Perhaps the individual songs seem ephemeral when isolated on their own, but that's because Room 29 is constructed as a tone poem, a collection of songs, poetry, and incidental music that's designed to be a hyper-reality--an intersection of the glamorous past of Hollywood and our arch modern sensibility, and it succeeds gloriously at that.

The Order of Nature is a good showcase for the individual talents of Jim James and Teddy Abrams, but somehow the two halves don't always make an ideal fit, though all parties concerned certainly deserve a tip of the hat for ambition and audacity.

The Gaia II Space Corps may not be the fulfillment of Motorpsycho's dream, but for listeners it's a resplendent exercise in pure rock & roll pleasure.

Chemical Brothers have remained in the stadium house category for a decade-plus due to their immersive music and vivid light shows, but from the stale beats and lack of new ideas on display here, they'd do better going beatless or hiring a drummer.

Captures different shades and moods of the band's thus-far five-year career quite nicely.

Whatever the reason, Seen It All: The Autobiography shakes off all the challenges of Jeezy's lesser releases and finds new inspiration from the same old rap sheet.

An appealingly misshapen collection of classics, contemporaries, and originals.

It feels like half of an album by a band making sure their songs that fit the mold of what they've done before, and half of an album by a band using their major-label leverage to push their boundaries.

Khaos Legions shouldn't be dismissed as the result of creative burnout--there's plenty of scorching metal here, and fans will be very pleased.

A winning, if a little overly earnest, collection of millennial retro-pop that feels like a well-intentioned, if slightly awkward, high five.

Fourth Corner establishes Whitley as a sophisticated, mature songwriter and a passionate vocalist only beginning to realize her powers.

As it stands, this is a strangely seductive record, filled with remarkable musical peaks, and proof positive that an ambitious sophomore departure can be wholly satisfying.

[The Birds of Satan] deliver a batch of songs combining the muscular intellectualism of Queens of the Stone Age with the melodic passion of Foo Fighters.

A Flourish and a Spoil is far from a sophomore slump; instead, it's a portrait of the Districts as they evolve from their freewheeling beginning.

Even if this isn't their easiest or most satisfying listening, they're still a remarkably unique band.

Merry and his crew deliver a layered set that ranges from the mellow dream-like "Rentes Écloses" to the unexpected fuzzed-out banger "Bête Morcelée."

The energy throughout the album is so steady and positive that, even at a low volume, it can have a pacifying effect on the soul.

This slyly crafted collection of big bass and even bigger brags manages to bridge the old school and the new, with Uncle Snoop's encouragement as the host with the most.

It does signal a turn toward a more thoughtful, artistically ambitious sound than before, not just maintaining the Scottish neo-prog quartet's penchant for forward movement but catapulting them out of minor-league status.

Starfire certainly isn't as game-changing as LPs like Agharta and Pangaea, the mood and spirit is that of Miles in the '70s, but with the mechanically precise rhythms one would expect from a group born in the era of acid jazz.

Overall, Jem's songcraft is only ambitious in relation to a genre often defined by a "blander is better" pleasure principle.

It may sound at first like the makings of a mediocre goth album, but the band's combination of a taut, tense, elegant delivery and poetic lyrics breathes life into each of Red of Tooth and Claw's songs.

Bittersweet and incredibly catchy, Endless Now is the kind of album that just gets better with repeated listening.

Walk Between Worlds offers further proof that Simple Minds can flaunt what they are because they finally understand just who they are.

Stylistically in line with The Baby, Scout serves as an understated addendum that packs a sentimental punch.

This is a beautifully crafted, stripped-down recording, showcasing once more that E uses searing honesty and a canny sense of pop, rock, blues, and everything else to chronicle his own strange path through life and its labyrinth.

If the album doesn't offer any startling surprises along the lines of the furious "Black Sweat"--there's not much abandon here--there's joy in hearing Prince embrace his lyrical eccentricities as he accessorizes his smooth jams and coiled, clean funk with such oddities as laser blasts and spoken introductions from what appear to be British nurses.

Burying emotional depth and even sensitivity beneath healthily sarcastic sounds, alienated lyrics, and cheeky titles like "Comfortably Dumb," Terry Malts have made an unassumingly sophisticated album.