The new Puppets are a surprisingly heavy, hard-rocking outfit, turning in one of the loudest records in the group's catalog. It's also one of the best-produced, boasting a thick, full, shiny sound.

This is a good document of Morphine's excellent live show and displays the energy and passion that they played with during the tour that supported their breakthrough album.

When he isn't heating up the dance floor with unlikely guests, Bracegirdle constructs spacy ambient tracks that cool things down.

Unlike most electronica We Are A & C is song driven rather than a collection of grooves and noises stitched together, and therein lies its timeless pop appeal.

They might not be hip, they're not as innovative as they used to be, but they still make very good, even great music, and that's evident on Revolverlution. If only it were presented better.

It's no better or worse than her 2002 debut or 2003's Chapter II, with the standout singles, decent album cuts, and filler fluff provided in equal doses.

What saves the record are the handful of songs that break out of the constraints of even-keeled melancholy and take (small) chances.

Overall, Roots Manuva may have a lot to say during the verses, but when his choruses consist of little more than a repeated line shouted over and over ("Awfully Deep," "Too Cold"), listeners won't be hanging around long enough to decipher his rhymes.

It wants terribly to be an important record, but its songs are merely good.

It's often impenetrable and there are a couple derailments... but it's never off-putting.

The music alone nearly justifies the cost, improving on the dense atmosphere pervading Aesop's mostly self-produced Bazooka Tooth, and returning ace producer Blockhead to his prime role in the control chair.

Human After All ends up being just not-bad (a first for Daft Punk); that may be hard to accept for fans that demand nothing less than brilliance from them, but just because it isn't an instant classic doesn't mean that it's totally unworthy, either.

Angel of Retribution does indeed rock just hard enough to please longtime fans and convert a few new ones along the way.

Some of the playful songs are as joyously boisterous and willfully corny as anything in Smith's past, making Lost and Found an entertaining and thoughtful album for young kids and their parents to listen to and talk about.

Though few songs are second-rate, their similarities make them bleed into each other too much.

While it's far from being truly bad, Elevator is a disappointment, and a perplexing one: everything seems to be more or less in the right place, but still doesn't quite fit together.

It might not be as hip as it thinks it is, nor is it as catchy as it should be, but it's smooth and listenable.

It's an enjoyable record, but it's hard to escape the nagging feeling that Garbage has painted itself into a corner: they haven't found a way to expand their sound, to make it richer or mature -- they can only deliver more of the same.

Unfortunately, however, the adjectives that need to be attached to this record -- workmanlike, customary, unembarrassing -- aren't going to make music fans flood the record stores seeking copies.

Overall, the album is more competent than distinctive; maybe next time, the 22-20s will show more depth and personality.

While they offer few surprises on Hyperactive, they also offer no embarassments, and it's likely that any fan still faithfully buying records nearly a decade after Moseley Shoals will enjoy this record.

Unfortunately, although Snaith may sound novel expanding upon his indie forebears of ten years ago, when he begins conjuring the ghosts of Krautrock ("A Final Warning," "Bees") or trip-hop ("Lord Leopard"), as he does here, he's entering the company of talented producers who have ploughed the same ground.

Quite frankly, this is the record that NIN should have released if Reznor had wanted to capitalize on the success of The Downward Spiral.

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.

Musically, it's closest to Adore, yet it's a distant cousin: if that album hinted at '80s synth rock and goth, this re-creates the spirit and sound of 1986, right down to the robotic pulse of the rhythms, the cold, slick surface of the production, and the brooding, self-absorbed atmosphere.

Hannicap Circus is solid, filthy, fun, and everything else that you'd want from a less nimble Kool Keith.

If it were condensed down to one disc, it would appeal to more than the most devout.

Out-of-State Plates is a ragged collection of hits and misses that will satisfy FOW completists, while being of intermittent interest to recent converts or general power pop fans.