Guilt may be a bad title for a pop-rap album so slick and shallow, the completely ludicrous I Am Hip Hop's Savior was the original plan, suggesting that this project was misguided since early development.

Though their debut album is considerably more polished and focused-sounding than their EPs, the uniquely winsome quality of It Hugs Back's music remains, with buzzing keyboards and fuzzy guitars.

Maybe by the time the next album rolls along it might be time to stretch a bit and get away from the sound they've cobbled together, but for now I Was a King sounds just about right to anyone who is a fan of the history of noisy guitar pop of the last 20 years.

These Thieves do often come off as just another trendy outfit hawking tawdry 20-year time warps, albeit with more streamlined sonics than many.

Apart from two minor issues, the Answer has the right sound and feel on Everyday Demons and that does make them the perfect opener for latter day AC/DC: they work as pleasant appetizer for the main course.

Between its violently happy songs and its softer ones, It's Blitz! ends up being some of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' most balanced and cohesive music.

Parish and Harvey's idea of fun might be very different than that of many other artists, but hearing them cover so much musical and emotional territory is often exhilarating.

If Peter Bjorn and John keep putting out albums as challenging, intelligent, and emotional as this, there is no reason for anyone to get off the bandwagon any time soon.

There may be a bit too much classic good taste on Quiet Nights--there is no reinterpretation, only homage--but that's not quite a problem because Krall knows enough to lay back, to never push, only to glide upon the gossamer surface.

Defying Gravity builds on the skill set that gave listeners "Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing" and takes it further, seamlessly combining hook-laden crafty songwriting with a pop sensibility in the modern country vernacular that blazes a new trail and underscores Duke Ellington's dictum that there are only two kinds of music: good and bad. This is a shining case in point for the former.

Between these two bookends ['Indian Summer and 'Why Do Men Stray'] is the most consistent music DeGraw has yet made--yes, it gets a tad simpy and he could use at least one hook as big as 'I Don't Wanna Be,' but Free manages to flow easily and warmly, something that couldn't quite be said of the blue-eyed soul bluster of his first two albums.

The pleasure of the popcraft outweighs much of the caution in the construction, especially when the insistent hooks are delivered with such puppy-dog earnestness by Taylor Hanson.

The unsurprisingly inconsistent R.O.O.T.S. is hip-hop like Nas never happened, a flash or fodder album owing more to Lady GaGa than to Public Enemy.

Perhaps fate forced Leonard Cohen's hand to stage the tour documented in part on Live in London, but it seems that fate knows just what it's doing, and this album eloquently demonstrates how much Cohen still has to offer, and how clearly his music still speaks to him (and us).

A handful of marginal highs aside (the minor urgency of 'Courage,' the fluid sobriety of 'Gravity'), it's hard to shake the feeling that Rules would be a lot more satisfying if it broke a few more.

Thirty-seven years after their first album got lost in the shuffle, the Flatlanders have not only survived, they have a lot to say about what they've seen, and Hills and Valleys is proof these men still have plenty of songs in them yet.

On their fourth album, Tony Dekker and his revolving cast of co-conspirators walk a little taller than on previous releases, employing a larger, more band-oriented sound that lovingly elevates (and amplifies) Dekker's simple, refined melodies into something both peaceful and majestic.

LotusFlow3r is constrained by its guitar-heavy concept, offering great moments instead of great whole songs.

On MPLSound, Prince takes his retro mission seriously enough to offer up a few songs nervy enough to be singles, even if the synthesized thrill of this handful of tunes is undercut by a bunch of slow-burning ballads that do their best to rival 'The Arms of Orion.'

This attempt at old-fashioned star-making might have worked if Bria Valente had a smidgeon of star charisma but she's merely a pleasantly breathy crooner, slipping easily into Prince's shimmering quiet storm production.

With almost tangible textures and a striking mood of isolation and singularity, Fever Ray is a truly strange but riveting album.

This is easily the best-sounding album Doherty has been involved with, neither self-consciously "raw" nor overly polished; it lets the music be as simple or as elaborate as it needs to be.

Maturity can be dangerous to your artistic health, but Bromst shows the right way to mature--broaden your vision while still spending plenty of time on what you do best.

Hazards of Love won't convert anybody who already wrote the band off as overly precious bookworms with a Morrissey/Victorian ghost story fetish, but fans who have dutifully followed the Decemberists since their 2002 debut get to take home bragging rights this time around.

Royksopp remain among the best at middlebrow dance-pop, crafting music that can and will rule the supermarket aisles while still having a shelf-life longer than the canned ham you'll find there.

First off, a warning: the best way to encounter Mastodon's Crack the Skye for the first time is with headphones. Reported to be a mystical -- if crunchy -- concept record about Tsarist Russia, this is actually the most involved set of tracks, both in terms of music and production, the band has ever recorded. "Ambitious" is a word that regularly greets Mastodon -- after all, they did an entire album based on Moby Dick -- but until now, that adjective may have been an understatement. There is so much going on in these seven tracks that it's difficult to get it all in a listen or two (one of the reasons that close encounters of the headphone kind are recommended). It may seem strange that the band worked with Bruce Springsteen producer Brendan O'Brien this time out, but it turns out to be a boon for both parties: for the band because O'Brien is obsessive about sounds, textures, and finding spaces in just the right places; for O'Brien because in his work with the Boss he's all but forgotten what the sounds of big roaring electric guitars and overdriven thudding drums can sound like. The guitar arrangements on tracks like "Divinations" and "The Czar," while wildly different from one another, are the most intricate, melodically complex things the band has ever recorded. There are also more subtle moments such as the menacing, brooding, and ultimately downer cuts such as "The Last Baron," where tempos are slowed and keyboards enter the fray and stretch the time, adding a much more multidimensional sense of atmosphere and texture. Still, Crack the Skye rocks, and hard! Its shifting tempos and key structures are far more meaty and forceful than most prog metal, and menace and cosmological speculation exist in equal measure, providing for a spot-on sense of balance. Some of the hardcore death metal conservatives may have trouble with this set, but the album wasn't recorded for them -- or anybody else. Crack the Skye is the sound of a band stretching itself to its limits and exploring the depth of its collective musical identity as a series of possibilities rather than as signatures. And yes, that is a good thing.

This is the problem that bands face when they go from the thrill of making the first record to the grind of having to produce something equal or better than their debut. Not too many groups can pull it off; add the 1990s to the long list of bands who have failed.

Poseidon and the Bitter Bug is not only solid all the way through, it feels fresh, clean, new, and chock-full of beauty.