With the illuminated big head and all, Canadian producer Joel Zimmerman's Deadmau5 alias is a blast to see live, but you can also bring quite a bit of that tech-house-meets-slammin'-electro excitement home with 4 x 4 = 12.

Breakthrough splatters so many short ideas across its 47 minutes that a front-to-back listen is wearying, like hearing a dozen erratic interludes mixed in with a handful of lengthier sketches that are no more settled.

There are too many songs, simply too much to make Say You Will work, even if there is enough to admire to make you wish it did.

It's far from a bad listen, nor is it embarrassing, but it's entirely too predictable, coming across as nothing more than well-tailored, expensive mood music.

LL offers up "you rap for the thugs/I rap for the ladies" on the album, but there's some tough, near-"Mama Said Knock You Out"'s here, and from any hardcore thug's point of view, he's getting better at splitting the difference.

A work of intense drama but little importance.

The whole gang sounds as good as ever.

It's interesting that while so many of these songs are peppered with faux-mystical approaches to spirituality, the album is also confessional and looks hard at itself, even if at times it seems cloying, self-indulgent, and preachy.

Ultimately, though, the tracks and Memphis May Fire themselves are the sum of their parts and little more; like many young bands, they haven't learned yet that writing a bunch of parts isn't the same thing as writing a song.

This flirtation with mass appeal is interesting for those with even a bit of an indie-hop bent, and hearing Sole working with a less forgiving rulebook just makes the album's successes more massive.

The good songs are timeless facsimiles that float out of another era's memory, while the rest of the album's tracks, while well built, recorded, and sung, seem like forgettable, hazy clichés from 30 years ago.

Throughout, the engaging melodies, reliable hooks, and warm, even-tempered vocals would win friends easily; its simmering energy pushes the album over the line into crush-worthy.

The album never comes off as a slavish museum piece. It feels instead as if they somehow rediscovered this sound, like an old coat picked out of the attic that looks as perfect with a modern ensemble as it did in its own heyday.

Carefree Theatre is a well-crafted exercise in sunny indie pop, with clean and fuzzy guitars pairing up for maximum melodic friendliness and contented harmonies keeping the music fresh and warm.

Two Vines may not be the group's masterpiece, but it is their most consistent album yet. Their mastery of modern pop sounds, ability to craft melodies that have a timeless quality, and the real connection they provide to people who want their frivolous pop music to have some depth and meaning, is impressive.

Lifeblood is a pleasant listen, but once you peel away the keyboards, sensitively strummed guitars and tasteful harmonies and concentrate on Bradfield's nakedly open voice and Wire's terminally collegiate lyrics, it's hard to escape the unintentional pathos that winds up defining the album and, conceivably, the band's latter-day career.

It's a well-dressed set of nine finely crafted love songs.

Perhaps the Avetts are best when they run a little bit loose and ragged, letting the tempos push a little bit hard, allowing their harmonies to clash and happy to have their loose ends remain untied. Often, this means that the ballads are just a shade too tidy.

The problem is, the subdued rhythms, riffs, and raps of A Thousand Suns wind up monochromatic, an impression not erased by the brief bridges between songs, sampled speeches, and easy segues, every element retaining moodiness without offering distinction.

It's an impressive debut from a very promising group.

Despite this one skippable moment ["Beautiful"], Kiss Me Once is a glittering, fun, and surprisingly powerful album that's classic Kylie through and through.

Timbaland and Reid evoke the Michael Jackson we all love and miss, finding songs that are worthy and giving them arrangements that are simultaneously nostalgic and modern. It's a difficult trick to pull off but they largely succeed, so XSCAPE is a worthy and memorable coda to Jackson's career.

Exquisite Corpse is a near perfect blend of the densely packed, sample heavy, nearly symphonic electronica and off-kilter hip-hop that the last three albums have featured.

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.

Most of the album stays sludgy though, and Seeing Eye Dog tends to drag more than it hits.

There are no upbeat pop-oriented songs, and stylistic diversions are not part of the program, either. It is something of a refinement of Cole's first two albums, and yet it involves a revolving door of songwriters and producers.

Ottewell isn't the first Gomez bandmate to pursue interests outside the band, but Shapes & Shadows is the most accessible solo effort to appear from that group.

You should know from Hernandez's track record that there will be plenty of hooky melodies and songs that will be stuck like glue in your head and on your lips, and he certainly doesn't let you down here.