Dangerfield’s solo foray is a (for the most part) sparse production (it was recorded in just five days), and that extra room is a little jarring at first, but fans of the band, as well as the elusive quarry that is love, will no doubt walk away from Fly Yellow Moon a step or two lighter.

Those who gravitated toward her debut will feel a similar pull to this album, though, which essentially reprises "Oh, My Darling’s" sound with slightly more confidence.

All in all, A Chorus of Storytellers makes for better background music than a main attraction.

At this point in his career, his best move is to take these types of risks, and when he does so on the ten-minute closer "The Man Who Laughs," with its underlying orchestral score by Tyler Bates (composer for the Halloween remakes The Devil's Rejects and The Watchmen), the results are compelling and unnerving in a good way.

The material sits within the band’s canon well enough to please longtime fans, and listeners looking for some kind of middle ground between Evanescence, late-period Queensrÿche and Fall Out Boy will more than likely find a few wicked gems to hang their heads to.

With a somewhat re-jiggered lineup, they pick up the thread of that release with the follow-up, Light a Candle.

One-Armed Bandit dazzles early on... Later portions of the album are larded with so many graceless, attention-deficit hazards that it’s unknown exactly what the band (or is that “groop”?) was attempting to accomplish.

Lacking rhythmic hypnotism and relatable most to those who are experiencing solitude created by romantic desertion, this is not your mother's Sade album.

This is Bowie in his mode as a crowd-pleasing professional, playing with considerable charm and skill, offering no surprises but plenty of pleasure: it's not the first album that will come to mind when thinking of live Bowie, but as it's playing, it's hard to resist.

Islands is by no means a bad record. It's pleasant but it's unnecessary, and in an era of so many bands and so many releases, that's just not good enough.

There are some solid breakdowns to sink your teeth into, and the choruses are still huge and anthemic, but the rest might be a little too watered down for serious metalcore devotees.

The results are alternately ghostly, sexy, and nocturnal, but they’re always moving.

There's a clear focus to the record, too, virtually all of it centered on mainstream dance of the '80s hi-NRG synth pop variety.

Broken Bells is an honest-to-goodness debut album--there are as many promising flashes as frustrating moments here. Mercer and Burton have obvious chemistry, but they need to blend more for true alchemy.

Whether the dip in quality is the result of a rush to create new material or whether these are simply the lesser leftovers from the same sessions that produced N 2, here's hoping JJ take some time (and maybe one of those epically blissful vacations their music conjures so evocatively) to make sure N 4 comes out fully baked.

While it doesn't rise to the level of his other studio albums, Valleys of Neptune is a welcome catalog addition from a tremendous talent who died too young.

Limited and a little patched together, but if cheap thrills are what you’re after, this one puts the dirty back in dirty south.

it's a formula contemporary country chartmaker: highly compressed dual lead guitars, layered acoustic guitars, good-time honky tonk lyrics, and big rocking drums. It’s a good-natured dig at city folks, and you can’t help but like Shelton, no matter how many cliché’s he spews.

As a performer, the smooth Derulo--made even smoother by Auto-Tune--delivers it all so effortlessly that none of that persuasive debut hunger comes through, making this stylish and short set one to admire rather than advocate.

Like many other tracks here, it seems ideally suited for heavy rotation on Radio Disney. The songs tend to have sledgehammer hooks as simple as schoolyard chants, all the better to be bellowed from the backseats of mini-vans across America. There are a few oddities, however.

The stylistic similarities are pretty undeniable, and not necessarily to Josiah's advantage--but the elder Wolf has enough of a distinct voice (and enough to say with it) that Why?'s fans will definitely want to give it a listen--and those who find Yoni a bit too dizzyingly cerebral might take more kindly to Josiah's sincerity and directness.

While some of Constellations lulls a bit, seven-minute suite "Steerage and the Lamp," a snow flurry of Lowe's rolling piano arpeggios accentuated by subtle strings, captures the classical wonderment of Balmorhea at its finest.

Freight Train, Alan Jackson’s 16th album, has none of the momentum of a locomotive but all of the reassuring sturdiness of a hulking piece of steel: this is music built for distance, not speed.

There are too many good moments, and Golightly is too talented a singer to dismiss this, but at the same time, this album just doesn't live up to her high standards, and she's done too much work far better than this for any fans to not feel a bit letdown by this release.

There's no arguing Putnam has a genuine talent for writing melodies and giving them shape in the studio, but he needs to add more colors to his palate if he expects people to come back to hear the same tale again and again.

Repeated listens bring a number of sounds to the surface--a hint of heartland twang, plenty of pop melodies, and an endearing messiness (evident in the half-sung, half-shouted background vocals)--but We Built a Fire is mostly concerned with mood, which it casts during the first minute of running time.

Even if this isn’t some of Francis’ most striking work, it continues the more personal vein of songwriting he began exploring after the Pixies.