One long angelic hymn for an insane world with the intimacy of a friend playing guitar in your living room and the grandeur of Sigur Rós.

While the Rapture and to a lesser extent Radio 4 made off with all the headlines, !!! was making the best music of all the retro-punk-disco dancers.

Polished and tight in all the right places.

Whatever spaces the arrangements leave enable the imagination to play as much of a role as the instrumentation.

A simple, straight-ahead match of excellent MC with great producers.

Aside from a handful of real solid honest-to-gosh gems, the whole album feels a little too casual and off-the-cuff to stand on equal footing with her other recordings.

Another winning record.

Paper Monsters is a competent solo debut, and although it doesn't stray too far from the Depeche mold, Gahan does manage to put his own stamp on the songs.

It's the first album of hers that's a sheer pleasure to hear.

Like the best in commercial dance, Audio Bullys are excellent, distinctive producers, though their songwriting isn't in the same category.

It's not as poppy as some of his other albums, but it is more focused and appealing, and one of the stronger testaments to his ornery talents.

Creatively, My Private Nation, Train's third album, is the moment this band has worked for since it started making records.

Although listeners who found the first Broken Social Scene release a nice ambient pop treat may be put off by this one's all-over-the-map approach, it's certainly a much more accessible release overall and there's bound to be something in here that you'll enjoy.

The ladies of Northern State deliver funky breaks and tight grooves on Dying in Stereo, and keep the hip-hop flavor without being vulgar and crass.

What gives it some distinction is that there's a freshness to the music, largely dervied from its quick recording, a quality that has been lacking in his records for many years now, arguably since Big Daddy.

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

Unlike the Streets, Lafata spits everything with a straight face, making his slow-mo Baroque on "Break Or Be Broken" and hardcore pop finale "Let's Get It On" (which features a Peaches-like guest appearance by Sue Cie) into a kitschy farce worthy of his vanguard reputation.

The album is potentially valuable as a source for samples, but it fails as a listening experience.

Joan of Arc have once more surpassed themselves as artists.

Songs that have grown overly familiar through years of play seem fresh and new because of these vigorous, muscular performances.

Fans who have stayed with the band this long will probably find the album a breath of fresh air.

Hawley is a compelling mix of the pastoral beauty of English folk rockers like Nick Drake and the urban cool of balladeers like Scott Walker with a dash of the otherworldliness of Julee Cruise.

Yours, Mine & Ours is a truly grand record, another in the string of classic releases by Joe Pernice.... The kind of record fans of intelligent pop music played with real emotion should purchase. Immediately.

Those who connect with Staind will likely find this more consistently satisfying than Break the Cycle.

Electric Six's m.o. of inflating rock clichés to grotesque proportions, adding a dash of tongue-in-cheek pomposity, and then laughing at the results can generate more than just a great single. Granted, that single is still the reason to own Fire, but fans of that song probably won't feel burned by the rest of the album.

The most successful songs are those that either embrace their influences so fully that they become glorious reproductions or those that dispense with the idol worship altogether.

Though it's not quite as immediate as their excellent debut album, You've Seen Us...You Must've Seen Us, KaitO U.K.'s band red delivers more tightly coiled post-punk-pop with shouty vocals and elastic guitars, and also delves deeper into the group's experimental side.

The album's quirky appeal is reflective of Rooney's self-assuredness as musicians.