Nothing Hurts is a strong debut, even when it's gentle.

With a slower pace and dreamier, echo-laden feeling than the original, guitars sounding somewhere between Morricone and the Cocteau Twins, it's an inspired nod back to a still underrated team of artists that works equally well on its own.

Like the title suggests, Warm Slime is gooey but curiously inviting stuff, and sinking into it might not be the safest way to pass the time, but it's a genuinely pleasurable experience.

Unlike some underground bands, Indian Jewelry just get more uncompromising and honed as they go, and this eerie, unsettling album is a perfect culmination of the duo's work so far.

The Optimist won’t make anyone forget Fantastic Playroom, but it does work as a nice complement and shows that the group may have some staying power.

Stuck on Nothing isn’t going to change rock & roll history even a little, but for a good time, give the album a listen and you won’t be disappointed.

The album has a quality about it that's sweeping without being out and out uplifting, feeling more informed by the rigors of touring than the denizens of the Twin Cities and their lapsed Catholic revelations.

Too insider to cross over or consider one of their classics, but an otherwise solid Fall effort offering everything fans require.

Luckily, the endlessly creative and surprisingly fluid Forgiveness Rock Record dispels any notion of opportunism by sticking to what the group does best: crafting clever, ramshackle, occasionally soaring bedroom pop songs (listen close for sirens) in a big expensive studio.

Cosmogramma is an instrumental genre-jumping journey for head-bopping intellectuals, and the meditative melodies by vocalists Thundercat, Laura Darlington and Thom Yorke only add to the experience.

More than any other of the New Pornographers' albums, this feels like a group effort, each element united to create uniquely cerebral power pop.

Above all, it’s a mature album: Deftones skirted the obvious response to their tragedy, realizing that the left turn is a more rewarding journey.

Equally steeped in Southern and Midwest Gothic Americana, the son of a pair of neuroscientists has crafted his most unique collection of songs to date, borrowing characters from mythology, literature, and world history and letting them run wild in the increasingly adventurous, neo-traditional folk style that his become his forte over the last decade.

All the pieces that make Minus the Bear an entertaining listen are still here, but rather than experimenting with more progressive arrangements, the goal is to carefully control the mood of the album, creating a soundscape that's more restrained than anything they've ever done, but just as affecting.

Perhaps the results are predictable, but they are satisfying, and it’s better to have new music from this duo than none at all.

Dynamic bombast is his specialty, and amazingly, it all fits perfectly within the confines of Italian pop. As outlandish as Mondo Cane is, it all somehow amounts to the most easily digestible thing in Patton's scattered discography.

A couple ballads are sonically lukewarm and lyrically platitudinal, but even so, this is easily the singer’s best work since The Heat.

Those fans seeking a return to Godsmack's roots will not be disappointed; for others, the sound may be a retrenchment because there was no place else for them to go. The only undebatable thing is that The Oracle is the most aggressive disc Godsmack have issued since their debut.

While Two Door Cinema Club don't yet have the flawless style or emotional weight of some of their influences, Tourist History just gets catchier and more stylized as it goes on, offering a promising foundation for the band to embellish with even more personality next time.

In the case of Nobody's Daughter, the tattered, ragged survivor in the gossip rags is no different than the one on record, both capturing Courtney in an inevitable, not so romantic decline, inadvertently turning every cliché into truth as she slowly slips into her final role as alt-rock's Norma Desmond.

It's when they stomp their feet on that middle ground that their eponymous debut kicks up the most sand, and with a little more nuance, their future endeavors could leave some pretty hefty footprints.

This isn't a pathbreaking album by a band with any chance at reshaping their genre in their image; it's a solid disc by a group that knows its own strengths.

Mary Chapin Carpenter doesn't sound especially concerned with how much product she'll move on The Age of Miracles; instead, she's made an album that speaks with honesty and clarity about the mysteries of love and fate, and she communicates well enough that it's hard to imagine anyone who has ever thought about the ways life can turn on a dime not being moved by the beauty of this music.

There's plenty good here, that's undeniable, but the album lacks the spark to push it forward and place it at the top.

He’s an amazing ringmaster for the age of mash-ups and wonky pop, and for his debut album he’s equally thrilling as the main attraction.

There are no real standouts, no (relatively) big hooks as heard on Scary World Theory's "Lowdown"; instead, there is a steady stream of hushed electronic pop songs that is as easy to enjoy as it is to ignore.

Perhaps if this production were scaled back a notch or two, Fearless Love wouldn’t feel quite so oppressive, but its oversized sound fits Etheridge’s sense of self: she’s boxed herself into a corner where she only makes music that sounds important…whether it actually is important winds up being beside the point.