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

Kiss & Tell comes off a bit contrived and lackluster in the beginning, but after a few spins you'll grasp (and thirst) for its sonic goodness.

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 Hunger for More is another solid release from the crew and is a couple steps down from 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin' and a step above G-Unit's Beg for Mercy.

Seems oddly lacking in passion.

What the album lacks in ambition and social commentary it makes up for with deep soul.

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

Although the uniformly sweet pop songs on Kicking the National Habit sound influenced by the likes of the Police, Men at Work, Duran Duran, and the rest of the more commercial side of the early MTV era, the arrangements are more electronic in nature.

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

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

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

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

Too much roam and wander for some, but Doom-heads looking for the perfect downer couldn't ask for much more.

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.

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

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.

Earle's polemics are much stronger than the work of your typical "protest" songwriter, and this is a better focused and more passionate work than Jerusalem.

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.

A dazzling debut.

It's not perfect, and it's often affected, but it winds up being endearing because of her earnestness.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Where You Want to Be is definitely a solid album -- especially considering that it was recorded so soon after half the band was replaced -- but crafting something a little more unique would take Taking Back Sunday's music that much farther.

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