This album's 19 songs may seem interchangeable at times in both lyrical and production terms, but Kelly manages to write some great songs that cut through the clutter.

Franti and Spearhead almost made a deliberate attempt to stray from the typical hip-hop beats and go for something a bit more organic and acoustic than their previous efforts -- and the experiments more than pay off.

On the surface, there's not much different between this album and its predecessor, but the songs are stronger, sharper, and the performances are lean, muscular, and immediate.

This isn't a dogged re-creation of the past, the work of an artist concerned with painting within the lines, this is an album of celebration of groovy sounds that is pretty hard to resist.

Fans who like him reckless should check it, but for the full picture, start elsewhere.

Nine albums in and the band is finally flirting with accessibility, but in true Fear Factory fashion, they're doing it on their own terms and at a very deliberate pace.

Apart from the relatively lively pulse of the aching "Another One," everything plays out at slow-jam tempo, and the vocals often slip into falsetto mode with lapses in enunciation. The duo is at their most effective on finale "The Line," a bare, subtly churchified pleader.

An ethereal, magnetic, and alluring piece of work, The Road, Pt. 1 is a robust album with ebb and flow. Here's looking forward to Pt. 2.

While they may have traded in some of their youthful punk rock spastic enthusiasm, they've replaced it with a world-wise wit and a smart approach to how a rock & roll record should be made in 2004.

Detrola is slightly more subdued than some of His Name Is Alive's previous albums, but it's still a reminder of how much their beautiful, strange, oddly moving music has been missed.

So Brace the Wave reveals that Lou Barlow hasn't changed all that much in the past quarter-century--he's just better at this stuff, and has finally grown more comfortable with it.

New Bums finds two decidedly specific songwriters' styles and voices mesh into something new and different. The combination results in a strange, haunted look into imagined desert scenes, cheap motels, and tales of depraved living, floating by on tunes so unassuming they disappear before the darkness ever truly sets in.

They're in a slump with their songwriting, and subject-wise, every song here has a companion piece on some earlier album, but that doesn't mean the party is spoiled.

The amped-up chiptunes and film score moments are interesting enough, but the band sound their best when expanding on the lush tones and tension-laden improvisations they've been working on since the beginning.

Though the closest Godin comes to the excitement of Contrepoint is the jazzy, suite-like finale "Cité Radieuse," Concrete and Glass is still a fine example of his distinctively smooth style.

More than any other of the New Pornographers' albums, this feels like a group effort, each element united to create uniquely cerebral power pop.

Whether the dip in quality is the result of a rush to create new material or whether these are simply the lesser leftovers from the same sessions that produced N 2, here's hoping JJ take some time (and maybe one of those epically blissful vacations their music conjures so evocatively) to make sure N 4 comes out fully baked.

The only downside to the album is that the songs begin to blend together a little by the end, but in a comfortably warm way instead of a boring, take-the-record-off-now kind of way.

The eight tracks here are more high definition than most of what he's done in his career, with all the various noisy elements easily distinguishable and with more depth than usual.

A painfully disappointing artistic failure.

An album that thrives on sparse, tickling productions that are more about atmosphere than anything else.

Ambitious in a different way than the producer's earlier releases, Song Feel is every bit as close to the heart.

Many of the EP's six songs began as ideas while the band was recording The Main Thing, but instead of the crisp production and defined hooks of that album, Half a Human harkens back to the hazy dreaminess of the band's earliest days.

More immediate earworms are scattered throughout to appease anyone looking for a radio-ready hit, but they cede the bulk of the album to more reflective fare that provides a different kind of spiritual nourishment.

Rain balances sophistication and edgy smarts with a winning mixture of grace and confidence.

Yet despite the gadgetry that went into the album’s production, Fight Softly is still a sunny piece of work, filled with gorgeous pop melodies that are complex but rarely challenging.

Upon repeated plays, these lyrics fade, as does the monochromatic production, and what's left is a coming of age album anchored by some strong Swift songs, most of which are bunched at the end of the record.

Arm's Way is the sound of a band forgetting what made them fun and highly listenable and instead grasping for a grand statement that is far beyond their reach.

It may not deliver a knockout punch but it's not intended to be powerful; it's a grower, sounding better with repeated exposure, repeated listens revealing the craft in the songs and the subtlety in Nail's execution.

The material tends toward routine, but Braxton's elegant distress cuts through everything with conviction.

Talkin To The Trees is another album of Neil Young doing what he felt like doing in the moment, and if it's flawed, after sixty years of record making, no one with any sense would want him any other way.

Mondo Amore may work best as a companion piece to Neptune City--the fast 'n' furious yang to that album's soft, pleasant yin--but it's got more than enough raw emotion to hold its own weight.

Li's defeat and grief are palpable, yet she delivers with such grace and control, which offers a glimmer of hope for the fellow romantically downtrodden. With production to match, so sad so sexy succeeds in providing a relatable therapy session for love's final gasps.

As for English Little League, the three records the band did in 2012 are all stronger collections, but this is hardly a failure. One just has to search a little harder to find the good songs this time.

Standing in the Breach is a back to the basics Browne album, and is all the better for it.

Lambert sounds larger than life on these, just like he wants to be, and if there’s no sense of danger here, at least there’s a lot of pure pop pleasure here, more than any immediate post-Idol album has ever delivered.

Having released enough singles and compilation tracks to warrant a collection of them, Owen Ashworth pulls them together on the enjoyable Advance Base Battery Life, pure catnip for committed fans but not without interest to those unfamiliar with Casiotone for the Painfully Alone's way around understated, enveloping electronic pop.

Side-stepping the chart-busting singles of their former labelmates, they have carved their own identity in the rich roots of the country and folk musics that have inspired their debut.

It's a fantastic album, and one of the standout metal records of the year; it's just too bad that it's kind of embarrassing to admit that you're a fan.

Each song competently mimicking the characteristic death metal ingredients of the era, but adding nothing new to the recipe in the end.

Oui, Oui isn't living in the past, it's using the past to address the present, which gives some soul to these nifty little songs, and turns this album into another mini latter-day gem from the Nutty Boys.

The result is an album of exploratory jazz that is often more about group interplay on various musical themes rather than straightforward improvisation on melodic compositions--though there is that, too.

Weird Work ends up living up to its name: it's not as precious as Boeldt's previous albums, but it's not as envelope-pushing as its inspirations, and it's also some of his most accomplished, yet least immediate music.

Even though Kissaway Trail aren't exactly breaking any new ground here, Breach is executed with enough beauty and feeling that the lack of innovation is pretty easy to forgive.

Word has it that Roberts wrote these songs, not solely in his Montreal basement studio, but primarily in a sun-soaked house on a hill in Andalusia, Spain. True or not, it's certainly a warm, brightly hopeful album.

In a catalog that contains over 20 studio albums, Allergic to Water is exemplary for its craft.

No Control shows it's a better and more fitting choice for the band than one might expect, and it's arguably their best work to date.

Even with its relatively brief running time (44 minutes), Atheist's Cornea is an exhausting, exhilarating listen.

Add remixes and instrumentals and this short set gets knocked down a peg, but it's a classic EP in its own way, jumbling brilliance with clearing-house stuff, and ending up a desirable package, instrumental and all.

It's a welcome return, as is Glory as a whole: it feels as fun and frivolous as her earliest music while retaining the freshness of her best mature work.

The tone of Locus is unerringly dark with the repetition and harsh timbres occasionally tilting proceedings into the overly bleak, but there is enough overall nuance to keep the listener engaged for the duration.

Kuti and Positive Force don't let up at all during One People One World. Impeccably sequenced, it runs from strength to strength, dazzling with expansive sonic textures, killer arrangements, and a musical genre palette that exists seemingly without boundaries. As a recording artist, Kuti has been reliably consistent, but this date is his masterpiece.

Magick Songs provides a genuine journey, and that propulsion is enough to power JEFF the Brotherhood through the moments when they indulge in hazy pastiche, assembling a washed-out watercolor version of '70s sci-fi that was already a faded memory by the time of their birth.

Imagine Asbury Park, New Jersey encompassing an entire musical planet and you get an idea of what Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul are doing on Summer of Sorcery, and if you dig rockin' soul, this should be right up your alley.

Occasional nearsighted lyrical perspectives and three or four excellent but inessential tracks keep The Big Day from quite reaching masterpiece status, but it's still the most grown up (and the most polished) rendering of Chance's eternally bright spirit in his catalog.

While it might test the patience of some of the group's listeners, those willing to simply lie back and get caught up in the flow will find it more than worthwhile.

The project's first album is a chaotic, unsettling mess filled with manic, distorted beats, mutated samples, and several varieties of intense vocalizations, from suffocated guttural screaming to commanding operatic virtuosity. While registering as some form of post-metal on the surface, the album is actually devoid of guitars.

The record is so soft and slow it can veer into the sleepy. That wasn't a problem with Turn Up the Quiet, whose stillness was compelling, so This Dream of You winds up shining a light on the accomplishment of the final album Krall and LiPuma finished in his lifetime. Together, they knew which songs to select to create a complete listen. What remained behind is nice but not quite absorbing.

One More Time... plays like a love letter, both to fans who stuck with them and to each other -- a letter that doesn't so much ask for forgiveness as offer it willingly, passionately, and without conditions.

Pokey LaFarge manages to show off some depth and have a lot of fun at the same time on Rhumba Country, and listeners should have a ball right along with him.

By the orchestral, Chelsea Girl-evoking beauty of final track "Why Worry," Campbell has spent the album flitting from idea to idea, ending up with a sampler pack of different stylizations of her always lovely (if not always simple) songcraft.

Often earnest, anguished, and euphoric, Ten Crowns delivers the catharsis while keeping it real, so the occasional clunky lyric or corny dance trope can be -- in line with the album's themes -- forgiven, especially when it's intentional.

Adams touches upon rainy-day English rock and atmospheric anthems custom-made for arenas, but his touchstone remains American rock, specifically the Replacements.

Sand+Silence shows Howard and Crisp are committed to keeping this band alive, and the album confirms they're still an uncommonly smart and talented indie pop band with a great deal to offer.

Songs whir and whoosh under the production of Michael Patterson (Beck, Ladytron), as thumping kicks, snares, and fuzz basslines keep the dream pop in time.

Although it's not without some dazzling moments, this is the Zomby album with the lowest quantity of thrills.

Ross' mixtures of outrageous fantasy and sobering reality, side-splitting humor, and piercing vengeance, are intermittently as potent as ever.

Gracious and redemptive, it is a rapt, quiescent masterwork.

Returning to the green fields of pure sound study they'd appeared to desert during the late '90s, Pan sonic forged a series of intriguing sketches devoted to the polar wastes inside their computers and sequencers.

Feels like an evening well spent with old friends.

40 minutes of soul-searching and bittersweet recollection that nevertheless rocks with major-league efficiency.

Mostly this is a wonderful surprise from a band thought to have been finished in the late '90s.

Indie pop fans, brace yourselves for a daydream trip.

This is Pure Guava performed with the precision and cleanliness of White Pepper -- perhaps a mixed blessing for some (those who long for the Scotchguard-fueled madness of The Pod), yet it's a sheer delight for those who patiently sat through the longest period between Ween albums yet.

It's too club-centric, too fashion-obsessed, too willfully weird to be a No Doubt album... a glitzy, wild ride that's stranger and often more entertaining than nearly any other mainstream pop album of 2004.

If it was Gedge's intent to win back some of the Wedding Present fans who found Va Va Voom to be too much of a departure, Disco Volante could succeed in that regard. With Weddoes guitarist Simon Cleave now a full-fledged member, there's some of the trademark late '80s/early '90s roar apparent in the likes of "146 Degrees" and "Your Charms"; but whether or not that and crisp drums fit snugly alongside French horn and accordion is debatable.

The overall effect is warm, unsettling, and artful, but most of all catchy, up to and including the intimate closer, "Moon Like Sour Candy," which ends with a mandate to try.

For those willing to rise to the challenge, Fragrant World has a wealth of obscured moments of bizarre genius.

While there is plenty of good stuff going on, there is a little too much conservative playing and a little too much left-field oddness for the record to truly hold together. Occult Architecture, Vol. 2 is preferable to the first volume, but it pales next to the band's next work.

Airy synths and breathy vocals render the songs too dreamy to dance to, and the funky basslines and mechanical beats render them too dancey to dream to. That's the sweet spot of F&M.

There is plenty to like on Cherish, from the unfailingly memorable songs to Eisold's winningly in-your-face vocal mannerisms.

It can be incredibly difficult for an experimental group to continue experimenting for years on end without getting stale, but Tortoise achieve that balance effortlessly.

Teddy Thompson doesn't answer all his questions about women on Bella (of course, for most guys, that would take a box set), but the ones he ponders here are smart and come from the heart, and it makes for an album that will please longtime fans while encouraging newcomers to hear what he has to offer.

It's an impressively timeless debut that suggests Howard should have no problem standing out from the overpopulated nu-folk crowd.

The Green EP isn't a release that surprises and demands attention the way that Ambivalence Avenue and parts of Silver Wilkinson did; instead, it seduces listeners into a reverie that's more cohesive and satisfying than the EP's patchwork nature might suggest.

Raw, rowdy, and devoid of any sort of studio chicanery, Skeletons feels less like a proper Danzig album and more like a home recording of a boozy late-night house show. Surprisingly, its slapdash, lo-fi demeanor mostly works in its favor.

Sometimes intricate, but more of an album-length mood that a collection of memorable songs, it's strangely well-suited for attentive headphone listening and for unwinding.

The result is a sunny, homemade-sounding record, but these aren't throwaway songs -- there's enough melody here to warrant attention regardless of Ebert's success with the Magnetic Zeros, and while that band's blissed-out bombast is an obvious touchstone, Alexander covers significantly more ground.

There's nothing fashionable about the Sea and Cake's music, and therein lies much of their charm.

While the album's brightness may take some getting used to, listeners who love her music for how well she expresses feelings that are universal yet hard to articulate will appreciate how vividly The Classic captures joy and what it takes to get it.

Adamson's heady blend of Odelay-era Beck, Roky Erickson paranoia, cosmic hip-hop, and general Animal Collective weirdness sounds like a train wreck in print, but his knack for odd melodies, stealthy programming, timely pitch-shifting, and macabre (and occasionally hysterical) subject matter helps to keep things consistently interesting throughout Ropechain's easily digestible 45-minute runtime.

The album succeeds more often than it flounders, and even then, the singin' and pickin' is so good that it's hard not to submit, but one wishes that the pair had decided to infuse the collection with a bit more of their signature wit, as much of The Ash & Clay feels a bit like a serious Flight of the Conchords.

As always, L'Aventura is rife with touches that knowledgeable listeners will appreciate, but anyone with a fondness for smoothly retro mood music with lots of personality will find a lot to enjoy.

As usual the label has done a fine job of capturing all the various streams of sound coursing through the vibrant indie rock and pop scenes during another truly interesting year of music.

Ultimately, Circles is pleasant and even fun in places, while being somewhat tedious and even boring in others.

Ufabulum rises out of the muddle of curious decisions on the several albums before it, offering a true-to-form Squarepusher experience more diverse and ornate than almost any before it.

All of it works, there's plenty of ambition with little over-reaching, and the most striking bits of the album are striking for unexpected reasons.

Though Body/Head reject the notion of definitive versions of their songs, No Waves might be the album that captures their spirit to its fullest. Equally taut and flowing, this is improvisation at its instinctive best.