It's unlikely to storm the charts like their first two records, especially since there aren't standout singles like on the earlier albums, but overall the record works better, perhaps their best album.

Where Director's Cut was a variation of different '70s film themes, Delirium Cordia is a score to Patton's own horror imagination.

A listening experience that is singular, startling, and soulful.

A surprisingly assured album.

A delicate, contemplative union of indie rock, country, and electronica.

Aerosmith sound reinvigorated, even liberated from the need to have a hit power ballad, and they tear through these 12 songs with an energy they seemed to lose sometime after Pump.

Inches is an ambitious concept, but the band's success with it is another example of Les Savy Fav's mix of intellect and volatility.

A heartfelt tribute that's among Clapton's most purely enjoyable albums.

The album's soft-focus allows Blonde Redhead to explore its relatively newfound romanticism more deeply than before... but with less tension between the fragile and harsh aspects of the band's sound, its soft-focus occasionally drifts into lack of focus.

The intricacy of the band's sound remain[s], but with less experimental desperation and considerably better ideas.

There's a sense of heady nostalgia here -- but one more deliberately adolescent and tender than the schlock-infested oldies radio station trends of most soundtracks of this ilk.

Phantom Power is a very good album (and, again, compared to many of SFA's peers in 2003, it is far ahead of the pack), but it does lack some of the things that made earlier Super Furry Animals so exhilarating -- the grit, the wild abandon, the absurdity, and the sheer unpredictability, where it was impossible to tell what would happen next.

This is the first SFA album not to progress from its predecessor, or offer the shock of the new, and that's hard not to miss -- but, if this is the first SFA record you hear, it'll likely intrigue, even dazzle, with its kaleidoscopic blend of pop, prog, punk, psych and electronica.

It marks a return to the sound and feel of Under the Pink and is her best album since then.

More gutsy, more aggressive, and more dynamic than B.R.M.C.

The Last Temptation isn't going to surprise anyone familiar with what Murder Inc. is all about, but their trademarked balance of the rough (Ja Rule) and smooth (Irv Gotti) has rarely sounded better than it does here.

The Wind feels less like a grand final statement of Warren Zevon's career than one last walk around the field, with the star nodding to his pals, offering a last look at what he does best, and quietly but firmly leaving listeners convinced that he exits the game with no shame and no regrets.

Whole New You may not contain a song that will spark sales and awards the way "Sunny Came Home" did, but anyone who, like the artist herself, has come to the safe harbor of family life (even with its many challenges) after a long, uncertain voyage through personal relationships and life experiences will appreciate Colvin's ruminations on the subject.

It's not that Have You Fed the Fish? is vastly inferior to Gough's debut so much as it's an unbalanced and ultimately frustrating album.

Terroir Blues is a significantly more ambitious and confident work from Farrar than Sebastopol, but it's also more elusive, and ultimately this is the sort of record fans will love, but the unfamiliar will have a hard time embracing.

This is a breath of cognac- and cigarette-scented air on an almost-dead pop scene.

Surely one of the rap game's most insightful voices.... The beats offer plenty of fresh surprises and the lyrics reflect DMX's increasing focus on introspection.

Packed with great songs and performances, it re-establishes Golightly as a beacon of grace and restraint in a world sadly bereft of both.

Those are the two things that Twice has in spades: soul and passion. Add to that a bunch of great songs, and you've got yourself a real keeper.

One of the best young producers going in electronic music.

A bakers' dozen of their most focused and cohesive songs. Where their earlier albums were eclectic to the point of being scattershot, this release manages to limit the band's style-switching to dreamy, sweeping epics like "Godless" and "Nietzsche"; sussed, sleazy power pop like "Horse Pills" and "Cool Scene"; and country and gospel ventures like "Country Leaver" and "The Gospel."

An impressive look at Malin's musical maturation.

It's a strong accomplishment, and if you were unlucky enough to have missed this intimate string of shows, it's a document that comes close to bringing the experience into your own home.