As a celebration of GbV's core virtues, Please Be Honest really does honor the sound of the band as much as the skills of its frontman and founder.

Angel Guts: Red Classroom proves Xiu Xiu can still make impressively intimidating music--even if their real strengths arguably lie elsewhere.

There are a couple of standouts here--'Like It or Not' could be a cross between 'It'5!' and the Cure's bizarrely cheerful moments, while 'Nothing's Wrong' shows what the rest of the album should've sounded like--but most of Places Like This is a mystifying misfire.

An added bonus for Orton loyalists.

France's Tahiti 80 seem so enamoured with their musical idols that they can barely voice a personal touch of their own.

There's not a clunker in the bunch, as at least six of album's 11 songs are among the band's finest creations.

Dust is a stunning look into his exotic, sharp imagination and a vibrant effort for those who've watched him evolve.

This is the recording that the homogenous Dream Harder failed to become. It's ambitious, moody, surreal, and relevant.

Compared to Chris Martin's solo work as Ampbuzz, Herzog's efforts can certainly be more forceful and less meditative, though often only by a matter of degrees.

This willfully noisy, messy album is ultimately just as contrived as the band's glossier sound was, and the shift from The Guest's winsome pop -- which was also a shift from their debut's heavily Weezer-influenced sound -- makes it difficult to get a grip on the band.

Aside from all the criticism, the previously unreleased musings of Aphex Twin are still far more intriguing and solid than most producers' best releases.

This is a lot closer to the type of compilation you'd get with an issue of CMJ than something special.

Their darkly whimsical music has ties to the sweetly strange work of '90s groups like the Sundays, Sixpence None the Richer, and (especially) Belly, but there simply aren't many bands that sound like Eisley around in the 2000s.

Such Fun might fill that space over the fireplace, but it doesn't really pull the room together.

This wide net says more about Maroon 5's fashion than it does their music--they're sharp and smart enough to know what will get them club play and blog mentions--but it's nice to have a band so big try to tie together these two niches, even if neither the R&B nor the indie rock winds up relating to the happy mainstream hooks of the group's hits.

For fans of Andrew Kenny's past work, Magnolia is a sobering counterpart to American Analog's gentle buzz, a soundtrack for those moments in which dreams give way to the slow ascent of morning.

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.

Even if everything seems built for the 12" format and then landed on an album anyway, Guetta's fans get all the well-done house music they desire, and then some.

While fans of Darker My Love's earlier albums may be a bit put off by this sudden sea change, Alive as You Are marks a pleasant sonic shift for the band, offering anyone willing to listen a love letter to San Francisco's psych-pop past and the sounds of the paisley underground.

It's always great to see a band that's able to tweak its sound without watering it down, and that's exactly what Stone Sour have accomplished here, showing that it's possible for hard rock bands to make their sound bigger without necessarily making it blunter.

While its parts don't quite come together in a way that rivals IRM, Stage Whisper is a welcome adjunct that celebrates Gainsbourg's skills in the studio and in front of an audience.

This is as dynamic a record as Benson has ever made, but trades some of the homespun charm and young hunger of his earlier work for a more expensive-sounding studio sheen.

While it's odd that The Origin of Love doesn't work as well in practice as it might have in theory, it still has enough bright moments to please most fans.

An occasionally thrilling, yet ultimately uneven set from a talented band in the midst of a huge transition.

Sudol's expressive voice (both sonically and lyrically) and her tasteful and innovative arrangements help to steer the narrative into more abstract realms than one would assume upon simply reading the press release.

This feels fuller, richer than any Chesney album in recent memory, but it's also unhurried and light, an ideal soundtrack for a long, lazy summer.

For all of its weirdness, this album feels more like a pop record than his debut, and while Auerbach certainly didn't scrub all of the dirt and grime off of the album, it feels a lot more put together, bearing a lot of resemblance to the Black Keys' later work.

If you're a free agent in the market for a band that delivers some serious melodic death metal without feeling the need to take itself too seriously, Halo of Blood is an album that you should definitely check out.