Snooty taste makers and parents should avoid Animal at all costs, but with so many fun, “TiK ToK”-type tracks, the album has plenty for both brats and the bratty at heart.

Black Swan is a definite sign of progress, though, and the band would do well to follow its path on future releases.

They resisted the temptation to knock out another collection of power pop and instead hibernated for a few years, eventually teaming up with Dave Fridmann--a former member of Mercury Rev best known for his production work with the Flaming Lips--with the intention of reinvention, resulting in the mildly bewildering Of the Blue Colour of the Sky.

There is charm to Starr’s tried and true: exciting it is not but it’s as comforting as an old friend who doesn’t change, he just stays the same.

Like all the other installments in the series, this one makes a nice addition to a hardcore supporter’s collection.

This pimp from Shreveport sounds best when swaggering and rarely steps out of his comfort zone.

Albums like this pretty much ask you right away to either turn it up or throw it out, and there's no denying the polarizing nature of D.I.Y. indie rock, but Jookabox is consistently visceral, darkly funny, and wholly unpredictable enough to warrant more than a cursory spin around the neighborhood.

Compositions range from the lengthy to just fragments, and while it feels at points more like a collection of sessions than necessarily a complete stand-alone album conceived as such, the end results are still well worth hearing.

The band are an almost classic example of one element working incredibly well and another almost tripping it up as it goes. What works is the group's collective ear for those previously mentioned sounds and styles, which the trio plays excellently throughout.

Dangerfield’s solo foray is a (for the most part) sparse production (it was recorded in just five days), and that extra room is a little jarring at first, but fans of the band, as well as the elusive quarry that is love, will no doubt walk away from Fly Yellow Moon a step or two lighter.

Those who gravitated toward her debut will feel a similar pull to this album, though, which essentially reprises "Oh, My Darling’s" sound with slightly more confidence.

All in all, A Chorus of Storytellers makes for better background music than a main attraction.

At this point in his career, his best move is to take these types of risks, and when he does so on the ten-minute closer "The Man Who Laughs," with its underlying orchestral score by Tyler Bates (composer for the Halloween remakes The Devil's Rejects and The Watchmen), the results are compelling and unnerving in a good way.

The material sits within the band’s canon well enough to please longtime fans, and listeners looking for some kind of middle ground between Evanescence, late-period Queensrÿche and Fall Out Boy will more than likely find a few wicked gems to hang their heads to.

With a somewhat re-jiggered lineup, they pick up the thread of that release with the follow-up, Light a Candle.

One-Armed Bandit dazzles early on... Later portions of the album are larded with so many graceless, attention-deficit hazards that it’s unknown exactly what the band (or is that “groop”?) was attempting to accomplish.

Lacking rhythmic hypnotism and relatable most to those who are experiencing solitude created by romantic desertion, this is not your mother's Sade album.

This is Bowie in his mode as a crowd-pleasing professional, playing with considerable charm and skill, offering no surprises but plenty of pleasure: it's not the first album that will come to mind when thinking of live Bowie, but as it's playing, it's hard to resist.

Islands is by no means a bad record. It's pleasant but it's unnecessary, and in an era of so many bands and so many releases, that's just not good enough.

There are some solid breakdowns to sink your teeth into, and the choruses are still huge and anthemic, but the rest might be a little too watered down for serious metalcore devotees.

The results are alternately ghostly, sexy, and nocturnal, but they’re always moving.

There's a clear focus to the record, too, virtually all of it centered on mainstream dance of the '80s hi-NRG synth pop variety.

Broken Bells is an honest-to-goodness debut album--there are as many promising flashes as frustrating moments here. Mercer and Burton have obvious chemistry, but they need to blend more for true alchemy.

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.

While it doesn't rise to the level of his other studio albums, Valleys of Neptune is a welcome catalog addition from a tremendous talent who died too young.

Limited and a little patched together, but if cheap thrills are what you’re after, this one puts the dirty back in dirty south.

it's a formula contemporary country chartmaker: highly compressed dual lead guitars, layered acoustic guitars, good-time honky tonk lyrics, and big rocking drums. It’s a good-natured dig at city folks, and you can’t help but like Shelton, no matter how many cliché’s he spews.

As a performer, the smooth Derulo--made even smoother by Auto-Tune--delivers it all so effortlessly that none of that persuasive debut hunger comes through, making this stylish and short set one to admire rather than advocate.

Like many other tracks here, it seems ideally suited for heavy rotation on Radio Disney. The songs tend to have sledgehammer hooks as simple as schoolyard chants, all the better to be bellowed from the backseats of mini-vans across America. There are a few oddities, however.

The stylistic similarities are pretty undeniable, and not necessarily to Josiah's advantage--but the elder Wolf has enough of a distinct voice (and enough to say with it) that Why?'s fans will definitely want to give it a listen--and those who find Yoni a bit too dizzyingly cerebral might take more kindly to Josiah's sincerity and directness.

While some of Constellations lulls a bit, seven-minute suite "Steerage and the Lamp," a snow flurry of Lowe's rolling piano arpeggios accentuated by subtle strings, captures the classical wonderment of Balmorhea at its finest.

Freight Train, Alan Jackson’s 16th album, has none of the momentum of a locomotive but all of the reassuring sturdiness of a hulking piece of steel: this is music built for distance, not speed.

There are too many good moments, and Golightly is too talented a singer to dismiss this, but at the same time, this album just doesn't live up to her high standards, and she's done too much work far better than this for any fans to not feel a bit letdown by this release.

There's no arguing Putnam has a genuine talent for writing melodies and giving them shape in the studio, but he needs to add more colors to his palate if he expects people to come back to hear the same tale again and again.

Repeated listens bring a number of sounds to the surface--a hint of heartland twang, plenty of pop melodies, and an endearing messiness (evident in the half-sung, half-shouted background vocals)--but We Built a Fire is mostly concerned with mood, which it casts during the first minute of running time.

Even if this isn’t some of Francis’ most striking work, it continues the more personal vein of songwriting he began exploring after the Pixies.

The pieces here -- it's hard to call them songs or tracks -- are almost ambient, but there's too much noise and too many shifting sounds to keep you from spacing out for too long.

The biggest drawback, one that can make the listener tire of the album long before it ends, is her terminally flat, undisciplined voice. More often than not, her compelling song structures suffer because of it. Ultimately, Junior feels more like a band record and furthers the sounds explored on Dreaming of Revenge.

The aim over too much of this record seems to be simply getting Kate Nash airplay without worrying overly much about a musical backing that suits her songwriting.

Most of the time, Nelson just sounds like an old pro happy to play with whoever is in the studio, happy to sing whatever the producer puts in front of him--and that's what makes Country Music not all that different from Songbird or Countryman, which were also driven by their respective producers to places that don't seem as classically country as this purports to be.

Blue Sky Noise, with all of its spit-shine and modern rock luster, may not move mountains outside of its own pained and heavily marketed demographic, but as long as superhero movie franchises remain profitable, bands like Circa Survive will be there to play over the credits.

The timing could be much better, but the songs aren’t bad at all, with most of the material taking its cues from Jason Mraz, Ben Harper, and other folk-pop heavyweights.

Despite the obvious stylistic proficiency at play, Double Jointer is a bit too au courant (maybe it's all that reverb) to have much of a long-term impact.

It’s all very eclectic and a bit unexpected -- two qualities that seem to be Keane’s modus operandi as of late -- but what’s missing is a pop anthem along the lines of “Again and Again” or “Bend and Break,” both of which allowed Tom Chaplin to flex his vocal chops on past albums.

Perhaps the results are predictable, but they are satisfying, and it’s better to have new music from this duo than none at all.

It’s the first half of the album that is more substantive and memorable.

Their charm wears thin with each passing track, and Stride's hit-making approach becomes increasingly plain in the process. In the end, it's something of a blessing that Everybody Wants to Be on TV is over and done with in a mere 34 minutes' time.

[Moody has] created a record that could have been released in 2005 instead of one that sounded just a bit like 2010.

While they have many good ideas, sometimes they have too many good ideas at once and end up gilding the lily (or putting a blue fake fur mustache on it, as the case may be).

Those fans seeking a return to Godsmack's roots will not be disappointed; for others, the sound may be a retrenchment because there was no place else for them to go. The only undebatable thing is that The Oracle is the most aggressive disc Godsmack have issued since their debut.

Break off a single or two and leave the rest for aspiring producers to study.

Fans of Far will be able to appreciate At Night We Live as a further evolution of Water & Solutions, but new listeners will have a hard time finding a fresh experience.

There's nothing particularly wrong with any of this, but despite this expanded stylistic and instrumental palette (and some notably lush, lovely vocal harmonies), it's hard to escape the sense that this album is, ironically, even more of an indulgently dabbling affair than its home four-tracked predecessor, which at least had an appealing simplicity and directness of approach.

There's enough honesty in his rich, warm voice to render even the most forgettable tracks into pleasant diversions on the way to future favorites.

The playing is solid, but one wishes Petty & the Heartbreakers had simply covered some of those old Chess classics rather than trying half-heartedly to write their own -- it would have made for an album closer to intent.

Barbara shows that We Are Scientists know what works for them, and even if it never quite breaks the barrier between pleasant and great, it's almost always enjoyable.

At times Can't Be Tamed feels perfunctory, getting the job of showing Cyrus is growing up without making her too mature for her still-young fan base and little else.

While a few hooks stand out--particularly the "fisticuffs" chorus of "Fixed"--most of the songs are too watered down, lyrically and musically, to be truly enticing.

Shame that one-joke ideas like "House Party" get blown out of proportion, and even worse, the healthy helping of filler is obstinate, refusing to fade into the background because of over-the-top performances. 3oh!3 are nothing if not loud and shameless, so if you expect end-to-end excellence from their albums, you've got a lot to learn about cheap thrills.

HTDA's debut EP doesn't consist of dressed-up leftovers from The Slip: some of Reznor's obsessions remain recognizable, but having collaborators opens up the music and Maandig softens it, giving this EP a different feel despite some familiar sounds.

McLachlan simply sounds like McLachlan here, seemingly unaged by the seven years that have elapsed since her last record and unconcerned with new trends.

There are moments during MAYA when it seems like M.I.A.'s next move might involve walking into a laundromat, filling the dryers with bricks and silverware, pulling the fire alarm, blaring a drop-forge beat from a tinny boombox, and recording the result.

Luckily, the sound of the band remains unchanged, and as one of the best drummers in the business, Portnoy picks up the reigns and rides the Deathbat's double kick in complete synchronicity with Gates, Christ, and Vengeance.

There's a laid-back, late-night vibe maintained throughout Obadiah, as Ford unleashes her moody croon over slow to midtempo tunes colored by piano, organ, and Tanyas member Trish Klein's guitar work and powered by mellow but funky, slow-rolling grooves.

Deth Red Sabaoth sounds like what a lot of the Samhain/Misfits fans wanted the group's 1988 debut to be: a raw, dirty, D.I.Y. collection of comic book-inspired violence, thrust together by the unholy union of punk and metal.

Ten singles--these voices could have used some better material--but the album will likely please most of the fan base, as it is a rather skillful update of the familiar.

At 17 tracks it borders on overkill, but that's fitting for Gaga, who has made excessiveness her raison d'être, and some of the included remixes are quite good.

If they can't quite deliver the songs or hooks--and they can't--they need to have the attitude, which they do here.

If nothing on Antifogmatic is quite that ambitious, nevertheless in track after track Thile leads the band through labyrinthine arrangements that shift tempos and instrument groupings, over which he sings abstract lyrics in a slightly disembodied high tenor voice.

Without even the slightest concessions, Goon Affiliated isn't the Plies album to start with, but fans who never wanted their gutter hero on the radio to begin with should file this next to their favorite mixtape.

All About Tonight wasn't recorded to reach a new audience, so much as shore up Shelton's fan base while furthering his chosen marketing experiment.

As pure music, Black Label Society remain as effective as they ever were on Order of the Black.

Even in the heavier moments, the album plays with a cool, unruffled composure that seems more easygoing than prior outings, making for a comfortable, welcome return.

David Gray doesn't really purport to be anything other than a contemporary folk-pop singer, and Foundling finds him doing what he does best.

As a record in 2010, the ten songs are an unapologetic throwback, not quite distinctive enough to suggest that a reevaluation of the band is in order, but certainly pleasing for fans -- and even if you're not a fan, it's hard not to be a little pleased that this forgotten chapter in the band's history has been published.

God Willin' & the Creek Don't Rise is a mixed bag. There's fine stuff here to be sure, but as a whole, it feels unbalanced; too much of one sound makes it drag a bit. Given that this is his debut as a producer, it's not unexpected; but after his previous trio of fine recordings, this one feels anticlimactic.

This idealism, along with the music's sheer density and strangeness, will fascinate some--but while While Surfing the Void's admirable boldness is hard to dismiss, it's also not especially easy to like. Ultimately, it's a difficult album on many levels.

The Orchard doesn't go down as easily as The Rhumb Line did, even though it still has some satisfying moments.

With an all-star cast like this, it's not surprising that Cloak and Cipher is beautifully played and layered. However, too often it feels like the album's overall sound comes at the price of distinctive songs.

The guys still place more emphasis on mood than movement, but they're learning how to create atmospheres without resorting to stoner rock, which makes Sugar a step in the right direction.

Its casualness sometimes surfaces in its tossed-off jokes or sing-song melodies, but that only underscores that Jenny & Johnny are having a good time -- and it's a good time that's easy to share even if one of the hosts doesn't quite hold up his own end of the bargain.

All in all it's a very enjoyable album, if at times a rather strange one.

Something for the Rest of Us is an album to play on the drive home.

As per usual, the record is immaculately crafted, but a bit "proggy," which could serve to disappoint listeners who have been waiting patiently for the artist to return to the engaging, patchwork pop/rock of 2005's Illinoise. Fans of the quirky, less immediate moments from that album will find a great deal to love on this precursor to October's full length Age of Adz.

From Flowers' five-dollar words to the operatic bombast, every little moment of Flamingo carries weight, which means every moment cancels out the one that came before: it's all sequined stage costumes shimmering under blaring lights.

If it didn't capture the fun of '80s pop, it just wouldn't be Chromeo. And for their third album, Pee Thug and Dave One are as campy and faithful to their roots as humanly (and robotically) possible.

Although this is hardly Underworld at their finest, the duo's songwriting fits the mainstream productions and results in a solid dance album for the 2010s--music for aging-raver activities like driving cars, pushing swings, or jogging on treadmills.

On Wake Up!, the funkiest, most flexible band on the planet backs one of the most skilled and accomplished singer/keyboardists in modern R&B.

Appropriation is the name of the game, so there are few musical surprises in the 39-year-old's veteran beats.

Its eight songs containing no masterpieces and Lanois' moody noir production reining in Young's messy signature. So, Le Noise winds up as something elusive and intriguing, a minor mood piece that seems to promise more than it actually delivers.

Both artists are gifted social commentators with a love for snarky, collegiate cynicism that hides a huge sentimental streak.

Monochromatic can also be read as reliable, giving the people what they want and with Chesney, that's an easy, relaxed good time…it's just, now that he's in his 40s, he makes records designed for a quiet weekend afternoon at home instead of a Friday night kegger.

In these, guitarist Brett Gurewitz's songwriting seems more fitting for the Gin Blossoms or Lemonheads than a rapid-fire punk group, but it's a change.

The real drums are a key here: the band doesn't sound as sequenced and hemmed-in as it did in the past; there's a messy, urgent pulse to the music. All the same, Trouble isn't that far removed from Short Bus.

This is a middle-of-the-road pop album pure and simple, arriving perhaps two years too late but it nevertheless proves that Archuleta has the chops to fill the space between commercials on the airwaves.

As it is, Doo-Wops & Hooligans is an uneven debut that shows why Mars is likeable and popular, but doesn't tap into his full potential as a writer or producer.

None of these tunes can compete with the band's singles, of course, but that's not the point, since No Chocolate Cake sets its sights on maintaining the band's audience rather than reclaiming a spot in the mainstream.