Trendy South African rhythms and austere strings spin a web around Davidson's poetic lyrics, and in this intricate, introspective setting, their talent becomes very clear.

The blood doesn't really get pumping until the fifth track. Up to that point, however, the band creates some of its most downcast and alluring material, covering solitude, self-destruction, and just about every planetary ill.

Uffie’s long-delayed debut looks to be filled with excitement, but rarely has an album sounded so unconcerned.

The results of that effort are apparent, and they're not good. Gray wields one of the most naturally talented voices in R&B, but from the evidence here, she's not a songwriter.

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.

At times Can't Be Tamed feels perfunctory, getting the job of showing Cyrus is growing up without making her too mature for her still-young fan base and little else.

While We Are Born occasionally lapses into the anodyne, overly tasteful pop-folk balladeering of Sia's past, overall it's a charmingly cheery, light-hearted romp looking nowhere but sweetly, sanguinely forward.

It may be flawed and the rapper's attitude is sometimes one step ahead of his output, but he hasn't sounded this unfiltered and proud since The Marshall Mathers LP.

While a few hooks stand out--particularly the "fisticuffs" chorus of "Fixed"--most of the songs are too watered down, lyrically and musically, to be truly enticing.

Mason's career has been one of constant starts and stops and side-project misdirections (for his fans, at least), so the straightforwardly eccentric Boys Outside is clearly a record to treasure.

Deth Red Sabaoth sounds like what a lot of the Samhain/Misfits fans wanted the group's 1988 debut to be: a raw, dirty, D.I.Y. collection of comic book-inspired violence, thrust together by the unholy union of punk and metal.

How exactly these songs fit together with "Holes"' delicate plucking and the title track's pixelated folk might be locked in Fol Chen's brains, but even if there are more pieces of their puzzle-pop missing here than there were on John Shade, Your Fortune's Made, The New December is never boring.

We Walk This Road is a consistently surprising tour de force that moves easily through rock, blues, R&B, gospel, and more, sometimes bringing them all together at the same time.

Where some see restraint, others may very well see refinement, and those who appreciated Antidotes' more spacy passages will find that Foals' reinvention of their sound is a calculated risk that definitely pays off.

Capturing the freedom and loneliness of independence, Body Talk, Pt. 1 is a concise set of songs on its own, and an impressive first third of the whole ambitious project.

The prevailing feeling throughout this album is that American Slang represents a more mature sound from the Gaslight Anthem, showing us a band that has grown up enough to start attempting to fill the shoes of their influences.

The playing is solid, but one wishes Petty & the Heartbreakers had simply covered some of those old Chess classics rather than trying half-heartedly to write their own -- it would have made for an album closer to intent.

Thanks to the rich and nuanced production and Drake's thoughtful, playful, and intense lyrics, Thank Me Later is a radio-friendly, chart-topping collection of singles but also a serious examination of Drake's life that holds up as an album.

Barbara shows that We Are Scientists know what works for them, and even if it never quite breaks the barrier between pleasant and great, it's almost always enjoyable.

Lustre takes on a kind of cinematic joy where Harcourt the long-suffering vampiric troubadour steps into the light and shines.

This is a welcome return for Miller, and a must for modern electric blues fans.

McLachlan simply sounds like McLachlan here, seemingly unaged by the seven years that have elapsed since her last record and unconcerned with new trends.

If nothing on Antifogmatic is quite that ambitious, nevertheless in track after track Thile leads the band through labyrinthine arrangements that shift tempos and instrument groupings, over which he sings abstract lyrics in a slightly disembodied high tenor voice.

Release Me wipes away any memories of the band's previous work as well as any boring talk of their famous fathers, and re-introduces the band as first-rate purveyors of thrillingly fun rockin' retro pop.

Time Flies does a better job of rounding up the highlights from their patchy turn-of-the-millennium albums--actually, it emphasizes Heathen Chemistry almost a bit too much, with its five tracks outweighing the number of selections from Definitely Maybe and Morning Glory--and has space for selections from their smashing final album Dig Out Your Soul.

This triumphant self-possession comes so naturally to Christina that it's hard not to wish that she acted so boldly throughout Bionic, letting the entirety of the record be as distinctly odd as its best moments.

The second Crystal Castles may not be as immediately and consistently satisfying as their debut, but it shows that the band has more to offer than just an immediately distinctive--and confining--sound.

If the day is as sun-drenched and relaxed as the songs on Shadows implies, then may it and Teenage Fanclub go on and on.