Compiling the best tracks from each of their previous releases to make one solid EP would've been a better introduction to the band than The Printz is.

A hallmark for the band, a culmination of their previous work, and -- upon its release -- their best album to date.

Under My Skin is a bit awkward, sometimes sounding tentative and unsure, sometimes clicking and surging on Avril's attitude and ambition.

Get ready for the hardcore fan backlash but Greater Wrong Of The Right at least makes up for The Process and with stunning structure from Key it beats most of the current industrial music competition.

It's a satisfying, carefully crafted representation of their career to date.

Confidence bursts throughout, and for a band that has been around seven years and has never released a studio full-length album until now, achieving nearly epic-like status is quite impressive.

[It is] over-produced to within an inch of its artistic life, and lacks the quality songs and exquisite productions that the group had made a hallmark.

It's a shame and embarrassment, and hopefully it will be a temporary slump like Circus.

This record isn't about progressing or regressing, and one hesitates to refer to such a strong, enjoyable listen as a holding pattern.

Perfectly, almost aggressively pleasant.

The intensity and energy get a little too repetitive toward the end of the album, but the returns aren't as diminishing as they have been on the Catheters' previous work.

Listeners who came of age during the alt-rock revolution and were disappointed, even outraged, at Liz Phair's Matrix makeover in 2003 should find In Exile Deo is exactly what they were looking for.

It's brighter, denser, catchier than either of its immediate predecessors, and boasts her most assured singing yet.

An invigorating and glorious mess of undistilled Rock fury.

The band's organ and raspy vocals give Red Bedroom a jolt of early punk, which, combined with an adept sense of rock ‘n' roll, has signs that the Fever has been spending equal time listening to proto-punk and garage rock bands of the ‘60s.

Faded Seaside Glamour trades in the band's dreary English roots for radiating waves and rays of '60s California pop. It's a slick transition, an honest presentation soaked in Delays' crisp musicianship and the foursome's lush harmonies.

With only a few exceptions though, Since We Last Spoke makes the moody Dead Ringer sound like a piece of flag-waving exuberance; instead of the occasional uptempo track, it's brooding and mellow throughout the record -- very nearly a rap singer/songwriter record.

The music is livelier and almost exuberant at times, and certainly more varied that on the last album.

Built on acoustic guitars with little splashes of color like handclaps, tooting horn sections, and subtle strings, the record sounds remarkably large in its smallness.

Give or take a couple hot tracks, this release is not likely to play a significant role in his legacy.

There's an excessive attention to detail to each song, and that tunnel vision means each song runs about a minute or two longer than it should.... That's unfortunate because the core of the album is quite good.

What makes the record good is the level of dedication the bandmembers throw into their work, the lovely walls of sound they build on each track, and most of all the sense of untrammeled joy they infuse their music with.

For those who have been waiting for Gomez to come up with something that truly rivals their amazing debut Bring It On, wait no longer. This one is great.

Owing to its themes, Fuckin A is a shade or two less exuberant than More Parts Per Million, but it's no less passionate or energetic.

Everything here is in its right place, making Kesto (234.48:4) perhaps the only Pan Sonic album you'd ever need to own, for every style of music the group has ever recorded is presented at length and it's all produced as masterfully as ever.

Confronting doubts about his seriousness and squashing whispers about his talent, Skinner has made a sophomore record that expands on what distinguishes the Streets from any other act in music.

It's not so much a return to form as it is a simple return, Morrissey picking up where he left off with Maladjusted, improving on that likeable album with a stronger set of songs and more muscular music.

What it lacks in discernible hooks, Das Not Compute accounts for with tautness and subcutaneous bad attitude.

Merritt's kitchen produces pop confections that can rot teeth, but the bitter aftertaste owes more to Randy Newman than it does Belle & Sebastian.

Compared to Chris Martin's solo work as Ampbuzz, Herzog's efforts can certainly be more forceful and less meditative, though often only by a matter of degrees.

Walks the narrow path between playful adventurousness and tuneful accessibility with ragged elegance and swaggering confidence.

Like a less electronic version of the Postal Service, on The Trial of the Century the band invokes nostalgia for that decade but puts it in a different context.

The tracks with singing find Broken Spindles moving in one direction, and the purely instrumental pieces find them moving in another, and sometimes the contrast between the two styles just ends up as a clash of sounds.

As serious as things get on Penance Soiree (and the choppy "Spit On" gets pretty serious), there's the happily nagging notion that Icarus Line just want to entertain, and that they're damn good at it.

C'Mon Miracle isn't as showy as some of her previous outings, but it does show that Mirah's music works on both a large and small scale.

Far more than someone like Beth Orton -- who seems positively conventional in comparison -- she's creating a new paradigm for singer/songwriters, with electronics an integral part of her sound, rather than an afterthought.

Banhart's music is utterly unselfconscious and poetic.

Though Onoffon doesn't quite top Burma's 1982 masterpiece Vs., it manages to sound like the more-than-worthy follow-up they could have cut a couple years later ... only with two decades of experience and musical detours informing its nooks and crannies.

Its quietness and moodiness make Summer Make Good Múm's most demanding album, but also, fortunately, a rewarding one too.

It ranks high among his finest albums.

Yet another triumph for the Beta Band.

Not surprisingly, Trampin' is a largely political album, but it is far from a didactic one.

A listening experience that is singular, startling, and soulful.

Between Here and Gone quietly demands the listener's attention and dives deeply into a labyrinth of emotions before emerging as a validating, affirmative, and instructive experience; it is an album not only to experience, but to hold on to.

The album feels more slapped together than their debut.

This bold recording is a jazz record made with care, creativity, and a wonderfully intimate aesthetic fueling its 12 songs.

What sounded austere on Fan Dance sounds simple on A Boot and a Shoe, and it's the differing inferences of those two adjectives that makes all the difference.

The brilliance of Van Lear Rose is not just how the two approaches complement each other, but how the record captures the essence of Loretta Lynn's music even as it has flourishes that are distinctly Jack.

Make no mistake, this isn't the second coming of Purple Rain or Sign 'o' the Times or even Parade -- in other words, it's not a masterpiece, more like a more confident and consistent Diamonds and Pearls without the hip-hop fixation -- but it's a strong album, one that impresses on the first listen and gets better with repeated plays.

Even though Underneath is a little too polished and Pro Tool-ed, that pop sensibility still rings loud and clear throughout the album, and track for track, it's likely their strongest album, even if it lacks glistening highlights along the lines of "Mmm-Bop."

The band's sound is both fresh and nostalgic, and so pretty that it seems overly harsh to criticize them too much at this point. It's just that Ratatat is good enough to suggest that, with a little more diversity, the group could do even better things.

Inches is an ambitious concept, but the band's success with it is another example of Les Savy Fav's mix of intellect and volatility.

It's partly a party album like 2001's Bulletproof Wallets, but freer, more inspired, and tempered with pure street tracks that were missing last time round.

With rugged guitar riffs and solos and Finn's half-sung, scratchy voice, the Hold Steady mostly succeed, easily recalling the classic rock of early Bruce Springsteen or the sincerity of latter-day Hüsker Dü.

Electronic elements balance out the harsh guitars with regularity, resulting in a handful of full-blown zingers.

While not a terrific album, the good often outweighs the occasional filler.

The Runaway Found is an incredibly focused first album, giving evidence of how serious the Veils are about composing a stylish, quality sound.

Moorer, besides being good at penning lyrics, is smart enough to write catchy hooks.

After a few listens Walking With the Beggar Boys reveals itself as a near perfect little pop record.

It's this prolific, homegrown vibe paired with a knack for downright catchy pop that makes Lone Pigeon Scotland's answer to Ween.

At times, the intense-yet-underdeveloped feel of Lay of the Land makes it a claustrophobic experience, but its quieter moments, such as "No Questions" and the angular finale "Fog," still throw off sparks while allowing a little more breathing room.

It's All Around You soon becomes just another Tortoise record, so close to previous records in composition and execution that it's virtually deja vu for any listeners who know the band well.

That isn't to say that The Curse of Blondie is a classic Blondie disc, but it's the first good one since at least Autoamerican, and features one of their best-ever singles in "Good Boys."

Amounts to little more than the sum of its inspirations and coy references.

Imagine Bauhaus' "Terror Couple Kill Colonel" massaged by classic 4AD discord and you have the mysterious blend of On! Air! Library!

Most of the blame for Neighborhood Watch has to go to the previously invincible Alchemist, whose productions are front-loaded on the record. Unfortunately, his beats aren't rugged or hooky, just astonishingly weak.

Despite some slightly draggy moments, On My Way is still another solid effort.

Even though this album isn't as immediately or showily brilliant as The Moon & Antarctica, Good News for People Who Love Bad News reveals itself as just as strong a statement.

If you know Sexsmith's work, then you already have a good idea of how good this album is, and if you don't, this is a fine place to get acquainted.

Of Montreal's most focused and powerful sounding record yet.

Final Straw is another strong slab of emotion and invigorating energy from a solid band that mixes its influences into an always heady sonic libation.

Aerosmith sound reinvigorated, even liberated from the need to have a hit power ballad, and they tear through these 12 songs with an energy they seemed to lose sometime after Pump.

A heartfelt tribute that's among Clapton's most purely enjoyable albums.

Without strong rhythmic or melodic hooks, the album's slow grooves blend together and Jackson disappears into the productions.

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.

Gracious and redemptive, it is a rapt, quiescent masterwork.

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

Captures different shades and moods of the band's thus-far five-year career quite nicely.

Onelinedrawing, in general, may be a bit too saccharine for some listeners, and it lacks the classic power pop levity of a Brendan Benson or Weakerthans, but The Volunteers is a wildly inventive record that can stand tall beside earnest peers like Saves the Day's In Reverie.

The album's soft-focus allows Blonde Redhead to explore its relatively newfound romanticism more deeply than before... but with less tension between the fragile and harsh aspects of the band's sound, its soft-focus occasionally drifts into lack of focus.

Without a deft rap to go over these tracks, many of them merely drift over the listener.

Strictly for the devout fan base.

Our Endless Numbered Days is very subdued, thoughtful, melodic, and downright beautiful album and the new sound is more of a progression than a sudden shift in values, production or otherwise.

Like a guided tour through the last 20 years of guitar rock.

Overall, Jem's songcraft is only ambitious in relation to a genre often defined by a "blander is better" pleasure principle.

Madvillainy's strength lies in its mix between seemingly obtuse beats, samples, MCing, and some straight-up hip-hop bumping.

Not what you'd call an enjoyable listen, but one to be respected anyway, and also one that worms its way into your head.

A genuinely moving and wickedly fun record.

Like faith, these songs require patience, as their almost mantra-like arcs take their time to fully form.

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.

In the end, while not the perfect album that Aveo's talent promises, the removal of a couple songs would render the entire thing striking and mesmerizing, and when held to such a high standard, you can't ask for too much more than that.

Perhaps this isn't quite as strong of a selection of songs as Got No Shadow, but it comes close, and the music simply feels right.

Even in its louder moments, Milk Man is a surprisingly subtle album, and one that takes Deerhoof's music in quietly exciting new directions.

Despite some tedious melodramatics, Fall Back Open is a decent sophomore effort.

While it's not perfect -- occasionally the album's heady, indulgent feel tends to make it drag -- Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes is still an impressive expansion of TV on the Radio's fascinating music.

2004's early front-runner for art rock album of the year.

Franz Ferdinand reveals more depth and more new directions than their previous work suggested.

Once again Cee-Lo has recorded a peerless album, except this time he's recorded one that should connect, or at least deserves to.