The album does tend to be more engaging than stifling, as well as a little more graceful, than previous releases from patten.

In the Absence of Truth is as solidly explosive and as adventuresome as Panopticon, but their elemental control over the music is greater, therefore creating a more even production.

How We Operate is strong, focused, and a complete pleasure to engage; its maturity and confidence is beyond anything they've released thus far, and the experimentalism brought into play on their other albums is here.

While this release shows real growth, one questions if that's what Donnaholics are looking for.

The band manages to have 21st Century Breakdown work on a grand scale without losing either their punk or pop roots, which makes the album not only a sequel to "American Idiot," but its equal.

ShelleyDevoto is obviously having a blast, and while Buzzkunst is no thundering masterpiece, the blast is not at listeners' expense.

An undeniably pleasant and ultimately rewarding, if not immediately accessible, listen.

If you can get past the clothespin-on-nose delivery... and the constant up-and-down swoops and dives in which it's delivered, the album has a certain sense of awkward, ramshackle charm that's frequently unhinged and claustrophobic at once.

Although it's perhaps her most consistent and mature work to date, it's also her least engaging, never matching the dizzying heights of her previous efforts even as it consciously avoids past pitfalls.

Though the album could use a bit more grit and grime, it's still remarkably solid.

Faded Seaside Glamour trades in the band's dreary English roots for radiating waves and rays of '60s California pop. It's a slick transition, an honest presentation soaked in Delays' crisp musicianship and the foursome's lush harmonies.

It could be the most innocent, charming and believable record of 2003.

Overall, the album leans more toward the melodic end of their oeuvre, but they have grown into this kinder, gentler mode organically, progressively working toward this groove little by little, album by album.

Though Speedy J does pure techno as good as he did his earlier experimental productions, it's a shame he's gotten back to the kind of tracks that DJ Hyperactive could be knocking out in his sleep.

Indebted to hard-edged Chicago acid-track producers like Adonis and Armando, Parkes constructed brittle, distorted drum-machine breaks (instead of the usual: endlessly tweaked skittery breakbeats) and matched them with claustrophobic analogue effects, most of which hark back at least a decade or so.... In all, Solaris is just as dense and intensive a production as most of Photek's previous work -- for better, but occasionally for worse -- but the range of styles points to a more ambitious future.

While Hiatt sounds soulful as all get out (as per usual) on this set, the lingering mood is often downbeat and introspective.

A true alternative potpourri -- quite refreshing in a day and age where more often than not, rock bands stick closely to a single style/approach.

Jeezy does little to make this disc different from Let's Get It.

Invitation Songs is a welcome, and welcoming, debut.

Backwoods Barbie might not break the bank out there, and it would take a good deal of marketing and luck for any of these tracks to hit the top of the new country charts, but it shows that Parton can still deliver the package in fine style and only the fools among us would ever count her down and out, no matter how many bluegrass albums she does.

Something for All of Us... manages to connect without really saying much, which is tough to pull off, even for a veteran of one of the underground rock league's most beloved teams.

This is a unique if occasionally discomfiting album that finds great beauty in surprising places.

In the 40-odd minutes that follow, the sisters' simplistic, repetitious song structures may start to grow stale, and their fine but unfussy folk instrumentalism may seem less than inspiring, but those harmonies are never far from hand, ensuring that The Big Black and the Blue is never less than an entirely pleasant listening experience.

Mechanize isn't quite in a class with Demanufacture or Obsolete, which are widely regarded as two of Fear Factory's most essential releases. But it's still an album that longtime followers will welcome.

Ultimately, while it is clear based on Factorycraft that Found aren't the same band you'd expect to hear playing at an art opening anymore, they are a band you might be pleasantly surprised to run into at a local pub, and that's something a lot harder to find.

Stoned to the bone with Was at the controls means this is one of the more humble and cool offerings in the Ziggy Marley catalog, but those are the same reasons it's an album to return to, delivering that satisfying Rastaman vibration whenever listeners crave a mellow mood.

An easy recommendation for its obvious audience, but Together/Apart is a bit more than that as well, giving the genre of indie hip-hop some mass appeal whenever it decides to wild out.

The Flood, despite all of its familiar trappings, manages to breathe (as in forcibly inflate) some new life into the genre.