Three Easy Pieces is the sort of reunion album that happened for the right reasons - because these players still work well together and have good songs to share - and anyone who ever cared about this frequently underrated band will want to hear them in this impressive return to form.

This is a remarkably mature and impressive debut from an artist who seems like he's just getting started and his best stuff lies ahead of him.

Super Taranta! is the culmination of superb musicianship, endless energy, and an inborn sense of fun and a dedication to progression and innovation, and if that's not something to celebrate and dance to, it's hard to know what is.

New Wave is crisp, direct, and sharp. It's clean, but not glossy; it's defiant; it's brash; it's heartfelt.

It's an orchestral record for those who prefer the simplistic, a darker one for those who prefer theirs twee, love songs for the scorned and sad songs for the content, an engaging and alluring combination that makes Marry Me nearly irresistible, and one of the better indie pop albums that's come around for a long time.

It is a fetching 40-minute album, with each song supplying its own set of penetrating hooks, ear-ticklingly sharp guitars, moody synthesizer gauze, and mobile rhythms.

It finds that the guys don't just still have it, but they sound goddamn rejuvenated, bristling with electric energy and undeniable fervor.

This record is more cohesive than the debut, partially due to the presence of Weiland's old STP producer, Brendan O'Brien, who lends the recording color and texture that enhances the melodies while still giving the guitars considerable muscle.

The material tends to be kind of insidious, rather than hitting you immediately or going through one ear and out the other, and it's significantly more R&B-oriented.

The album is generally enjoyable, and it's doubtful T.I. has to worry about being dethroned within the near future.

Easy Tiger delivers what it promises: the most Ryan Adamsy Ryan Adams record since his first.

The Mix Up is not a major statement, but that's the nice thing about the record: it's as personal and idiosyncratic as any old funky soul-jazz LP that you'd find deep in the crates of a second-hand record store.

While Bad Brains never quite match the intensity of their early days, this is easily the best record they've released since Quickness.

It takes time to make music as effortless and elegant as this, to construct songs this finely detailed.

There are no hooks, nothing to suck in the many adults that liked Clarkson's first two records.

Even though there certainly are a few tracks ("Swift and Unforgiving," "Hey, Thanks," and "Apartment") distinctly lacking for a little more oomph in their execution, the album's overall balance is overwhelmingly positive at the end of the day.

Desire is a taut and focused work that energizes, packed densely with typically Monch-like quotables that might take a couple listens to catch.

In all, it's a winner, a solid, consistently crafted "new country" record that wears rock & roll proudly on its sleeve.

The melodies are far more varied than on previous outings, and the sense of dynamics and balance of tension in these songs -- and the arrangements that accompany them -- are the most sophisticated this group has ever pulled off.

With its fuller sound and relaxed flights of fancy, Icky Thump is a mature, but far from stodgy, album -- and, as is usually the case, it's just great fun to hear the band play.

There's a delicateness to Golden Pollen, in the double- and triple-tracked vocals, the soft instrumentation.

It's a Bit Complicated proves that Art Brut are masters of writing pop songs about loving pop songs passionately.

Sometimes it's electronic music you can rock to, sometimes it's neo-disco tech-house you can sing with, but it's always the fringe of dance-pop at its peak put together in a razor-sharp package.

Even with the band, what comes through most clearly is Votolato's voice, which is better than ever here, rough and emotive, honest to a fault.

Lost Highway recalls nothing so much as a latter-day Bon Jovi record in how it balances fist-pumping arena anthems with heavy doses of sentiment.

It's exhilarating, the best rock & roll record yet released in 2007.

The sound quality is ultra-clean, it makes the listening experience relatively risk-free and also brings attention to the fact that there's not a lot of ground being broken here.

If musical adventurousness and short attention spans are viewed as positive attributes, then these 13 short songs offer ample rewards.

Someone to Drive You Home is one of those albums that's honest to goodness fun, and pulling it off with as much pastiche as the Long Blondes makes it one of the year's nicest arrivals.

On the surface, it's bright and accessible, as easy to enjoy as the best of Paul's solo albums, but it lingers in the heart and mind in a way uncommon to the rest of his work, and to many other latter-day albums from his peers as well.

Three consecutive Timbaland productions, including one suited for a black college marching band and another that effectively pulls the romantically co-dependent heartstrings, enhance the album rather than make it more scattered.

A little exposure to his constantly morphing flat baritone goes a long way.

Another beautiful record that stands right alongside the group's best work.

A stellar accomplishment from a truly singular band.

As focused as it is ambitious, Boxeris riveting.

Mirrored is unlike any recording out there at the moment. It's loud, funny, and astonishingly sophisticated, and doesn't feel pretentious in the least.

Those whose favorite form of Wheat is the aforementioned major-label effort, or even the elegant chamber pop of Hope and Adams, might consider this willful album an exercise in self-indulgent noise, but in the context of the duo's career as a whole, it sounds much more like a deliberate stylistic retrenchment.

The Bravery are an easy target -- after all, they were often seen as also-rans even when their kind of music was the hot new thing -- but, unfortunately, The Sun and the Moon's hesitant, unfocused feel doesn't do much to dissuade that notion.

If some of the ballads aren't as distinguished as the livelier tracks, they nevertheless are as sharply crafted as the rest, and the end result is that It Won't Be Soon Before Long is that rare self-stylized blockbuster album that sounds as big and satisfying as was intended.

Even if Lies for the Liars has the appearance of a crossover album, a la The Black Parade, it doesn't have the substance.

Where Wolf Parade dips into more than their fair share of upbeat, even disco beat-driven, music, Handsome Furs instead pull back and strip down their songs.

While Erasure certainly didn't need the "return to form" album at this point in their career, they nailed it and brought better songwriting along for the ride.

As lyrically eclectic and clever as it is musically, this is one fascinating album.

It isn't everyday one comes across an honest, and honestly surprising, set of love songs such as this.

While these songs are lushly produced, often with full orchestration, and while Wainwright has a knack for pretty, lilting melodies and concrete imagery there is nonetheless a distinct lack of pop hooks here.

Sky Blue Sky may find Wilco dipping their toes into roots rock again, but this doesn't feel like a step back so much as another fresh path for one of America's most consistently interesting bands.

Tio Bitar is Dungen's most realized album yet and should resonate with anyone who likes rock music at all.

This is as good as it gets right now; it'll be the country album to beat in 2007.

Funeral for a Friend not only displays an increased sense of ambition on this sweeping great leap forward, they also display a greater sense of accomplishment, as writers and musicians.

It finds the perfect balance between the vibrancy of her poppier work in the '90s and her experiments in the 2000s.

God Save the Clientele is another stroke of magic from a band that has few peers in delivering music that can make or break your heart with a vocal inflection, swath of strings, or gentle arpeggio, music that can devastate you in one breath and lift you to the heavens with the next.

No Shouts, No Calls might be some of Electrelane's most accessible work, but it's far from safe; in fact, its sweet vulnerability is exactly what makes it so special.

Another gorgeous album.

Though some of the songs here, especially the earlier ones, can be quite simple, even raw at times, there's a sad, clean sweetness that comes through despite the occasional bit of tape hiss, of tinny chords.

Honestly, none of it makes a lick of sense, but unlike, say, the Beta Band -- whose entire shtick was that the parts of their music never fit into a coherent whole -- there's a shapeliness to Zootime that suggests the record was constructed from some inscrutable blueprint that's just naggingly out of reach.

Human the Death Dance may be his most personal effort, but it's also an incredibly well-built full-length -- even when it borrows from a handful of genres -- and it's arguably his best lyrical effort, undoubtedly his best production-wise.

Strength & Loyalty doesn't overcome its challenges; it just sidesteps them and works hard to reward fans for a decade of patience.

Spellbinding.

Anyone who has already decided that jazz is dead, that the great innovators have come and gone, needs to listen to the Bad Plus to be proven dead wrong.

Send Away the Tigers never seem heavy-handed, which is something that even their best albums often are. So, this isn't merely a return to form, then--it's also a welcome progression from a band that only a couple of albums back seemed stuck in a rut with no way out.

The Magic Position loses a little focus near the end, but flashes of inspired lunacy like the jarring arrival of a spectral Marianne Faithfull on the spooky "Magpie" help to make this unpredictable collection of Victorian-peaked electro/folk-pop so hard to dislike.

Her musical vision and production skills are almost astonishing in places. [But] American Doll Posse is a work that has its problems due to its sprawling nature.

A painfully disappointing artistic failure.

Beyond isn't merely a worthy album from a reunited band, it's simply a great record by any standard.

One listen to Tears of the Valedictorian confirms the group's uncanny talent for creating manic, beautiful and upsetting songs that seem to exist wholly for themselves.

The key to the album's potency and freshness is its differences from In My Own Words.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend would have been impressive if it was just a showcase of her strengths as a singer or as a songwriter, but since it is both, it's simply stunning, a breakthrough for Lambert and one of the best albums of 2007, regardless of genre.

Snakes & Arrows is one of the tightest conceptual records the band has ever released.

As good as the atmospheric heartache of the first half of 5:55 is, it's on the second half, when Gainsbourg and her crew stretch out a bit, that the album really gets interesting.

It employs all his strengths as a writer of lyrics and music and stretches the canvas of his colorful if sparsely arranged tapestry.

Full of slow burning passion and emotion, Twelve is magnificent.

On [the] debut, it was possible hear all the ways they were similar to their predecessors, but here it's possible to hear all the ways Arctic Monkeys is a unique, vibrant band and that's why Favourite Worst Nightmare is its own way more exciting than the debut.

Dumb Luck isn't quite as cohesive as Dntel's debut was, but it is beautiful and carefully crafted enough to show that none of Tamborello's successes are flukes.

They've given up some of the whimsy and trippiness that marked their first two releases, but they've gained direction.

We'll Never Turn Back is the kind of album we need at the moment, one that doesn't flinch from the tradition but doesn't present it as a museum piece either.

What it does has pretty much been done before -- but it's done well, and done right, and in the end, it's successful.

Porcupine Tree makes a triumphant return to experimental, non-linear style with 2007's Fear of a Blank Planet.

True, this is far from deep but Under the Skin proved that a deep Avril is a dull Avril. The Best Damn Thing, in contrast, builds on every one of her bratty strengths which makes for ridiculously catchy pop - the kind of music that provides a soundtrack for teens and guilty pleasures for everyone else.

There's an air of sloppy experimentation, of demos and B-sides and other things that probably won't interest more than the heartiest fan.

Year Zero is the finest Nine Inch Nails recording since Downward Spiral. Its songs are memorable, beautifully constructed and articulated.

What At the End of Paths Taken means for the Cowboy Junkies: it's like a renaissance.

Though it may not be flawless, it's pretty satisfying nonetheless.

While the sound of pure snarl and glee is what melts the speaker cabinets the most, the overdriven menace of most these songs doesn't undermine their worth as songs.

The band's fullest and most developed record to date.

23 is mysterious and modern, with an artfully strange beauty that is more memorable than perfection.

The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn's densely packed sounds and ideas are a lot to process, but they're what makes this album rewarding on repeated listens.

Anyone who likes their indie pop with a full order of mystery and drama, hold the pretension, will treasure this dark and enchanting album.

For those who find themselves lingering on the fringes after her debut, There's No Home is the greeting card to dive in with both ears and get your ears drenched in pleasure.

It's an awesome thing, this album, and anyone, virtually anyone who encounters it will be in some way moved by the impure music it contains.

The album's a wonderful step forward from an already strong foothold, theatrical without being overdone, introspective without being saccharine, and makes for an excellent piece of work.

Even if it isn't as immediate as the prime of Pulp, it's a richly nuanced, complicated album that finds Jarvis near the top of his craft as a writer and record maker.

It's sturdy, well-written power pop, but it falls prey to some of the faults of craftsmanlike pop -- mainly, it's possible to hear the craft behind the pop instead of just getting sucked into the sugar rush of the melodies.

The general move away from strong, hooky choruses to a focus on expansive, intricate and percussive arrangements may challenge casual and even some longtime fans of the band's catchy, Southern garage rock twang.

While it's nice to have another Mary Chain record, what makes the record even better is the presence of Linda Reid.

Throbbing Gristle... no longer sound frightening, disturbing, or, for the most part, even interesting?

On Dignity she makes some serious headway into turning into a mature recording artist, which makes this an effective, strangely endearing album.

It's not that any of these tracks are bad: Ozomatli is comprised of talented enough musicians, and have been doing it for long enough now, that they're able to pretty much successfully pull off anything they try, but these songs move so far from the sociopolitical salsa on which they created themselves that it's almost hard to recognize them as from the same band.

[It] would be more accurately titled Timbaland Presents Slight Confusion or Timbaland Presents an Uneven Mess.