tricky); they give each song the intelligent mid-tempo bump-and-grind they've made into a specialty.

The anthemic, celebratory songs that made Riot! so appealing were largely absent, but the band found a new way to rock during those sessions, prizing catharsis and nuanced arrangements above the hooks of albums past.

The songs on Us are long--most track in past four minutes--and the album can start to drag during some of the later verses, but as a statement on the health of hip-hop, it's an assured yes that all is well.

That said, unlike early proggers who favored meandering instrumental doodling over succinct songwriting, Porcupine Tree always favor the importance of memorable songs over flashy solos, which certainly makes the group one of the top modern-day prog rock bands.

Millan's "plain jane" delivery may be occasionally sleep inducing, but it's comfort, not boredom that delivers the serotonin.

Rain Machine gives Malone an appealingly mellow yet resolutely independent identity for his solo music; even if it may not be for fans of his other projects' more accessible material, it's nice to hear a full album of what he can do on his own.

Even though the album may be enough of a stretch that it could chase away many of the band's fans, if you give it a chance, Memoirs at the End of the World is a completely successful melding of the Postmarks' autumnal sweetness with the elevated drama and epic nature of film scores.

The result is an intimate, poignant album, laced with rich production that enhances, not clouds, the songwriting itself.

A Brief History of Love is a strong, sometimes really, really good debut, and a nice addition to the shoegaze canon.

This is the friendliest batch of neo-glam to come down the pike in quite some time, never catching fire but never really striking a match, either, and it's the least adventurous dose of eclecticism, too, with nary a sitar, Mellotron, or sample out of place.

This is as entertaining and frivolous as a one-night stand should be.

It's appropriate that the billing for this band is the Dynamites Featuring Charles Walker, not Charles Walker & the Dynamites, because that's what Walker sounds like on this disc, a featured performer rather than a dominating one. Thus, an album by the group is basically a calling card or souvenir of their live show more than a standalone entity.

He's still writing finely observed vignettes that manage to intersect life as we live it with life as we wish we could live it, and as such, he has more in common with a short story writer than he does with the typical singer/songwriter.

Thanks to the production, the performances, and the songs, the Raveonettes have delivered on the renewed promise of "Lust Lust Lust" and made a very good, almost great, noise-pop album.

While Tokio Hotel may not have matured enough to hang with the big boys yet, they are most certainly the dark horses pacing up and down the Disney fringe.

It sounds like it was worth the wait for Sandoval and O'Ciosoig and it's a welcome return for fans of her music, and also for fans of late-night, melancholy balladry that will break your heart and ease you gently into dreams.

Loyal hip-hop heads with a taste for the old-school boom-bap shouldn't think twice and won't be disappointed.

Lou Barlow is still the poet laureate of hiss and heartbreak, and although the hiss is missing on Goodnight Unknown, that's the only defining quality he's lost with the passage of time.

It’s a slow burner with nary a hook in sight, and vocalist/guitar player Petter Ericson Stakee’s theatric mumbles can be an acquired taste, but listeners with a CD collection that leans heavily on bands like Catherine Wheel, Sixteen Horsepower, the Cult, and Kings of Leon will find this dense monolith of roots-based stoner rock to be the perfect late-night companion for a dark summer highway.

Nasty as he wants to be, Ghostdini is nothing more than the Face and friends having a good time. The results are as improper as they are infectious.

The Sound the Speed the Light falls a few feet short of the level of excellence Mission of Burma have set for themselves in the past--though most contemporary bands would be overjoyed to make an album as interesting and compelling as this one.

Knopfler's distinctive conversational baritone begins calmly intoning lyrics, and eventually there are examples of his melodic fingerpicked guitar style on both acoustic and electric.

At times, Chapman seems in danger of being too earnest or letting his ambitions get the better of him, but Turning the Mind ends up being a significant step forward for Maps' music.

When they stretch out, they get intriguing, if mixed, results.

After spending a little bit more time swaggering than wooing, he's back to crooning and it's amiable and appealing, if not overwhelming.

Classic and maybe even a little awesome, Sonic Boom makes that "hottest band in the world" tag much easier to swallow.

All of this is a far cry from Azure Ray's work, perhaps, but Ask the Night is often gorgeous in its simplicity.

As a whole, Out of Ashes is a solid record and a fine opening volley for Bennington's solo work.

It's not essential Pernice by any stretch, but as a soundtrack to the novel, it works just fine, and its relaxed charm makes it worth hearing even if you don't read the book and are just a fan of the man's music.

Of course, new bands have lower expectations than established bands, and while virtually every listener will contrast Never Cry Another Tear with New Order's best work, it has the sweep and grandeur of the group's classic moments.

Ultimately, this set proves that the debut was no fluke, and this genre-bending meld of street traditions both East and West is capable of appealing to anyone with blood instead of sawdust in her/his veins.

Headlights' third album, Wildlife, is at once their most immediate album and also their most reserved-sounding and emotionally powerful.

Johnston's craft as a vocalist can rise to the level of Falkner's well-crafted soundscapes, he's going to sound out of place on his own albums if he keeps making records like Is and Always Was.

While it seems they will probably never equal the majesty of their debut, Editors have dug themselves out of their artistic cul de sac at least long enough to plan their next move.

Adding drums might have spoiled the introspective and feather-light feel of the record. Anyone who's been on their bandwagon all along will be glad of that, as they'll rejoice that Declaration of Dependence turns out to be another autumnal treasure from the Kings.

This darker, heavier tone makes the majority of Kill less of a party than "Fire" or "I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me from Being the Master," but splendidly, Dance Commander rears his head to make demands like "Shake that tambourine/Shake that shaking machine!" in 'Egyptian Cowboy' and encourages mass consumption in the splendid 'Body Shot,' which devolves from a grunge-disco jam into a wonderful, dubbed-out frenzy.

As lyrical a musician as he is, without his commanding use of language (the song cycle is entirely instrumental), the BQE loses some momentum near the end, but by then it's become clear that, as is the case with all of his projects, the term "half-assed" does not apply.

Considering the circumstances, FOTC's second Sub-Pop outing, I Told You I Was Freaky, has some worthwhile moments.

While the more upbeat tracks on Threadbare are competent and downright catchy, they're ultimately engulfed by the fog from which they were born.

The resulting Run Rabbit Run dutifully re-creates its creator's hypnotic, quirky, and oddly sweet song cycle, and peppers it with enough dissonant bow slides and odd harmonics to please the avant-garde crowd while keeping the twee melodies intact for the casual indie pop fan.

Songs are allowed as much time as they need, but the album as a whole is economical and right-sized at 11 tracks. This is highly enjoyable weekend music from the underground, nothing more, nothing less.

Die-hard Slits fans who aren't put off by the band's newfound professionalism or the greater reliance on keyboards at the expense of guitar will find their faith rewarded by Trapped Animal.

Cosmic Egg [is] a mature sophomore effort, particularly if it's just judged on all the sonic textures Wolfmorther serves up, but as the album closes with a series of meandering mysticism it's hard not to miss Stockdale's previous reliance on nasty repetitive riffs.

It's the contrast between their writing styles and voices, slight as they may be, that works to make Sainthood another rich and rewarding album.

Together, usually accompanied by little more than acoustic guitar and piano, they create emotionally rich musical miniatures that only ever take up as much room--both musically and lyrically--as they need.

One Fast Move or I'm Gone might have evoked Jack Kerouac more vividly with other vocalists besides Farrar, but as a composer and producer, he's done right by his lyricist, and the results are modest but rewarding.

Not all Glee members are created equal--Cory Monteith (the show's hunky football captain) and Dianna Agron (the alternately caustic and vulnerable head cheerleader) can't sing nearly as well as their co-stars--but this soundtrack has enough star power to keep things trucking along, especially when powerhouse alto Lea Michele takes the wheel.

The first listen or two to World Painted Blood might be a bit confusing for the seasoned Slayer fan, but that changes quickly, and the sound of those drums blasting in one's head will become a more than welcome presence in the mix.

That Nirvana sound forceful isn't a surprise, but they also sound surprisingly tight--a little bit looser than they would sound within a year, but they're clearly marshaling their forces, gaining strength and skill.

D.N.A. is more a natural development than a series of drastic shifts, and while it will please the majority of the fan base, the material does not allow Mario--a vocalist more versatile than many would like to admit--to do much more than toggle between a Lothario and a softie.

As on Anniemal, Don't Stop contains some of the catchiest, most clever dance-pop in circulation....The collaborations with Xenomania (five songs), Timo Kaukolampi (three), and Richard X (one) aren’t as powerful, however, with a good handful of their songs no match for Anniemal’s weaker moments.

Memento Mori (musically, at least) owes more to the tech-heavy, similarly faith-based King's X than it does the moody atmospherics of Evanescence, but there’s enough angst and obsession here to draw fans of the latter.

So did Do Make Say Think actually intend to attach this level of conceptualism to 'Do,' 'Make,' 'Say,' and 'Think?' Probably not, but it sure is fun to listen to that way.

Here, Mayer is effortlessly seductive and somewhat irresistible, and it’s easy to see why the ladies love cool John.

There's nary an ounce of diva in Lewis, she seems to enjoy singing for the sake of it, which helps her out on an album like Echo, where the melodies are elliptical, not catchy, designed to showcase range, not to stick in the head or evoke emotion.

Before I Self Destruct is still a fantastic juggernaut of a 50 album if you exit early, and a very good one even if you don't.

Xenophanes is proof that even as he reins himself in a bit, Rodriguez-Lopez cannot help but to push the envelope; this time it's as a rock & roll songwriter who knows too much to keep it simple, yet understands the instinct to draw the listener in, time and again, with layers of subtlety, powerful emotions, sleight-of-hand aural magic, and sheer power, as well as sophistication.

Members of the Clutch, Midi Mafia, â??Trickyâ? Stewart, Usher, and a handful of other notable producers and songwriters grant Bieber a set of songs that isn't quite top-level quality, but the singer more than gets by on his squeaky-clean charm and natural ability.

Invisible Girl is no-frills rhythm & blues and rock & roll done right, and the King Khan and BBQ Show get on the good foot with a mixture of sincerity and wailing abandon most of their contemporaries can't match.

Even on its mellower moments, the Bravery sound more excited about making music on this album than they have since their debut, making Stir the Blood a fine return to form.

He’s coasting here, no doubt about it, but no one can coast like he can

Introducing is strong enough to qualify Brilliant Colors as one of those bands to keep an eye on.

Much of The Pursuit mines this fertilely mellow vein, producing a bunch of understatedly melodic music whose consistency only suggests that Cullum should stop dabbling with detours and just accept his strength as a soft rock singer/songwriter.

Hello Hurricane is by far the San Diego rockers' most natural, effortless outing to date.

Echo Party ends up being that rarest of commodities: a party record equally suited to the under 20 and over 40 crowds.

Some of the songs do gain a degree of poignancy in this bare-bones setting, which doesn’t make them better, just different, and certainly worth hearing for those fans dedicated enough to care.

It's a set designed for the kind of diehard who would purchase a box set housed in a working amplifier, but its pleasures aren't limited to the dedicated, particularly when it comes to early AC/DC.

while he doesn't exactly adopt an in-your-face approach to the leading-man role, preferring to become part of the powerful collective he's assembled, Rawlings proves himself fully capable of taking the reins and leading this horse wherever he wants it to go.

Keys never gets gritty, she remains reserved, never letting her singing or arrangements obscure the melodies or the classy veneer of the entire proceedings. All this determined detachment keeps The Element of Freedom from packing a primal, passionate punch, but there is charm in Alicia's enveloping, quiet cool.

Perkins has always carried the torch of vintage Americana, and he covers all his bases here.

Even if The Apple and the Tooth is more a summation of where Bibio was in 2009 than another bold step forward, it's still a very enjoyable look back on his artistic growth that year.

Cyrus has always sounded older than her years, and as she leaves her teens, that's a good thing--especially since The Time of Our Lives shows her music is catching up to her pipes.

All or Nothing is a strong U.S. debut for this Akon-meets-Chris Brown-styled singer, one that takes advantage of his suave back catalog and the hip new possibilities now possible via Cash Money.

They've built up a new Holopaw around them, expanding their sound in the process.

McKeown's in fine voice throughout and the backing players add subtle polish to her finely constructed tunes. Her fluid vocals remain the centerpiece of the album, while her lyrics reveal the heart of a poet and the wisdom of a soul wise beyond her years.

The production (a return engagement from Tucker Martine) remains relatively economical throughout, leaving plenty of room for Thao's distinctive warble/weep to unfold its tales of passion spent and soured.

Regardless of whether or not the band lost whatever career momentum their debut generated, as a piece of music, Three Fact Fader fully delivers on the promise that was left hanging in the air for so long.