Alice may be the star but much of the success of Welcome 2 My Nightmare is due to the man behind the curtain, as Ezrin gives this album flair and focus that not only make it an unexpectedly successful sequel but the best Alice Cooper record in decades.

Full of great lyrics and great playing, Strange Mercy is St. Vincent's most reflective and most audacious album to date, and Clark remains as delicately uncompromising an artist as ever.

Belladonna was welcomed back into the fold, and all the vocals were re-recorded. But to Anthrax's credit, it all fits together seamlessly, resulting in arguably their finest studio album since, well, the last one that Belladonna sang on!

If she can avoid the "trying to sound American" and "over-bearing lyrical preaching" mistakes of her pioneering U.K. urban predecessors, there's no reason why On a Mission can't be the start of a fruitful and glittering career.

A more concise and consistent outing than their debut, Hollow reaffirms that while Cut Off Your Hands may not be innovators, they're still quite good at what they do.

Country Hits: Bluegrass Style doesn't signal any kind of new direction for him and that may well be the album's most comfortable strength.

Few current bluegrass acts sing with the command and authority Lauderdale brings to his performances, and fewer still have a set of songs at their disposal as good as what Lauderdale and Hunter have composed for Reason and Rhyme, and it's another impressive installment in what's becoming one of the most interesting partnerships in roots music today.

Blessed with little of the showiness affectations of the X-Factor/American Idol generation, she can sell a song and inject it with age-appropriate enthusiasm that sustains her through the moments when Turn It Up glides by on its surface, while making the album--at its best--pretty damn infectious, too.

The rest of the album, despite a few detours into semi-indulgent, atonal glitch that shakes the fluidity of the record yet never really derails the train, keeps looking forward, hoping to find a light at the end of the tunnel, while knowing full well that it's only the first of many.

For longtime fans, Celestial Electric is about as good as one could have hoped for the coming together of two like-minded musicians.

Seeds We Sow is delightfully ragged.

If the livelier numbers initially make the strongest impression -- whether it's Al Anderson's sunny pop opener "Love's Gonna Make It Alright" or a pair of fleet-footed blues in "Lone Star Blues" and "Blue Marlin Blues" -- it's the introspective moments that anchor the album and lend it a measure of gravity.

John Doe simply doesn't make bad records, but not all of them are as heartfelt and comfortable as Keeper, and the title is apt--this captures a great singer and songwriter on a hot streak, and you'd have to go back to his 1990 solo debut to hear a John Doe album that's as eclectic, accomplished, and satisfying as this.

te its unsettling themes, Nixey's sophomore album is still a warm and charming record which reinstates her position as Britain's most elegant chanteuse.

The title track of this album finds Graveyard at their most rip-roaring, offering a thunderous riff and some stinging guitar soloing. Other tracks throw little stylistic tweaks (background vocals on "Buying Truth [Tack & Förlåt]") into the mix, but the basic formula stays the same.

Ghostbird is a summer album for adventurous folk fans, engaging on its first run-thru but packed with enough twists and turns to warrant repeated listens.

On Am I the Enemy?, the guys consolidate their strengths and clean up the mess that Lonely Road left behind, focusing instead on the sort of emo-influenced alt-rock that reaches for the rafters without losing sight of the ground.

Packing so many WTFs into one ten-song record is hardly fair, a bit reckless, and ultimately (amazingly) successful.

On Tha Carter IV, Wayne's world feels more like a dream than reality, but the loyal subjects of Young Money get a wild ride and the great feeling of flashing those ruby slippers one more time.

World Wide Rebel Songs, is, without question, a welcome call to arms.

Without that soulful kind of anchor, Nothing But the Beat offers the same experience as one of Guetta's numerous remix sets, which is a compliment if you're a dancefloor and a caution if you're a pair of headphones.

This frantic release gives them a kind of spastic, jagged sound that puts them somewhere between Lightning Bolt and an actual bolt of lightning, and makes Tripper an album that's more likely to wear listeners out physically than mentally.

Despite only taking a couple of years to put out a second album, Lenses Alien also feels like an altogether more grown-up record.

Ultimately, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are served well by that professionalism; they're long past the point of proving themselves, they're now longer here for a party, they're rock & roll lifers, and I'm with You illustrates they can settle into maturity convincingly.

An album that is fashionably slick, altogether tragic, and deceptively beautiful.

Their sound is dustier, more evocative of the landscape they wander; Tassili is as desolate--and as timeless--as the desert itself.

Perhaps Ghost on the Canvas doesn't revisit every high in Campbell's history, but it pays honor to his legacy and feels like an appropriate and subtly moving farewell.

Here, he reverses that dynamic, playing the studio like the virtuoso that he is, and he's come up with his best record in years, a shamelessly enjoyable piece of aural candy.