There's a great and more conventional singer/songwriter album waiting to get out here, but The Lateness of the Hour appears to be more concerned with creating a bold statement of intent than in showcasing Clare's undeniable talents.

Be prepared for an experience somewhere between a star-studded soundtrack and a DJ-helmed mixtape.

While the album certainly delivers on the darkness, it manages to keep from being too suffocating thanks to the band's bombastic power metal.

He has a true knack for rhyming about the dangers of the West Coast.

Rival Sons are a power trio plus singer in the traditional style, who might have made this album after listening to the first Led Zeppelin LP over and over for a day or two... Anyone who likes [60's hard rock] should ... check them out.

Fans looking for a middle ground between Jamey Jasta's output with melodic hardcore outfit Hatebreed and sludgy metalcore group Kingdom of Sorrow will find a great deal to love about the workhorse frontman's solo debut.

Famous First Words was always going to struggle to live up to the band's bold promises, but it's still a shock at how a Brit-pop scene renowned for its color can be responsible for something so utterly drab.

Seven Rainbows only really does justice to [Gold's] undeniable talents when it abandons its Woodstock-aping ambitions.

The album is scattershot to its last breath, but the thrill of watching this hood star threaten to supernova is a real high.

For the Good Times [is] colorful and quietly engaging.

It's a debut with potential, especially if Howler find their own identity as completely as they borrowed others'.

Bombay Bicycle Club's 2011 album A Different Kind of Fix is a melodically compelling work that builds upon the band's eclectic guitar-based indie rock sound.

Let's Go Eat the Factory is hardly a triumph, but it's a step in the right direction for Pollard, as well as confirmation that this group of friendly reprobates still has some good work left in them.

[Songs on her album] do little to tarnish her well-earned reputation as a D.I.Y. force of nature.

While each track on Cyrk brings to mind somebody else (Velvet Underground, "Genesis Hall"-era Fairport Convention, Comus, Spacemen 3), Le Bon somehow manages to make it all feel surprising natural.

While this may not make instant fans out of their haters, This Means War will certainly give them something to consider.

She's the rarest of things in modern country: a singer who can't help but be compelling no matter what she sings.

A compilation of the emo-punk band's favorite tracks, all reworked acoustically.

The mellow is never harshed, and the promise of sunny weekend stoner music from the '80s is maintained the whole way through.

An affecting, dreamlike, decayed din that incorporates voice samples twisted to such an extent that they sound sourced from torture victims and brokenhearted zombies.

On their tenth studio album, In Flames officially complete their transition from Swedish melodic death metal pioneers to unpredictable Swedish progressive pop/rock/neo-classical metal innovators... It's as epic as Scandinavia is cold.

This Is the Computers sounds good enough on the one hand, but on the other, it's a bit of an on-off effort by the band, initially an example of sudden moments almost working more than the songs.

There's a strong sense that Valley aims to reinterpret a kind of never-never land of angelic male singing and electronic-driven arrangements that seems to recombine a variety of impulses from the '80s into a combination that never could have existed until a later moment.... A strikingly good debut effort.

This is Bolton doing what he does best, and doing it so well that anybody who picks this up thinking it's a compilation won't be disappointed with what resides inside.

Despite its pointed title, Culture of Fear is not quite as politically minded as Thievery Corporation's previous studio album.

They are moving on from such early influences as Jimmy Eat World to a more sophisticated, if still forceful sound as they get more playing under their belts.

Far from descending into a pale imitation like, say, a Kingdom Come or late-'80s Whitesnake, however, BCC's offerings rise above and fly true thanks to the unimpeachable pedigree and recognizable musical personalities of all involved here.

Even within the framework of a musical these songs are a murky, turgid mess, too concerned with atmosphere and narrative to reel in a listener and ironically not offering ambience or story enough to suggest that the musical would entertain.