The genre-blending charm and sweetness that made Brushfire Fairytales and On and On so nice doesn't change that much, but does it really have to change?

Back to Me is a powerful and affecting album from an artist who is quickly establishing herself as a major talent.

Angel of Retribution does indeed rock just hard enough to please longtime fans and convert a few new ones along the way.

Make Do With What You Got sounds like an overly anxious attempt to re-create the sound of vintage R&B sides that gets the surfaces right but never quite captures the heart and soul of the music.

Stone Roses fans who haven't tracked Brown's musical progress after that band's breakup will find much to love on Solarized, another mini-masterpiece that perfectly balances mood and melody.

It's their seamless and agreeable blend of rock & roll, country, and Roky Erickson-style psychedelia, matched with a keen lyrical wit, that makes them fascinating to both sides of the pond.

Fans of the newly resurgent psych-folk scene should definitely investigate the record and the band, too.

It wants terribly to be an important record, but its songs are merely good.

As a cohesive work, The Beekeeper holds together better than nearly any of Tori's more ambitious albums, but there's a certain artsy distance that keeps this from being as emotionally immediate or as memorable as her first two records.

Ward's voice is a slap-delayed pastiche of Ron Sexsmith's easygoing croon and Andrew Bird's closed-mouth drawl, and like his front-porch fingerpicking, it's as effortless as it is effective.

Clem Snide's fifth album holds no surprises for anyone who has heard albums one through four. End of Love is just as whip smart, goofy, and satisfying as any of them.

Actually one of the band's most enjoyable releases.

It's often impenetrable and there are a couple derailments... but it's never off-putting.

Ida continues to create slow, sad music that maintains interesting depth within the ache.

Stand[s] alongside Something to Remember Me By as his strongest album.

So darkly delicious you have to admit it's their masterwork.

Woman King is too short to be considered the high point of Iron & Wine's career -- it certainly points in that direction, though.

The negativity removes the focus from Busdriver's sizable musical talents and rests it squarely on his lyricism and themes (not a good idea).

Though die-hard Mogwai fans are probably the most likely to pick this up, Government Commissions works so well that it could also double as a Mogwai greatest-hits collection.

This is a subdued, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling kind of album, and coming after the majestic peaks and valleys of Shivering King and Others it initially feels a little disappointing.

Somebody will really have to pull off a miracle to top Nashville as far as intelligent, honest and entertaining guitar pop goes in 2005. Or any other year.

The music alone nearly justifies the cost, improving on the dense atmosphere pervading Aesop's mostly self-produced Bazooka Tooth, and returning ace producer Blockhead to his prime role in the control chair.

The curiously lifeless production means that several listens are necessary before the songs' charms are fully revealed.

Like just about everybody else these days, Murphy's more skilled at creating isolated tracks than making full-lengths, even though this particular full-length has few weak spots and unfolds smoothly as you listen to it from beginning to end. The bonus disc, containing all the stray single tracks, adds a great deal of value.

Take Fountain is a solid Wedding Present album, one that will satisfy those who have been following Gedge all along.

The songs are wearier than ever and full of life at the same time, with each element seeming to fall into place by sheer luck.

This is one of Ladd's most accomplished albums to date, proving once again that he's one of the most forward-thinking artists around.

Overall, the Sage may be polemical on a level like few other than Dead Prez, but he also has a metaphysical side matched by few other than Jeru tha Damaja.

Burn the Maps is an elemental journey that tugs at the heart and sticks around in the mind.

An utterly mesmerizing and magnetic album, almost unfair in how incredibly ambitious and impressively pulled off the whole thing is.

Their darkly whimsical music has ties to the sweetly strange work of '90s groups like the Sundays, Sixpence None the Richer, and (especially) Belly, but there simply aren't many bands that sound like Eisley around in the 2000s.

Out of Breach isn't much different from 2003's Afro Finger and Gel, flitting between left-field house that is remotely danceable and bracingly atonal sheets of noise, often within the span of one track.

A devastatingly accomplished album.

Haunting and affecting.

Happiness in Magazines feels like Coxon's first true solo album -- it's the first to present a complex, robust portrait of him as an artist, and the first that holds its own next to what he accomplished in Blur.

Before the Poison is poetic and unnerving; it stands alone in her catalog in the same way that Broken English did -- but this time, on the other side of the mirror.

Worlds Apart might be a noble failure, but it would probably be worse if it just revisited previous successes.

It's a mature, accomplished statement for one of indie rock's most reliably miserable men.

Ultimately, it's hard not to feel that this album is little more than a blatant attempt to ape the Postal Service's Give Up.

Far from being the second coming of Dylan, Oberst is as precious as Paul Simon, but without any sense of rhyme or meter or gift for imagery, puking out lines filled with cheap metaphors and clumsy words that don't scan.

While there aren't as many heart-stopping productions as on 2002's unjustly neglected Come With Us, Push the Button proves the Chemical Brothers have retained the innate curiosity necessary to keep them blazing trails for years to come.

It ranks as the artist's most concise and accessible release to date.

Smart, moving, approachable, and well constructed, Nightbird is Erasure's mature masterpiece.

Fridmann's detailed sound is a far cry from either Kramer or Albini's minimalist tendencies, but his work here shows that Low can sound as good in elaborate settings as they do in simple ones.

Before the Dawn Heals Us is ambitious for sure, an emphatic step forward from the linger of Dead Cities.

Wilderness is another absolute gem.

It's breathtaking and essential listening for all fans of electronic music.

Buck isn't a talented rapper, but he has a gift for expressive storytelling and evokes a range of emotions with his limited, mumbling vocals.

With Sweeney on hand, Oldham has kept some of his less appealing musical eccentricities in check -- this is one of his strongest and best-focused works in years.

To Chesney's credit, he's as appealing on this set of relaxed tunes as he was on its gleaming, ultra-modern predecessor, and taken together, they are strong proof that he's one of best singers and songwriters working in contemporary country music in the mid-'00s.

As familiar as the psychedelic reference points may be, Jennifer Gentle are able to distill them into something contemporary, or at least make listeners feel like contemporaries of a psychedelic era, both past and present.

The themes of isolation, solitude and general soul-crushing existence makes it their most blatantly honest work and helps further reinforce the notion that this is their most fully realized and beautiful release to date.

As the accompaniment to game play, Chaos Theory is a standout in its field; just don't expect it to be as memorable as the typical Amon Tobin effort.

Since her voice is clear and lovely, the songs are tuneful without being flashy, and the production is quiet, subtly layered, George makes All Rise seem easy, and it's only when the record is over that it dawns on you what a rich, rewarding album it is.

A big part of what makes A Question of Temperature so engaging is that, like Travels in the South, it's the work of a musician who isn't rejecting his past experiences but making something new of them.

It is full of emotion yet never sophomoric, it is full of aural poetry and never pretentious, and it is full of that certain mercurial grace that makes each new offering from Six Organs of Admittance something wholly other and an essential listen.

Do the Bambi isn't a radical change from Stereo Total's previous work, but it is completely enjoyable from start to finish.

Early Day Miners do a wonderful job of working off of their influences and creating an indie rock that sounds familiar, which may seem tiring to some, but is great for others who feel that someone needs to continue and expand that sound.

The only shortfall that could be noted is that Trials & Errors is a touch long, clocking in at 72 minutes, but fans of Molina, along with the audience, who you can tell had a wonderful time at this show, will feel that this is a bonus.

The most remarkable aspect of the Game is how he can be such a blatant product of gangsta rap (okay, let's say fanboy) and leave a mark so fast.

Busts open half-lidded Velvet Underground fetishisms with squalls of Blue Cheer guitar, and further channels the heady sounds of the late '60s with a moodily dwelling organ.

What saves the record are the handful of songs that break out of the constraints of even-keeled melancholy and take (small) chances.

It's no better or worse than her 2002 debut or 2003's Chapter II, with the standout singles, decent album cuts, and filler fluff provided in equal doses.

Luda hasn't slipped into the complacent lap of luxury as deeply as some of his fellow platinum contemporaries, but it's evident that he's not as hungry as he once was.

Evenly divided between strong and weak tracks.

While it's just as fun as the Ocean's Eleven soundtrack was, Ocean's Twelve manages to be subtler and more distinctive in its mix of old and new sounds.

One fulfills all of the "faceless" criticisms thrown at them in the past, while alienating whatever fan base they had before.

Styrofoam represents the part of the Morr Music roster where the first three letters of the label's name might as well stand for "middle of the road."

It's not a perfect album -- it's far too indulgent for that -- and would have been stronger as a single disc, but its ambitious sprawl makes for a powerful statement that Nas disciples will surely savor.

The pure beauty and craftsmanship of Alison Krauss & Union Station's more commercial sound is undeniable, and somehow they manage to avoid sounding slick and formulaic, still retaining the spark of honesty that seems to be missing from the recordings of so many of their contemporaries.

The record does sound good when it's playing, but [its] conservatism is what keeps HTDAAB earthbound and prevents it from standing alongside War, The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby as one of the group's finest efforts.

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.

While there is much good music here, there isn't much that adds to Nirvana's legacy, nor is there much that's revelatory.

Jackpot is superior in every aspect.

The album winds up sounding too reserved and heavy-handed, which makes it a disappointment not only compared to what the group has done before, but also to what the girls have achieved outside the group.

Fans looking for his next big statement might be let down at first listen, but MM..Food? is as vital as anything he's done before and entirely untouched or stymied by the hype.

It's more focused than Want One and as such packs more of wallop both musically and emotionally.

Rhythm and Gangster is right up there with his best while being riskier than anything before it.

Encore never resonates the way his first three endlessly fascinating albums do.

Peachtree Road proves that he's back to making good, solid records focused on songs, not hits, the way he did at the outset of his career.

Stuck trying to re-create the daring excitement, Handsome Boy Modeling School turn in an album that's half as interesting as their debut, and half as interesting as their guest list.

If it's a relatively minor effort, it still sounds like the work of a major artist, and there's lots of pleasure to be found in it.

Harmonium is confident and somber, a conscious attempt to be serious and mature that nevertheless still sounds adolescent, largely due to her earnest lyrics and overly ambitious music.

Driving music with an edge that you can get lost in.

Underscores that the band still has more vitality and ideas than most other artists associated with that [electroclash] trend ever did.

Unfortunately though, Return to V isn't a back-to-basics record, and there isn't a single landmark to pick out from its 18 tracks.

Emotive falls flat and fails to raise the bar set so high by the quality of their previous two releases.

Lifeblood is a pleasant listen, but once you peel away the keyboards, sensitively strummed guitars and tasteful harmonies and concentrate on Bradfield's nakedly open voice and Wire's terminally collegiate lyrics, it's hard to escape the unintentional pathos that winds up defining the album and, conceivably, the band's latter-day career.

If this is indeed his final offering as a songwriter, it is a fine, decent, and moving way to close this chapter of the book of his life.

This is an example of an innovator sounding only slightly better than his legions of lesser followers.

Pulses with a steady, sweaty energy that's punctuated with arena-sized hooks.

An aesthetic watermark for Cave, a true high point in a long career that is ever looking forward.

A work of intense drama but little importance.

A string of songs that, like Luna, hints at greatness but never seems to choose the fork in the road that might take them there.

While this release shows real growth, one questions if that's what Donnaholics are looking for.

While a little more depth in their songwriting would make them unstoppable, the Futureheads' first full-length is an undeniably exciting debut that just gets better with repeated listens.

The shift to a more dynamically rich sound suits Simple Plan just fine.

Based on pure sound, Von is just as much of a treat as the acclaimed follow-up.