This sounds like an album Parton could have made in the mid-'70s, before she made her bid to become a cross-genre superstar, and for fans who want to hear "the Real Dolly," Pure & Simple will hit the spot like a glass of iced tea on August afternoon.

One gets the sense that this is an album recorded with white gloves, and the calculation behind the tunes is nearly tangible.

An album that's part catchy song, part shimmering atmosphere, and part fractured rumination. It will be interesting to see what Webb comes up with for album four; in the meantime, Triage offers Methyl Ethel's most immersive collection to date.

It is her warmest, most ambitious, searing, and gutsy record yet.

Hebden and Reid's music is as full of depth and ideas as before.

Carey unfortunately doesn't feel nostalgic for the succinctness of her early albums, but this shows that she's still capable of delivering 40 minutes of strong, supremely voiced R&B when she's up for it.

Though Drawing Restraint 9 is more expansive and abstract than Medúlla, it's in a similarly challenging and rewarding vein.

et It Reign's appealing mix of nostalgia and vitality proves that Barât can not just survive, but thrive outside of the confines of his other, storied band.

Oberst himself seems swept up in the motion--he's dropped his vocal affectations, his grandiose couplets, he's happy to be leading a group that feels like a band of brothers--one that might not always sing in the same voice, but share a sensibility, something that gives Outer South a big human heart.

Despite solid songwriting, glimmering production, and a broad palette of emotions, Breathe shows the Leaves' potential more than anything else.

On Eternal Youth, Future Bible Heroes erase any idea of the band being a side-project and work together as a trio striving for the same artistic goals. In doing so, they may have created their masterpiece.

Andy Barlow's productions have been defanged; no longer surprising and innovative, they exist as merely proper frameworks for the songs.

The album's quirky appeal is reflective of Rooney's self-assuredness as musicians.

While most would classify this record under "folktronica," Memphis don't attempt to strip down the clicks and plucks. Instead, they go for the big pop sound of Burt Bacharach and George Martin to make something almost as ambitious as hiring a real horn section.

Easily his most accomplished record since his days in the Lost Boyz.

One has to give credit to an '80s new wave musician who can adapt and create contemporary-sounding music.... The album can comfortably sit alongside Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails on store shelves. Pure doesn't drive like the industrialized adrenaline rush that is, say, Orgy, but the tracks' lingering and creepy pace leaves behind a different kind of impact -- it's more haunting than relentless

The Fallen Leaf Pages is the kind of record that holds no surprises or excitement, the kind that sounds over before it reaches the halfway point.

It's the kind of splashy, impassioned, infectious record that could make Nikka Costa a star -- maybe not on the level of Prince or Madonna, maybe more like Lenny Kravitz, but a star nonetheless.

Bottom line: the album is one of the stronger pop-R&B releases of the last few years.

Just 22 minutes long, We Be Xuxa doesn't waste time in proving that Mika Miko can expand on their Cali-punk roots without losing what made them vital in the first place.

As a whole, it's not one of their best records, considering the size of their discography, but it's not a bad little record. Fans will like it since the band is still shining as a tight unit and hasn't lost a step musically.

((Un)) is a very impressive first record that shows tons of promise. If Black can keep the right amount of wonky in his pop, he could do something truly wonderful.

Its lengthy incubation process notwithstanding, V.V. Brown's clever debut album, Travelling Like the Light, is as genuine, natural, and deep as mishmash throwback pop can get.

Jeniferever shows some serious potential on this album, but much of it remains to be realized.

This darker, heavier tone makes the majority of Kill less of a party than "Fire" or "I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me from Being the Master," but splendidly, Dance Commander rears his head to make demands like "Shake that tambourine/Shake that shaking machine!" in 'Egyptian Cowboy' and encourages mass consumption in the splendid 'Body Shot,' which devolves from a grunge-disco jam into a wonderful, dubbed-out frenzy.

Her raw vocal skills remain impressive, as does her taste in soul, and even if this feels off-kilter, not quite achieving a balance between retro and modernity, it does beat with a messy human heart, one that was subdued on Introducing, so perhaps she did need to break free.

Nothing here is quite an embarrassment, but compared to his other albums of this nature, including the muddled World of Morrissey, there's a distinct lack of humor and hooks, or anything else memorable.

The resulting tunes are lush, but few are truly dense, and White Water's biggest asset is its ability to wield such a large sound without replacing the woodsy, cozy feel of Church's solo performances.