Though some of the thrashier songs like "C.Q." and "T.K." and a bottom-heavy song sequence detract from the album's flow, Internal Wrangler is still a strong debut from one of England's most promising and distinctive indie bands.

More so than ever, Elbow's greatest asset is that the band is capable of making big sounds without being bombastic or flashy.... The only setback? Gospel choirs.

Most of this album is tuneful singer/songwriterism, particularly on the second side, where this album really takes off with a series of rolling, melodic, acoustic-based songs that truly demonstrate that Keith can be a sturdy, memorable songwriter.

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.

It's this mixing of old and new dynamics that makes Nightfreak and the Sons of Becker such a compelling listen.

Jurassic 5's Power in Numbers is darker than their first full-length; not as fresh and exuberant, but much more mature and intelligent.

A necessary addition to the collection of Belle & Sebastian fans, indie pop fans, and music lovers.

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

Unlike many other pop postmodernists, the Vines never sound weighed down by all the influences they include in their music -- it's as if they're so excited by everything they hear, they can't help but recombine it in unique ways.

From that first play, it's evident that Furtado is indeed an audacious songwriter, not at all hesitant to bare her emotions, tackle winding melodies, and bend boundaries to the point that much of the record sounds like folk-pop tinged with bossa nova and backed by a production designed for TLC.

At times a beautifully rendered album with surprisingly solid songwriting; it's an unashamedly nostalgic musical postcard from the American West Coast.

If you're looking for irony, you're out of luck; if you want to hear a rock band confront the blues with soul, muscle, and respect, then thickfreakness is right up your alley.

It's fun, to be sure, especially for the fans who are the compilation's target audience, but everything here sounds like the classic definition of B-sides -- good and familiar, but not as good as what made the album.

40 minutes of soul-searching and bittersweet recollection that nevertheless rocks with major-league efficiency.

This album just may signal the beginning of an exciting new era in rock music.

Even when their brazen demeanor shifts tempo for the stainless melodies of "That's What They Do" and "Wake Up," Sahara Hotnights offers a musically cultivated sophistication that's missing in bands like the Donnas and the Vines.

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.

Shaddix's woes connect directly to a large and equally confused audience, and that nobody this side of Kurt Cobain communicates them with as much power.

The group's finest creation yet.

A release that seems to present a band on the verge of an artistic breakthrough.

An unexpected and welcome maturation.

And just like their studio LPs, this one works so well, not just because the tracks are so excellently produced, but because Underworld is so good at placing sympathetic tracks next to each other and creating effortless-sounding transitions.... excellent track selection (evenly distributed from all three LPs) and a winning performance let the band get nearly everything right on their first live album.

While they may have traded in some of their youthful punk rock spastic enthusiasm, they've replaced it with a world-wise wit and a smart approach to how a rock & roll record should be made in 2004.

Even the album's sparest moments feature Spoon's much-heralded knack with catchy melodies and hooks, even if songs such as "Don't Let It Get You Down" would be even more memorable with a slightly more fleshed-out approach.

The record boasts a huge, smooth production and is considerably more varied and accomplished than its predecessor.

So, it's essentially a harder-rocking version of the last album. But you know what? It doesn't matter because the band is at a peak.

With this diverse cast of characters, the web of collaboration and sonic diversity could spin off forever. But under Avanessian's watchful presence, the sonic palette remains in a key that will perpetually draw head-nodders in.

Those expecting another album where Keys sounds wise beyond her years will bound to be disappointed by The Diary of Alicia Keys, since her writing reveals her age in a way it never did on the debut.

Though Uh-Oh! wisely avoids overtly contemporary electronic styles in favor of exotica, lounge, bossa nova, soft rock, and analog synth tomfoolery, its 18 tracks are strangely amorphous, the aural equivalent of a lava lamp — equally kitschy and hypnotic.

She has unique phrasing and a huge voice that accents, dips, and slips, never overworking a song or trying to bring attention to itself via hollow acrobatics.

Their third timeless gem...

Free the Bees is all worth hearing, a lot more than once, and it could be the Album of the Year -- the only question is if that year is 2004 or 1968.

Arguably the band's most diverse set yet, and certainly their mellowest.... In the end, some may be disappointed by God Says No's all-around sense of restraint, but open-minded fans will have to acknowledge Wyndorf's courageous insistence on breaking new ground with his continually inspired songwriting.

The album's consistency easily outmatches even the highest watermarks of either predecessor.

Unlike The Juliet Letters, North never feels like an exercise, nor does it feel like Costello has something to prove.

This compressed feel, the precision of the band's playing and arrangements, and the way every song comes to an abrupt stop sometimes make the album sound too closed-off.

The result is a bit jarring, but there's a fervent originality at work here, despite all of the referencing of the halcyon past.

An utterly compelling, even riveting, selection of tunes that go from bright to opaque, to dark and back again by album's end.

Perhaps the most nuanced album in PJ Harvey's body of work, Uh Huh Her balances her bold and vulnerable moments, but remains vital.

The Deftones went soft, but in an impressive way, to twist around its signature punk thrash sound.

Their best record in years.

While Luke Steele's influences show through on all of Lovers' tracks, somehow the album avoids sounding totally derivative; instead, it just reveals Steele as a pop chameleon and an expert at pastiche.

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

Sniffy electronica purism aside though, Cook remains, if not the best overall producer in the dance world, certainly in its top rank, with an excellent ear for infectious hooks, tight beats, and irresistible grooves. On advice from friends the Chemical Brothers, Cook recruited collaborators for the first time -- nu-soul diva Macy Gray, funk legend Bootsy Collins, fellow superstar DJ/producer Roger Sanchez -- and the two tracks with Gray, "Love Life" and "Demons," are arguably the highlights of the entire album.

The melodies on Alice are easily the most direct Waits has written since Blue Valentine, but are more elegant than even those found on Foreign Affairs or Black Rider.

Thematically, this work -- with its references to German cabarets and nostalgia -- echoes Waits' other Wilson collaborative project, Black Rider. Musically, however, Blood Money is a far more elegant, stylish, and nuanced work than the earlier recording.

On Believe, Disturbed takes the sort of jump that their heroes in Soundgarden and Pantera made after their respective breakthrough records.

Overall, the album leans more toward the melodic end of their oeuvre, but they have grown into this kinder, gentler mode organically, progressively working toward this groove little by little, album by album.

As challenging as it may be for many to stomach the constant and incredibly explicit sex, violence, and drug references, there is a stunning album lurking beneath that deserves recognition.

Mostly this is a wonderful surprise from a band thought to have been finished in the late '90s.

Though the lo-fi D.I.Y. production slows the momentum on a handful of tracks, when Slug's rhymes and producer Ant's beats click, the results are as good as underground hip-hop gets.

Despite the fact that it seems more like a bunch of songs on a disc than a singular body, its impact is substantial.

With Molé, Jourgensen has mobilized the fatalism and fury that always rumbled through industrial and thrash music, and left everything else in the staging area.

In many ways, the Cambridge, MA, trio is like a Toad the Wet Sprocket for the 21st century.

And "dazzling" isn't really hyperbole -- based on these 18 songs, Blur isn't just the best pop band of the '90s, with greater range and depth than their peers, they rank among the best pop bands of all time. The Best of Blur illustrates that, even as it misses some of their best moments -- omissions that prevent it from being the flat-out classic it should be. Even so, it's pretty damn terrific, particularly for the unconverted.

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

It feels as if Manson now feels liberated from not being consistently in the spotlight, and his music has opened up as well.

By cutting away some of the fat and finding new ways to deliver their trademark roar, the members of Korn manage to offer a strong and lean album that maintains their place as innovators in a genre with few leaders

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.

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

Carrabba's work is so specifically stuck in adolescence that, even if it's presented in a prettier package as it is on A Mark, it's still very difficult for anybody past sophomore year in college to really connect with his music.

Cheers boasts 74 straight minutes of inventive production, original ideas, thought-out lyrics, and straight-up MCing -- even if it lacks outright hits à la "In da Club" or "Lose Yourself."

While the mood of this record stagnates after a few songs, it does give a strong indication of Jones' alluring talents.

Like its predecessor, Golden Greats meanders a bit too much and it places a little too much emphasis on surface, but when the surface sparkles like this, it's hard to complain too loudly.

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.

Despite the weighty subject matter and kinetic mayhem, the Danielson Famile are just an indie pop band, and listeners already familiar with Smith's distinctive shrieking and intricate arrangements will find much to love on Brother Is to Son, while the untested will either submit or run screaming to their mommies.

While the accompaniment is always thoughtful and inventive, Prekop's vocal idiosyncrasies tend to be a double-edged sword, delightful on the good songs but only accentuating the dreariness of failed experiments like "Le Baron" or "Try Nothing."

Quite possibly the finest of the group' s five albums to date.... A sophisticated pop pleasure from start to finish, Oui is the aural equivalent of a perpetual Indian summer.

Perhaps 3D doesn't blaze trails like their other albums, but it never plays it safe and it always satisfies, and it's one of the best modern soul albums of 2002.

The Ladybug Transistor is a return to form for the band and is right up there with its best work. That ranks it right up there as some of the best pop music being made today.

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

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

This is her most focused and accomplished full-length to date.

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

Even though Her Majesty isn't quite as striking and full-formed as Castaways and Cutouts, it's still a consistently charming album that finds the band coming into its own.

It all adds up to a very good record -- one that is interesting, and one that satisfies musically.

It isn't often that one finds an American artist with such a mastery of collage technique and a desire to incorporate traditional folk instruments and melodies.

Even if it is a very impressive statement overall, Figure 8 isn't quite the masterpiece it wants to be -- there's something about the pacing that just makes the record feel long...

Making up for some momentum lost last time out, The Real New Fall L.P. gives the faithful another reason to believe.

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.

A devastatingly accomplished album.

Cohen's poetic vision remains the dominant element on this elegiac set.

Nearly all of Wig in a Box is both unique and successful.

In the vein of Kevin Rowland or Elvis Costello, Ted Leo writes lyrical rock songs that sprawl out and rarely depend on a chorus.

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.

His most interesting work since Teenager of the Year, Dog in the Sand sounds like a slightly slower, rootsier version of that album.

Far from being an angry album, Show Me Your Tears is filled with the kind of conscious joy that comes from working through your problems.

The slow rumble of Nakamura's production, Hewlett's outstanding graphic model, even Albarn himself all fuse into a convincing gestalt.

A colorful, satisfying album that feels like a classic.

No one surpasses her as a master of poetic regret, and few albums examine the peculiar beauty of depression with the skill she brings to Lost in Space.

Though he's never as instantaneously gratifying as the Streets, the Roots or Jurassic 5, his efforts to continually defy convention in both production and lyrics - simultaneously looking forward to electronics and back to days of good rhymes, talent and passion - make for a rewarding, maybe even educational, listen.

The perpetually teenaged foursome still have their raw edges and sharp teeth, it's just that the edges rip deeper and the teeth bite harder with this more efficient and well-crafted rock assault.

Aw C'mon is lovely, compelling, mysterious, and confounding.

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.

These two discs would have made for a fine double album, and if Lambchop have chosen to regard them as two separate entities, that just means they've released two of the finest albums of 2004 instead of just one.

It has the same combination of sweetly sentimental ballads and endearingly gaudy dance-pop that made One More Time.

Easily his most accomplished record since his days in the Lost Boyz.

Comes off as a mix between the White Stripes' bluesy insouciance and AC/DC's cockeyed swagger.