It was obviously inspired by the live recordings of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and it blisters. Despite the single misstep, Live Rain is a worthy stopgap between studio recordings.

Forget the World plays more like a collection of 12"s than a well-tempered album.

If you're just looking for some furiously raw background music, Trash Talk will do just fine, but if you're hoping that the songs will hit as hard as the band does, No Peace is a real letdown.

New Eyes remains such a small, subtle, and soft record that by the end, it doesn't feel very daring or different.

This Machine Kills Artists is a worthy experiment, and a few tracks work rather well, but ultimately Osborne should aim for a more distinct game plan before he goes acoustic again.

Consider it the album before the album, and it plays out as interesting and often awesome, but put this next to his major works and it seems a bit off and quirky.

It doesn't take long to notice that the men of Camper Van Beethoven were having a lot more fun up north, while El Camino Real finds them playing with a technical skill that puts their early classics to shame but sounding curiously short on the joy and spontaneity that were once this band's trademark.

There are certainly some strong tracks here and it will be interesting to see how Mr. Little Jeans develops, but as a whole, Pocketknife is an uneven debut.

Their voices are strong and clean (maybe too clean) and the parts are played well enough, but when you remove the punk from pop-punk, the attitude goes with it and you'd better be sure that the material underneath is something of greater interest than these largely forgettable acoustic emo ramblings.

When the scale tips too heavily toward rhythm--as it does on "Booty" and "I Luh Ya Papi"--the productions don't do Lopez many favors, burying her in their thrum.

The album is refreshingly spare, especially in light of the lofty production work Schlarb got into previously. However, as nice as these low-key guitar wanderings are initially, the longer pieces drag on into aimlessness and never really reach for any resolution or greater narrative.

Musically, Charmer is a more polished and pop-oriented album than most of Tigers Jaw's previous work, but the core of their melodic style has changed little, and the moody urgency of the lyrics is as strong as ever.

Best to part it out and party, because if there's a blueprint for the vocal EDM album, A Town Called Paradise follows it too closely, spinning through all the usual breaks and drops without pausing to consider the full picture.

In My World is an argument that the drugs are getting better, and maybe even too good, but it proves that freaky hallucinations are hard to string together, and that the impish can be irksome when clever is pushed to its limit.

Ultimately, NoNoNo have a good feel for the past, but an even better feel for the present.

It boasts a refreshing and inclusive, old-fashioned '70s style prog-pop vibe.

After eight albums that synthesize post-rock, home-listening electronica, and dub, the trio otherwise aren't up for much of a shakeup in their approach. None of the remaining seven instrumentals is novel, but they're all enjoyable on some level, cunningly shaped as ever.

Such overwhelming softness means The Morning works best as mood music, setting the tone for either a lazy day in bed or a productive day at work, or any number of activities that take place during the hours of breaking dawn.

The story itself is compelling, but musically the album hovers somewhere between bland acoustic roots pop and overly earnest alt-rock.

At this stage, Body Count haven't changed much, and really aren't likely to, which means that if you were on board with their earlier work, then Manslaughter has even more rap-influenced metal to fuel your rage. However, if you weren't sold on these guys in the first place, this album isn't likely to change your mind.

Through several clumsier moments, it's evident Robinson's still getting the hang of making music that translates outside clubs and festivals. Going by what he has accomplished and what he aimed to achieve here, his development should be fascinating.

The Wytches show some genuine promise on Annabel Dream Reader, but they need to come up with a few more ideas of their own in addition to the many clear influences they draw from.

Five choice covers and five new originals that flirt with the fantastic, yet avoid an unnecessary trip down the rabbit hole.

He has highs, he has some lows, but spends most of his time somewhere in between--largely because he's doing it the same he always has.

Coming from the creative hotbed of modern-day Berlin, it seems like they could have pushed the envelope a bit more.

Given the atmospheric and diaphanous makeup of most of the tracks, along with titles such as "Casiopeia" and "Redshift," Whorl is more likely to enhance stargazing than to provoke movement.

Aiko can be maddeningly platitudinal and singsongy, but her one dimension is a specific balmy backdrop provided by no one else.

They want to be everything to everyone and, in attempting to do so, they've wound up with a record that appeals to a narrow audience: fellow travelers who either thrill at the spectacle or dig for the subtleties buried underneath the digital din.