Although it's not without some dazzling moments, this is the Zomby album with the lowest quantity of thrills.

Ross' mixtures of outrageous fantasy and sobering reality, side-splitting humor, and piercing vengeance, are intermittently as potent as ever.

Gracious and redemptive, it is a rapt, quiescent masterwork.

Returning to the green fields of pure sound study they'd appeared to desert during the late '90s, Pan sonic forged a series of intriguing sketches devoted to the polar wastes inside their computers and sequencers.

Feels like an evening well spent with old friends.

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

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

Indie pop fans, brace yourselves for a daydream trip.

This is Pure Guava performed with the precision and cleanliness of White Pepper -- perhaps a mixed blessing for some (those who long for the Scotchguard-fueled madness of The Pod), yet it's a sheer delight for those who patiently sat through the longest period between Ween albums yet.

It's too club-centric, too fashion-obsessed, too willfully weird to be a No Doubt album... a glitzy, wild ride that's stranger and often more entertaining than nearly any other mainstream pop album of 2004.

If it was Gedge's intent to win back some of the Wedding Present fans who found Va Va Voom to be too much of a departure, Disco Volante could succeed in that regard. With Weddoes guitarist Simon Cleave now a full-fledged member, there's some of the trademark late '80s/early '90s roar apparent in the likes of "146 Degrees" and "Your Charms"; but whether or not that and crisp drums fit snugly alongside French horn and accordion is debatable.

The overall effect is warm, unsettling, and artful, but most of all catchy, up to and including the intimate closer, "Moon Like Sour Candy," which ends with a mandate to try.

For those willing to rise to the challenge, Fragrant World has a wealth of obscured moments of bizarre genius.

While there is plenty of good stuff going on, there is a little too much conservative playing and a little too much left-field oddness for the record to truly hold together. Occult Architecture, Vol. 2 is preferable to the first volume, but it pales next to the band's next work.

Airy synths and breathy vocals render the songs too dreamy to dance to, and the funky basslines and mechanical beats render them too dancey to dream to. That's the sweet spot of F&M.

There is plenty to like on Cherish, from the unfailingly memorable songs to Eisold's winningly in-your-face vocal mannerisms.

It can be incredibly difficult for an experimental group to continue experimenting for years on end without getting stale, but Tortoise achieve that balance effortlessly.

Teddy Thompson doesn't answer all his questions about women on Bella (of course, for most guys, that would take a box set), but the ones he ponders here are smart and come from the heart, and it makes for an album that will please longtime fans while encouraging newcomers to hear what he has to offer.

It's an impressively timeless debut that suggests Howard should have no problem standing out from the overpopulated nu-folk crowd.

The Green EP isn't a release that surprises and demands attention the way that Ambivalence Avenue and parts of Silver Wilkinson did; instead, it seduces listeners into a reverie that's more cohesive and satisfying than the EP's patchwork nature might suggest.

Raw, rowdy, and devoid of any sort of studio chicanery, Skeletons feels less like a proper Danzig album and more like a home recording of a boozy late-night house show. Surprisingly, its slapdash, lo-fi demeanor mostly works in its favor.

Sometimes intricate, but more of an album-length mood that a collection of memorable songs, it's strangely well-suited for attentive headphone listening and for unwinding.

The result is a sunny, homemade-sounding record, but these aren't throwaway songs -- there's enough melody here to warrant attention regardless of Ebert's success with the Magnetic Zeros, and while that band's blissed-out bombast is an obvious touchstone, Alexander covers significantly more ground.

There's nothing fashionable about the Sea and Cake's music, and therein lies much of their charm.

While the album's brightness may take some getting used to, listeners who love her music for how well she expresses feelings that are universal yet hard to articulate will appreciate how vividly The Classic captures joy and what it takes to get it.

Adamson's heady blend of Odelay-era Beck, Roky Erickson paranoia, cosmic hip-hop, and general Animal Collective weirdness sounds like a train wreck in print, but his knack for odd melodies, stealthy programming, timely pitch-shifting, and macabre (and occasionally hysterical) subject matter helps to keep things consistently interesting throughout Ropechain's easily digestible 45-minute runtime.

The album succeeds more often than it flounders, and even then, the singin' and pickin' is so good that it's hard not to submit, but one wishes that the pair had decided to infuse the collection with a bit more of their signature wit, as much of The Ash & Clay feels a bit like a serious Flight of the Conchords.

As always, L'Aventura is rife with touches that knowledgeable listeners will appreciate, but anyone with a fondness for smoothly retro mood music with lots of personality will find a lot to enjoy.