Unfortunately, their third album Fragments of Freedom scraps most of their signature sound for half-baked experiments in R&B, acid jazz, and hip-hop.

Many of the songs sound like they're just on the verge of achieving liftoff, never quite reaching their potential.

Granted, Nelly's rapping here is more restrained and insubstantial than ever, but when you have a cast of collaborators like this, the actual rapping is beside the point -- these are fun songs, plain and simple, and wonderfully catchy to boot.

This is much more melodic and poppy than most dance fodder sharing similar beats...

Cryptomnesia is a tough, rugged, and wildly ambitious set of far-reaching--sometimes overly so--compositions reflecting the rapid growth of one of the new century's most genuinely talented and visionary musicians.

The result is a muddled album that gets even farther away from Hot Hot Heat's former glory even as it tries to recapture it.

While a few tracks sound too similar to each other, How Does It Feel's best moments deliver pop accessibility without sacrificing any of MS MR's identity.

Her flow is rock-solid but nimble and complex and apparently effortless despite the weird and shifting beats.

Before I Self Destruct is still a fantastic juggernaut of a 50 album if you exit early, and a very good one even if you don't.

Ibifornia comes with enough funk and cool from guest vocalist Cat Power that it could be the spiritual sequel to the Tom Tom Club's debut album, plus all the faux exotica, busy soundscapes, and chugging basslines suggest the Swiss duo Yello.

Success has always been Jones' revenge, and while his ringleader ways allow this autobiographical album to sometimes go wildly off concept, it's clearly his most inspired set of songs to date.

Sitting through the entirety of The Last Slimeto is bound to be an exhausting experience to anyone but YoungBoy's many devout fans, but even if it seems to function more as a playlist than an album, it's definitely not monotonous, and the rapper's dedication to the game is unquestioned.

Oskar Tennis Champion would surely please most Momus fans, though it does not match up to his best albums.

Built From Scratch is a sharp ode to old school hip-hop that focuses on the roll of the turntable rather than the vocals of an MC.

There's just no getting around how much stronger Sparta are than so many of their peers.

Emotive falls flat and fails to raise the bar set so high by the quality of their previous two releases.

Harking back to the glory days of late-'80s acid-house, it's heavy on dark club jams that work around a simplistic sample with diva theatrics and rapper freestyles. As such, most of these tracks work much better on the dancefloor than the living room.

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.

The Dream isn't just produced well but also programmed well, only slowing down after 73 minutes to a gradual halt on the dreamy underwater backbeats of 'Codes' and the beatless closer 'Orbisonia.'

Her Loss is scattered, flowing more like a mixtape than a well-designed album, but there are plenty of highlights to balance out the less fully formed inclusions.

London is far more charming when he's given some space and sings, as he does very sweetly in the chorus of "Why Even Try," featuring Tegan & Sara's Sara Quin. Those moments are scant.

For now, this album is a very bland, quite anonymous-sounding disappointment.

While one can always sense the pain and joy in the mere sound of Stone's voice, some of the songs' lines provoke head scratching rather than knowing nods. Through deep, repeated listening, the album increasingly resembles ragtag emoting. Heard passively, it's all pleasant summertime listening.

Of Montreal grow less accessible with Paralytic Stalks, but it's respectable how unconcerned Barnes seems with anything besides staying true to his freakily fractured vision.

There's a cohesiveness issue that keeps this one off their top shelf, but Erasure have settled nicely into that groove that the best veteran bands often do.

All told, the number of memorable hooks on display here is surprising.

In Your Dreams winds up capturing the essence of Stevie Nicks, which -- as her previous three decades of solo albums prove -- is no easy feat.

The arrangements are much tighter than ever and cover up whatever lyrical deficiencies the charismatic, freewheeling attitude of the band doesn't.