Despite the preponderance of sprightly tempos and sing-song hooks, nothing about 4:13 Dream feels especially light, perhaps because Robert Smith chooses to pair these purported pop songs with a heavy dose of affected angst.

The album wholly warrants Snow Patrol's fame, presenting a band that aspires to pop/rock grandeur without developing the accompanying ego. As a result, this is the group's best work yet.

Funhouse is a ride, empowered by her post-divorce freedom. In a way, that does make Funhouse unique among divorce albums, as it's the first to concentrate on liberation rather than loss--but if she was going to go in this direction, Pink may have been better off not pretending that she's bothered by the breakup.

Microcastle proves that Deerhunter can make music that sounds very different from what they'd done before, yet still feels of a piece with their body of work.

The playing is tighter and more polished, but they haven't lost any of their manic energy, and in fact this outing is, if anything, even more energetic than "Head Home."

Easily the least accomplished of his albums, Evolver is nonetheless a refreshing change of sorts, for all its faults, at least as far as missteps are concerned.

These are modest pleasures but these days Ryan Adams is all about careful measured craft instead of big statements, a trade-off that makes his albums more predictable but also more satisfying as Cardinology quietly proves.

Fueled by heavy dance tracks and popping electronic beats, The Fame, the first album by the glamorous Lady Gaga, is a well-crafted sampling of feisty anti-pop in high quality.

Still sounding like no other artist on the planet--whether because of talent or intent--Squarepusher succeeds again with a radical, challenging piece of music.

What pushes these songs past mere worship involves cunning collisions of robust rhythm, caressing noise, and heavenly melody, with each element equally crucial. Good shoegaze/dream-pop bands mastered one of them; the most exceptional of the heap, like this group, had all three down.

They give the old noise pop formula enough of a kick to make this a very worthwhile addition to any noise pop fan's collection.

This is one of the finest chapters yet in Audika's continuing retrospective. Let's hope there is still more where this came from.

The obsession Cradle of Filth have with post-production is the very thing that removes the power from this set and makes it more of a wry--and unintentionally comedic--piece and impossible to take seriously.

No filler and a logical running order makes Tronic an instantly satisfying effort, an album to return to, and maybe the best entry point to a discography already filled with vital material.

Whether or not you can get with Malin's other records is immaterial; this one should be embraced by anyone who loves rock & roll.

Despite its occasional lapses into schmaltz and generic R&B, Heavy Rotation is still a charming and versatile record that has her unmistakable voice and personality stamped all over it.

This is a love-it-or-lump-it album, a polarizing effort that--depending on personal preference--is either irresistibly attractive or laughably, overzealously pretentious.

Their brisk, efficient indie rock hasn't changed radically, but the insertion of an instrumental here and an electronics-heavy track there makes for needed counterpoint.

It's easily their most fully realized project to date and rather than simply a pastiche, they've managed to create something that's completely their own.

by Tony Brown, Call Me Crazy underscores his greatest strength: getting the essence of a vocalist across in a mix; but also his greatest weakness: the seeming inability to leave a musical backdrop until it's cluttered to death.

While the rewards are there, the hooks are few and far between, resulting in the kind of overly personal transitory album that can either lay the seeds for a full-blown masterpiece, or render the garden infertile.

From a musical standpoint, Damn Right, Rebel Proud is every bit as solid as "Straight to Hell;"...But lyrically, too much of the time all Hank has to tell us is he's messed up and ready to rearrange some faces.

More often than not, though, Flashy is lots of cleverly dumb fun.

Hope for the Hopeless works more than it doesn't, and when it really clicks here, which is often enough, Dennen shows himself to be a unique voice and talent.

An open-minded rock record that relies on a wide array of familiar signifiers but never once sounds like it could have been recorded or released any earlier than it was.

Not only are each of the songs on Río unique; they're all impressive, adding up to a complete full-length album experience filled with highlights.

With the music provided by orchestrations from woodwinds, strings, brass, and much more besides, the feeling is one of playfulness, a resistance to and celebration of easily grasped pop forms and a sense that the world is there to be amused at and with.

What's truly appealing about Grainger's solo effort is the fun he's obviously having.