Lambert sounds larger than life on these, just like he wants to be, and if there’s no sense of danger here, at least there’s a lot of pure pop pleasure here, more than any immediate post-Idol album has ever delivered.

Having released enough singles and compilation tracks to warrant a collection of them, Owen Ashworth pulls them together on the enjoyable Advance Base Battery Life, pure catnip for committed fans but not without interest to those unfamiliar with Casiotone for the Painfully Alone's way around understated, enveloping electronic pop.

Side-stepping the chart-busting singles of their former labelmates, they have carved their own identity in the rich roots of the country and folk musics that have inspired their debut.

It's a fantastic album, and one of the standout metal records of the year; it's just too bad that it's kind of embarrassing to admit that you're a fan.

Each song competently mimicking the characteristic death metal ingredients of the era, but adding nothing new to the recipe in the end.

Oui, Oui isn't living in the past, it's using the past to address the present, which gives some soul to these nifty little songs, and turns this album into another mini latter-day gem from the Nutty Boys.

The result is an album of exploratory jazz that is often more about group interplay on various musical themes rather than straightforward improvisation on melodic compositions--though there is that, too.

Weird Work ends up living up to its name: it's not as precious as Boeldt's previous albums, but it's not as envelope-pushing as its inspirations, and it's also some of his most accomplished, yet least immediate music.

Even though Kissaway Trail aren't exactly breaking any new ground here, Breach is executed with enough beauty and feeling that the lack of innovation is pretty easy to forgive.

Word has it that Roberts wrote these songs, not solely in his Montreal basement studio, but primarily in a sun-soaked house on a hill in Andalusia, Spain. True or not, it's certainly a warm, brightly hopeful album.

In a catalog that contains over 20 studio albums, Allergic to Water is exemplary for its craft.

No Control shows it's a better and more fitting choice for the band than one might expect, and it's arguably their best work to date.

Even with its relatively brief running time (44 minutes), Atheist's Cornea is an exhausting, exhilarating listen.

Add remixes and instrumentals and this short set gets knocked down a peg, but it's a classic EP in its own way, jumbling brilliance with clearing-house stuff, and ending up a desirable package, instrumental and all.

It's a welcome return, as is Glory as a whole: it feels as fun and frivolous as her earliest music while retaining the freshness of her best mature work.

The tone of Locus is unerringly dark with the repetition and harsh timbres occasionally tilting proceedings into the overly bleak, but there is enough overall nuance to keep the listener engaged for the duration.

Kuti and Positive Force don't let up at all during One People One World. Impeccably sequenced, it runs from strength to strength, dazzling with expansive sonic textures, killer arrangements, and a musical genre palette that exists seemingly without boundaries. As a recording artist, Kuti has been reliably consistent, but this date is his masterpiece.

Magick Songs provides a genuine journey, and that propulsion is enough to power JEFF the Brotherhood through the moments when they indulge in hazy pastiche, assembling a washed-out watercolor version of '70s sci-fi that was already a faded memory by the time of their birth.

Imagine Asbury Park, New Jersey encompassing an entire musical planet and you get an idea of what Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul are doing on Summer of Sorcery, and if you dig rockin' soul, this should be right up your alley.

Occasional nearsighted lyrical perspectives and three or four excellent but inessential tracks keep The Big Day from quite reaching masterpiece status, but it's still the most grown up (and the most polished) rendering of Chance's eternally bright spirit in his catalog.

While it might test the patience of some of the group's listeners, those willing to simply lie back and get caught up in the flow will find it more than worthwhile.

The project's first album is a chaotic, unsettling mess filled with manic, distorted beats, mutated samples, and several varieties of intense vocalizations, from suffocated guttural screaming to commanding operatic virtuosity. While registering as some form of post-metal on the surface, the album is actually devoid of guitars.

The record is so soft and slow it can veer into the sleepy. That wasn't a problem with Turn Up the Quiet, whose stillness was compelling, so This Dream of You winds up shining a light on the accomplishment of the final album Krall and LiPuma finished in his lifetime. Together, they knew which songs to select to create a complete listen. What remained behind is nice but not quite absorbing.

One More Time... plays like a love letter, both to fans who stuck with them and to each other -- a letter that doesn't so much ask for forgiveness as offer it willingly, passionately, and without conditions.

Pokey LaFarge manages to show off some depth and have a lot of fun at the same time on Rhumba Country, and listeners should have a ball right along with him.

By the orchestral, Chelsea Girl-evoking beauty of final track "Why Worry," Campbell has spent the album flitting from idea to idea, ending up with a sampler pack of different stylizations of her always lovely (if not always simple) songcraft.

Often earnest, anguished, and euphoric, Ten Crowns delivers the catharsis while keeping it real, so the occasional clunky lyric or corny dance trope can be -- in line with the album's themes -- forgiven, especially when it's intentional.

Adams touches upon rainy-day English rock and atmospheric anthems custom-made for arenas, but his touchstone remains American rock, specifically the Replacements.