Like his two previous studio albums, Solitary Man is sparsely produced by Rick Rubin, and continues the themes of love, faith, and loneliness that their previous collaborations have chillingly embraced.

Classic embryonic vocalic beauty from Geike Arnaert still carries the translucence of the band's signature ethereality, and shines as hard as she did on the band's previous releases. However, musical composition on songs such as "Pink Fluffy Dinosaurs" and "Frosted Flake Wood" are more intricate and sonically defined.

Though his solo tracks are fine compositions, its when Gerald mixes the dark drum'n'bass beats with sultry elements and star female vocals, does his production come alive and the album become worthwhile.

She bridges powdery lyrics and floating acoustics throughout the nine-track album, singing from an inner spirituality.

Though it's starkly rhythmic where Cornershop songs like "Brimful of Asha" are lush and trippy, Singh's appealing vocals and the duo's accessible songwriting provide the link between their two projects.... however, too many of these good ideas drag on for too long without progressing.

She sounds lonely and afraid in songs like "Jealous" and "Dancing Lessons," yet her fierce confidence overpowers such insecurity on the pinch-hitting "No Man's Woman."

Anna is nothing revolutionary, of course, and that dog. fans have certainly heard this before. But that same audience will most likely want to hear it again, as will anyone who believes female rockers don't need to choose between being a folky riot grrrl (Ani DiFranco, Dar Williams) or a mainstream maven (Meredith Brooks, Sheryl Crow).

James' musical prowess on the anthemic "Born of Frustration" and 11-minute sonic storm of "Sound" are great representations of what made them a brilliant pop band in the first place.

It's sporadically entertaining and intermittently interesting.

Hello, the group's second issue for Alternative Tentacles, highlights the rock side of this noise rock ensemble more than any of their previous albums.

This may not be their best offering, but it's a truly fine record that offers plenty in the way of satisfaction.

Many of the songs have a similar feel and lack distinctive melodies to keep them from blending together.

Unfortunately, Oakenfold isn't much of a pioneer any more, and though it's clear his ear for a solid production hasn't deserted him, Bunkka sees him following the trends instead of pushing them.

Stephin Merritt's the 6th's second album isn't nearly as dynamic as his Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs, nor is it quite as good as the first 6th's album, Wasps' Nests. It is, however, another crowning achievement for Merritt.

One of Lisa Germano's most accessible works yet.

A hit-and-miss affair.

What seems less successful are the English language efforts.

Freeway delivers a strong album that should lay to rest the speculation that his unique vocal style -- alternating between a scratchy crack and an anything-but-gruff shout, filtered through a consistently high pitch -- would have difficulty remaining tolerable across a full album.

Mitchell ropes in the loud blues and soul leanings that made her previous album so much fun, and the singer herself emotes in a much more restrained pop vein.

Each song is tailored to the strengths of the lead singer, not the strengths of Santana, whose left with piddly, forgettable instrumental interludes and playing endless lines beneath the vocal melodies.

While Source Tags & Codes might be a more cohesive listen and feature slightly stronger songwriting, Secret of Elena's Tomb suggests some promising directions for the band's next album.

Blessed with a voice that immediately announces itself, Gray still hasn't found a musical personality to complement it.

For most of Bazooka!!!, the Star Spangles sound like a rowdy bar band just playing a set of songs they love.

Although it's perhaps her most consistent and mature work to date, it's also her least engaging, never matching the dizzying heights of her previous efforts even as it consciously avoids past pitfalls.

The album simply powers its way through 16 tracks of seamlessly mixed high-velocity drum'n'bass.

Those who connect with Staind will likely find this more consistently satisfying than Break the Cycle.

The problem is Lavigne is still so young she's listening to the radio hits of the '90s and early 2000s: she's Pink when she's bucking authority, Alanis Morissette when she's angry, and Jewel when she's sensitive.

An uneven but promising debut album that suggests that the group may still create something distinctive.

The Cure have become journeymen, for better and worse, turning out well-crafted music that's easy to enjoy yet not all that compelling either.

Muse continue to make unrelenting hardcore art rock; Absolution is a tad cheesy, a bit too grandiose in its ambitions, bursting at the seams with too many ideas, and thus exactly what any Muse fan craves.

Perhaps they should stick to singles.

If the music on Schizophrenic was as awkward as Chavez's singing and stance, it'd be an easy album to dismiss, but what makes it so frustrating is that he has a lot of good music on the album.

True, Knopfler's basic approach remains the same - as a guitarist, he is still enamored of the minor-key finger-picking style of J.J. Cale, and as a singer/songwriter, he remains enthralled with Bob Dylan. But in one song after another on this album, you get the feeling that he started out playing some familiar song in a specific genre and eventually extrapolated upon it enough to call it an original.

Arde is a low-key affair, relying on ethereal and hypnotic arrangements and slow tempos. However, there is a distinct pop sense to the album...

Although it peters out in its last 10 minutes, Lucky 7 is a workmanlike and thrilling if unadventurous addition to Heat's fiery catalog, and provides him with more fuel for his explosive gigs.

Stillmatic is all the proof anyone needs that Nas isn't as special as he was five years before the album's release.

From a few listens, it's clear most of these weren't bumped because they were low-quality; "Doo Rags," "No Idea's Original," and "Black Zombie" stand up to anything Nas has recorded since the original Illmatic.

Coral Fang has its fair share of flaws, but it's impassioned enough to have plenty of bite despite them.

There's nothing that betrays their high standards of craft, but, on a whole, the songs are neither as hooky nor as resonant as the ones unveiled on its predecessor.

LaValle retains his heavily textural, impressionist flair, but has begun to repeat himself heavily, with none of the freshness or vigor of previous material.

The similarity of Meteroa to Hybrid Theory does not only raise the question of where do they go from here, but whether there is a place for them to go at all.

There are too many songs, simply too much to make Say You Will work, even if there is enough to admire to make you wish it did.

Slicker Than Your Average is stronger than the average sophomore effort, and it proves that Craig David's abilities are innate.

Gore is almost too polite to these songs, but surely that can be forgiven when his love for them is so apparent.

The Blake Babies are back, melodic hooks and great songs in tow.

Love & Distortion still finds the Stratford 4 operating as a band with more taste in music than original ideas.

Despite another notable drop in songwriting from its predecessor, Sing When You're Winning ultimately succeeds, and most of the credit must go to Robbie Williams himself. Amidst a raft of overly familiar arrangements and lyrical themes, Williams proves the consummate entertainer by delivering powerful, engaging vocals...

The most successful songs are those that either embrace their influences so fully that they become glorious reproductions or those that dispense with the idol worship altogether.

Unfortunately, the Oranges Band can't sustain their head of steam during All Around's second half.

This is the recording that the homogenous Dream Harder failed to become. It's ambitious, moody, surreal, and relevant.

If you're able to appreciate the pleasure and point they bring as a whole, 12 Memories will be an fine listen. If you're hoping they took the Coldplay route, you're in the wrong place.

This is international music, not intended merely for Kinky's native Mexico. Actually, it's more intended for trendy music cultures such as those of Europe and the U.S. -- a sort of Spanish update for the early 2000s of the late-'90s electronica/rock sound associated with groups like Prodigy and Primal Scream.

If nothing really catches hold as a song, there's still a lot of tuneful, appealing material here, and it functions well as a party album for those hot days of summer.

Thought-provoking and a bit of a downer in ways Grandaddy probably didn't intend, Sumday isn't a totally empty experience, but its ambitions and results don't add up as well as might have been expected.

An occasionally jumbled, yet undeniably pleasant, collection that unsurprisingly feels like a hybrid of a proper Belle & Sebastian album and a more traditional film score.

With each multi-layered cut, the trio shows pop songwriting skills not often seen in such cookie-cutter times -- especially in the particularly staid field of alt-rock.... this bold album takes you on an aural adventure of strings, guitars, and hooks paired with intelligent lyrics and taut instrumentation.

Certainly it's not as important or ambitious as his principal projects, but on the other hand there's less of the clever ostentatiousness that can sometimes drive you up the wall.

The two have captured a cohesiveness that was lacking on previous Azure Ray albums.

Jones' unmistakable style is unlike anyone else's, and that fact alone will turn away some potential listeners; however, for fans of gentle jazz-pop, It's Like This is an intimate, dreamy wander through the songbooks of the last century.

Neither a retreat nor a leap forward, Instant 0 in the Universe is pleasant and nowhere near as trying as some of the group's recent work, but it's one more Stereolab release that is equally difficult to dislike or fully embrace.

A great place to start, a fine place to continue if you've been on the Mekons road for a bit, and if you are already a fan, this is essential.

Contemplative electronic mood-music in a minor key-

While Nakamura is quite possibly one of the most accomplished beat processors in the realm of art hip-hop/electronica, his strict-composer approach on this project is occasionally inaccessible and at times unlistenable.

Paper Monsters is a competent solo debut, and although it doesn't stray too far from the Depeche mold, Gahan does manage to put his own stamp on the songs.

Both technical enough for scholastic jazz ears and organic enough for acoustic traditionalists.

It’s by no means a landmark, and it’s not close to their best; it’s just well-done.

Those who appreciate an honest, basic record will enjoy Paloalto's simple approach.

If Love Is Hell, Pt. 1 has the edge over Rock n Roll, it's because it's more carefully considered in its production and writing, and he manages to hide his allusions better than he does on Rock, where every title and chord progression plays like an homage.

Despite being heavy with unexceptional tunes, Seal IV has enough going for it to warrant the next four years of anticipation.

Ultimately this album is neither the triumph or the disaster that it could've been.

The whole thing sounds good on paper, but in practice, it's a bit of a mixed bag.

This is what Pavement would have sounded like if they became the equivalent of Sebadoh, cranking out a version of Slanted & Enchanted each year, turning out records that satisfy listeners that want Pavement without unpredictability, humor, diversity and, yes, mess - without SM Jenkins, that is.

Melodic but samey, the songs flow into each other, creating a relaxing, seamless work that never breaks out of its mold. That said, the musicianship is of such consistently high quality that even the most lackluster tunes are redeemed by the band's innate professionalism.

Their passion for hating Margaret Thatcher, the royal family, and the tyrannical moves by Parliament is a common theme comically twisted throughout the dozen track set list on We Love the City.

This will still strike most as a mighty odd record, though. Ostensibly much of this record was inspired by former president Richard Nixon (there is even a suggested reading list of Nixon-related books on the sleeve). But there are no direct references to him, and even any indirect ones are so oblique that you'd never make the connection if the record had a different title...

It is her unbridled honesty that drives this album right into your gut.

She's in Control is dirty late-night fun simply because it has fun.

The power of Jane's Addiction is undiminished by Strays (this is still a band creating music unlike any other artist), but the imagination, bravado, and songwriting smarts apparent from previous classics is sadly missing.

Laika's typically airy atmosphere sounds more sterilized this time around.

Summer Sun is so mellow and pretty that it feels uncharitable to call it one of their weakest albums in recent memory; many bands would kill to make music this accomplished.

Though the focus on range and experimentation is fascinating for those who've already heard Squarepusher doing the standard drill'n'bass rigamarole, the randomness evident on productions like "Kill Robok" makes the LP about as infectious as a surgical bandage.

Parts of One Part Lullaby work very well, but it's also curiously flat. The modern rock production feels two years out of date -- shiny and commercial for 1996-1997, but an anomaly in 1999. ... That's not to say One Part Lullaby is a failure -- when Barlow and Davis pull it all together, the results are as strong as anything else the duo has recorded. As a whole, however, it winds up being strangely unengaging.

Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia might still be the band's most accomplished album, but by embracing their emptiness and stylishness on Welcome to the Monkey House, they've crafted an album that is no less enjoyable because of its disposability.

While obviously talented and often inspired, it is unclear if the Bad Plus are avant-garde enough to appeal to hardcore jazz fans, or pop-oriented enough to grab the attention of rock listeners.

8701 is more mood music than anything else, and while it does work fairly well on that level, it's not memorable outside of that mood.

Listeners who expect a batch of immediately compelling music from any Herren material will be sorely disappointed here; Apropa't pulls way back from his upfront Prefuse work and delivers a record of music so sparsely textured it barely raises off the surface.

The glimmers of vitality lurking around the edges of the album tend to make it all the more frustrating -- just a few more distinctive songs would've gone a long way towards making this a really solid album instead of just an intermittently entertaining one.

The album gains a newfound polish, particularly in the production, but also loses some of the spontaneous energy and wide-ranging influences that characterize the rest of Stereo Total's work.

Reed genuinely seems to be stretching towards new lyrical and musical ground here, but while some of his experiments work, several pointedly do not?

Because Knight seamlessly incorporates a 2001 music sensibility to this recording, At Last can comfortably sit alongside works by Destiny's Child, Toni Braxton, Faith Evans, and other younger musical counterparts.

Woozy, trance-like, and sublime...

The music is something else, sophisticated, jazzy on a few numbers, occasionally funky and varied for a rap album. But the rapping is still not quite right.

Alternately too predictable and too quirky, Panic Movement reveals the Hiss as an ambitious band that can't always deliver on its goals.

Bazooka Tooth simply pushes too far.

The album seems to reflect craft rather than passion, and while it's often splendid craft, the fire that made Whiskeytown's best work so special isn't evident much of the time.

In all, My Morning Jacket may be a journey through the past, but it's also a solid step into something rock & roll has been missing for an awfully long time in the mainstream arena: melody, extremely catchy and well-written songs that aren't afraid of the mainstream, and a love of the great pop continuum that translates into something new.

As a whole, Politics of the Business never quite jells into the cohesive statement it wants to be.

Another handsome, shaded, and satisfying work from an artist that has reconnected with her muse.