While some fans of his early work may be left behind, most people who enjoy witty songs with tender emotion behind them will be satisfied with Catacombs and happy with the direction he's headed.

Chemical Warfare keeps this capo's reputation in tact. Recommended for aspiring dons and more open-minded thugs.

Party Rock is an indulgent record with plenty of fun and immaturity, but a real need for a growing musical identity.

While many of the group's songs aren't quite as unusual as that string of letters seems (most of them do, in fact, incorporate choruses), the group steers pretty far from the norm on their self-titled record.

If Wilco (The Album) as a whole is considerably less ambitious than its predecessors, it compensates with its easy confidence and craft: it's the work of a band that knows their strengths and knows what they're all about, and it's ready to settle into an agreeably comfortable groove.

Electric Dirt sounds fresh, emphatic, and as effective as anything Levon has cut since the mid-'70s, and one can only hope he has a few more discs in him just this good.

Moby's most unified and understated album, and all the better for it, Wait for Me is a morose set of elegantly bleary material, quite a shift from the hedonistic club tracks of "Last Night."

This dogged sense of purpose does result in a tighter, better record than Something to Be and even it's not a lot of fun, it's not meant to be: it's big music about big issues, even inflating personal issues to the universal.

On the whole, American Saturday Night is one of his dreamier albums, filled with swaying slow dances, sweet love tunes, and the occasional brokenhearted blues, all delivered with a worn-in ease.

Jeremih's charmingly sly voice, somewhere between One Twelve's Slim and a young Raphael Saadiq, is hard to not like, especially when he tempers his cockiness with a little sensitivity.

Where 2006's "As Daylight Dies" hinted at an accelerated focus on the more melodic aspects of extreme metal, Killswitch Engage cements the notion.

With great audio and visuals, this version of Voltaic should please all but the most completist Bjork fans.

Chamber Music, with all its throwback collabos, only faintly reminds the listener of yesteryear, but track by track it satisfies with the core Wu members sounding purposeful and sometimes even united.

This sense of adventure ties Varshons to those earliest Lemonheads records, but the group marries that spirit to Dando's exceptionally intuitive interpretive skills, turning the album into a bit of a rough, unpolished gem.

This is a sound that's utterly unique to Dinosaur Jr., and what's different about them in their reunion is that the group not only realizes their individuality, they revel in it, getting lost in the noise, and it's hard not to get swept up with it, too.

Calling this an unplugged album is useful only in relation to what the group has produced in the past, but what the Mars Volta created on Octahedron will provide them with more range and opportunities in the future.

It's a decent set of modern R&B, dominated by seductive slow jams, that stimulates a little more often than it fades into the background.

The bulk of Back and Fourth is more insular, though, serving as Pete Yorn's personal therapy rather than his audience's ear candy.

While Far is far from bad, it doesn't quite live up to expectations, either, based on all the talent involved in making it and how fully Spektor expressed herself on "Begin to Hope."

Presumably it's not enough for Patterson Hood that he fronts one of the best rock bands in America--Murdering Oscar shows him stepping into an equally impressive solo career, but when the songs he's set aside for himself are this good, you can't blame the man for wanting to share.

Spinnerette also feels a bit overcooked at times, possibly because of the long time it took to make. At its best, however, Spinnerette shows what Dalle can do outside of the Distillers' context, and suggests that maturity and life after punk rock can actually be fun.

As carefully crafted as it is, this is the group's most accessible record yet. And it's a damn fine one at that.

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.

By sacrificing grit, some of the charm that made the debut a success is lost along the way, but the sleeker production is only a minor setback and some of the songs onboard are Deer Tick's best thus far.

Pentatonic Wars and Love Songs ends up being an urgent, stubborn, and sometimes overly dark view of love in all of its unavoidable permutations. In other words, it's exactly the kind of album of love songs you'd expect from Taylor, one that is direct and as baffling as it is challenging.

Travels with Myself and Another distinguishes Future of the Left from Mclusky without completely severing ties, and proves they're a band that can keep post-hardcore exciting with righteous anger and merciless wit.

For all its abundantly positive qualities and minor but clear distinctions from prior efforts, is still an archetypal Dream Theater album; one that's unlikely to broaden their audience all that much, but is conversely guaranteed to thrill their hardcore converts with its renewed devotion to the most exigent and stimulating facets of the band's chosen musical domain.

It would be easy to call this album an exercise in dabbling if the quality of these songs weren't so strong--and it's that quality, along with Bibio's continuing flair for crafting distinctive atmospheres, that are the only constants throughout.