An album that's going to have the purists sighing with relief and have new converts checking out their back catalog for more.

Nothing scrambles the brain like Tomorrow Right Now's "Hot Venom," and no track has lyrics that hit as hard as Now, Soon, Someday's "Win or Lose You Lose," but the album maintains a consistency that neither of those releases can claim.

Welcome to the North finds the Music's ambitious blend of post-grunge and space rock much hungrier and angrier than its predecessor.

While it's likely that From a Basement is cleaner than what Smith... intended, it is much sparer than Figure 8, and it feels at once more adventurous, confident, and warmer than its predecessor.

This sounds like a lost Coral album down to every last detail, which means that it seems silly to venture here unless you've at least bought one Coral album already.

Even with a handful of forgettable songs... the album is easily the best one credited to the Duran Duran name since 1993's Wedding Album.

The astute and eclectic programming makes for a better listen than other attempts that have been made to compile '80s alternative rock.

Crimes keeps a tight lid on the nervous energy that's always defined the group, channeling it into aggressive songs that often suggest the damaged, exciting grooves of vintage Brainiac.

Arthur is in a class of his own and Our Shadows Will Remain is a monstrous, memorable outing, his finest moment in a career that is thus far full of them.

A case of too little, too late, nothing on Moving Units' full-length debut Dangerous Dreams does anything to disprove the feeling that the dance-punk scene is at best overcrowded and at worst approaching rigor mortis any day now.

There's a newfound sense of poignancy that overrides much of Mississauga's patchwork nihilism.

Those who really love Frank Black and Black Francis' songs, as opposed to just their sound, will enjoy eavesdropping on him playing around with his work.

Love Songs for Patriots isn't an American Music Club masterpiece in the manner of Everclear or Mercury, but it's certainly a stronger and more coherent effort than the group's last set.

Mos Def's second solo album is not disastrous, but it's a sprawling, overambitious mess.

Camper Van Beethoven have pulled off the difficult trick of not only reuniting, but picking up exactly where they had left off.

Summer in Abaddon is an album of small, but hardly insignificant pleasures, and it may be Pinback's finest work yet.

From its aggressive metal and hardcore overtones to lyrics that rail against societal ignorance and a world gone wrong, Chuck is a few steps ahead of the smirking, jocular anthems that populated Sum 41's previous output.

At its best sounds like a suicidal combination of Blur and the Divine Comedy.

These brittle, next-wave-of-new-wave productions plow no new ground and barely serve the lyrics to which they're chained.

This is the folky, bluesy, jangly-guitar-slinging sound of somebody who has made a practice of walking in boots three sizes too big for so long that they finally fit, and it delivers enough promise to inspire big ideas about what could happen when he outgrows them.

Palookaville could stand one more trimming pass, but it gives Cook's canon the needed depth.

R.E.M. have never seemed as directionless.

By far the most engaging album yet from Mono, Walking Cloud proves that the band is an entity unto itself.

Adopts a fuller, more polished sound than her earlier work, but her songwriting is just as innocent and heartfelt-sounding as ever.

References to fungus and food abound, but wrapped in the wooly blankets of Rawlings' signature picking and Welch's winsome harmonies, they take on a fireplace warmth that renders them amiably nostalgic rather than blatantly surreal.

It isn't necessarily memorable, but as an exercise in measured, even artistic rage, it's classic Hamilton.

Real Gone is another provocative moment for Waits, one that has problems, but then, all his records do.

It may not be an album that's as funny or timeless as The Transformed Man, but Has Been is every bit as bizarre.

[A] majestic soundscape.

Ray Ray occasionally loses focus, slipping into moments that are either undercooked or worthy of the cutting room, but it's enjoyable enough to keep his followers happy and will certainly act as a remedy for those who don't like the gold-bricked path being taken by mainstream R&B.

Without a concept to tout, The Grind Date doesn't gel like AOI: Bionix, but it does show De La Soul keeping everything together more than 15 years after their debut.

Even when there are plenty of other bands working in a similar style, Q and Not U remain more distinctive and harder to classify than many of their peers, which makes Power an exciting album and proof that the band has variety and vitality to spare.

For all their well-crafted ambition on Chronicles, "I Just Wanna Live" feels like Good Charlotte's centerpiece, since it's spiked with rock power, but gets its soul from the pop life they lead.

Smart, subtly subversive, and always catchy - if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Burned Mind isn't just Wolf Eyes' most cohesive album, it's also their most accessible.

Though its heart is eventually lost amidst the guiding elements of the genre, the Used's In Love and Death does make some impressive moves away from those very same tenets, showing some welcome restraint and even some rocktastic energy.

She may not yet have the set of skills, or the experience, to give a nuanced, textured performance -- one that feels truly lived-in, not just sung -- but she's a compelling singer and Mind, Body & Soul lives up to her promise.

Their best record in years.

A restrained lamentation, a controlled elegiac mediation on the death of a loved one.

Some moments are upbeat indie pop, but most of this is dreamy despite its slightly gloomy textures.

Like all Delgados records, it takes repeated drives along the city outskirts to sink in, but when it does there's no going back, and the listener is rewarded once again with something rich, happily overcast, and strangely intangible.

Morrison is challenging expectations and listeners by stretching his musical boundaries and defying people to come along for the ride through close listening.

A resounding success... She won't get the same press that Loretta Lynn got for her "comeback", but this may even be more impressive an accomplishment because it come out of nowhere.

At no point are they longwinded, and they keep the variations on their sound rolling throughout the closing track.

Couture, Couture, Couture is an uneven album, but it does tend to wear better than some other albums by '80s-inspired bands.

To the band's credit, the weaker songs aren't necessarily eating space for no reason -- their B-material here is more affecting than the average indie band's A-material. The problem is that, during those lesser moments, the band shows signs of attempting to cannibalize Turn on the Bright Lights' magnetic sulking, and their hearts don't seem to be as in it.

Knopfler fans and lovers of Chet Atkins, Gordon Lightfoot, and J.J. Cale, as well as late-night poker players and early risers with an acerbic streak, will find much to love here.

Infectious and hummable, to be sure, and a remarkably unified, irresistible piece of pop music, but no musical watershed on par with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Wilson's masterpiece, Pet Sounds.

It misses a little more than it hits.

If you like your pop a little left of center and found the Postal Service to be too cute and syrupy, your fix is here.

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

Jean Grae continues to improve in every respect, but the negative aspect is that too many of the beats bleed into one another.

Thoughtful production, meatier music, and broader scope makes City worth hearing.

While most would classify this record under "folktronica," Memphis don't attempt to strip down the clicks and plucks. Instead, they go for the big pop sound of Burt Bacharach and George Martin to make something almost as ambitious as hiring a real horn section.

It never feels as urgent as his prime work, but it's at once his most accomplished and visceral record as a veteran rocker.

In its musical muscle and sweeping, politically charged narrative, it's something of a masterpiece, and one of the few -- if not the only -- records of 2004 to convey what it feels like to live in the strange, bewildering America of the early 2000s.

K-Os doesn't necessarily pursue Rebellion's themes far enough. But give him a break -- it's only the cat's second album.

It's fitting that an album that truly deserves an expanded edition not only gets the deluxe edition it deserves, but one that makes a convincing argument that the sometimes ridiculous practice of expanded, multi-disc editions has a purpose after all.

Like its companion recording, Nino Rojo is about the shared delight of new encounters with music and language and is an adventure in the hearing.

They seem like a garden-variety hard rock band, one that would have been generic and forgettable in 1974, and one that is generic and forgettable in 2004.

Everybody Loves a Happy Ending will do little to convert those who winced at Orzabal and Smith's obtuse lyrics and over the top production the first time around, but loyal followers, fans of XTC's Apple Venus, Pt. 1, and lovers of intricately arranged and artfully executed pop music will find themselves delightfully consumed by this enigmatic group's final (?) chapter.

Like Richard Buckner, Zedek holds the amazing capacity to make the saddest stuff compelling, even heartening.

No one makes records that sound quite like this: a shambolic, atmospheric mixture of hushed tones, deadly distortion, tender poetry and rock and roll.

A really good record by a potentially great rock & roll band.

If you are unfamiliar with the band, there are at least six other records that should get your attention before this one; just the same, this is hardly a disposable piece of the band's puzzle.

[The songs are] all distinctly clubby and therefore get a little tiring after a while.

Hands down, In the World of Him is Timms' masterpiece.

Barely enough for five years of waiting and hardly up to the old standard.

Granted, Nelly's rapping here is more restrained and insubstantial than ever, but when you have a cast of collaborators like this, the actual rapping is beside the point -- these are fun songs, plain and simple, and wonderfully catchy to boot.

The Handler shows that Har Mar Superstar can also give new meaning to the term "trying too hard."

If Showtime isn't the equal artistic success of Boy in da Corner, it's slightly superior, stunning for the facts that it arrives so swiftly after the debut and is far from a retread.

So Jealous is the most satisfying album Tegan and Sara have yet made.

Some of these songs are familiar, but these arrangements are distinctly Weller's own, and it makes for an effective listen -- maybe not a major effort from the Modfather, but an enjoyable one all the same.

Butler sings like Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood used to play, like a lion-tamer whose whip grows shorter with each and every lash. He can barely contain himself, and when he lets loose it's both melodic and primal, like Berlin-era Bowie or British Sea Power.

Even though Wet from Birth occasionally gets tripped up on its own ambitions, it still has its share of enjoyable tracks.

This is a worthy return, qualitatively standing head and shoulders above most everything else in its class.

What I Do feels like one of Jackson's most assured and best albums, proof positive that he's the best mainstream country singer of this decade.

Stealing of a Nation is a slick, calculated record that misses its target on all accounts.

Fast Future Present is a self-assured and often fascinating collection of songs that artfully blend the standard elements of post-rock with unexpectedly melodic pop.

This is the Welsh iconoclast at his most elegant, energetic, and innovative.

It's hard not to walk away with the feeling he's capable of better than this.

The most exciting and best rock & roll record of 2004.

One of his most consistent and accomplished albums, sounding better with each repeated play.

With Getting Away With Murder, Papa Roach offer fans of this sound an appropriately hard punch in the face. But there's a hollow sound as the bones collapse, because all that's supporting it is expensive art direction and a big scaffold of clichés.

LL offers up "you rap for the thugs/I rap for the ladies" on the album, but there's some tough, near-"Mama Said Knock You Out"'s here, and from any hardcore thug's point of view, he's getting better at splitting the difference.

The Libertines is an accurate, sometimes uncomfortable reflection of the band at this point: more scattered and unstable than they were on Up the Bracket, but also more ambitious and more interesting.

Listening to the record makes you feel like it was 1993 again, in a good way. In a melodic, honest and jangly kind of way. In a way that makes you think "nobody makes records like this anymore".

The most challenging work of Björk's career.

What makes it great is excellent producer and guest rapper choices, a tight track list with nearly perfect flow, and the fresh G-Unit meets crunk and Lil Jon sound that dominates the album.

Favourite Colours is lovely and adventurous stuff that proves the Sadies are only getting better with each trip into the studio.

The album flows like sweet maple syrup from beginning to end, Kilgour's intimate croon caressing you like kind words from an old friend.

The whole record is wrong. Predictable, slick, soulless, and worst of all, boring, it meets the expectations of everyone who thought the band was foolish for working with the Matrix.

This may not be Mouse on Mars' most ambitious albums, but it's among the group's most successful -- it's not at all difficult to feel a connection to this truly intelligent dance music.

Radian created a record that listeners have to let envelope them slowly -- and, if patient enough, Juxtaposition will reveal treasures from an aural dig that are a wonderful, satisfying surprise.

Even though Half Smiles of the Decomposed sounds great, the band plays with impressive skill, and it represents one of Pollard's most successful attempts to balance his low-fi musical impulses against the demands of proper record production, it lacks the ineffable fire and energy that has always set their best work apart.

A definitive work of sorts since he's at the top of his game as both a craftsman and conman.

The least necessary Mase album, but half the tracks point to a future that is brighter than ever.

If it was pared down to its best tracks, Winchester Cathedral would make a solid EP. As it stands, it's far from bad, but it's a little boring, which is worse than bad from a band that has sounded so unique in the past.