An unexpected and welcome maturation.

And just like their studio LPs, this one works so well, not just because the tracks are so excellently produced, but because Underworld is so good at placing sympathetic tracks next to each other and creating effortless-sounding transitions.... excellent track selection (evenly distributed from all three LPs) and a winning performance let the band get nearly everything right on their first live album.

While they may have traded in some of their youthful punk rock spastic enthusiasm, they've replaced it with a world-wise wit and a smart approach to how a rock & roll record should be made in 2004.

Even the album's sparest moments feature Spoon's much-heralded knack with catchy melodies and hooks, even if songs such as "Don't Let It Get You Down" would be even more memorable with a slightly more fleshed-out approach.

The record boasts a huge, smooth production and is considerably more varied and accomplished than its predecessor.

So, it's essentially a harder-rocking version of the last album. But you know what? It doesn't matter because the band is at a peak.

With this diverse cast of characters, the web of collaboration and sonic diversity could spin off forever. But under Avanessian's watchful presence, the sonic palette remains in a key that will perpetually draw head-nodders in.

Those expecting another album where Keys sounds wise beyond her years will bound to be disappointed by The Diary of Alicia Keys, since her writing reveals her age in a way it never did on the debut.

Though Uh-Oh! wisely avoids overtly contemporary electronic styles in favor of exotica, lounge, bossa nova, soft rock, and analog synth tomfoolery, its 18 tracks are strangely amorphous, the aural equivalent of a lava lamp — equally kitschy and hypnotic.

She has unique phrasing and a huge voice that accents, dips, and slips, never overworking a song or trying to bring attention to itself via hollow acrobatics.

Their third timeless gem...

Free the Bees is all worth hearing, a lot more than once, and it could be the Album of the Year -- the only question is if that year is 2004 or 1968.

Arguably the band's most diverse set yet, and certainly their mellowest.... In the end, some may be disappointed by God Says No's all-around sense of restraint, but open-minded fans will have to acknowledge Wyndorf's courageous insistence on breaking new ground with his continually inspired songwriting.

The album's consistency easily outmatches even the highest watermarks of either predecessor.

Unlike The Juliet Letters, North never feels like an exercise, nor does it feel like Costello has something to prove.

This compressed feel, the precision of the band's playing and arrangements, and the way every song comes to an abrupt stop sometimes make the album sound too closed-off.

The result is a bit jarring, but there's a fervent originality at work here, despite all of the referencing of the halcyon past.

An utterly compelling, even riveting, selection of tunes that go from bright to opaque, to dark and back again by album's end.

Perhaps the most nuanced album in PJ Harvey's body of work, Uh Huh Her balances her bold and vulnerable moments, but remains vital.

The Deftones went soft, but in an impressive way, to twist around its signature punk thrash sound.

Their best record in years.

While Luke Steele's influences show through on all of Lovers' tracks, somehow the album avoids sounding totally derivative; instead, it just reveals Steele as a pop chameleon and an expert at pastiche.

This is a worthy return, qualitatively standing head and shoulders above most everything else in its class.

Sniffy electronica purism aside though, Cook remains, if not the best overall producer in the dance world, certainly in its top rank, with an excellent ear for infectious hooks, tight beats, and irresistible grooves. On advice from friends the Chemical Brothers, Cook recruited collaborators for the first time -- nu-soul diva Macy Gray, funk legend Bootsy Collins, fellow superstar DJ/producer Roger Sanchez -- and the two tracks with Gray, "Love Life" and "Demons," are arguably the highlights of the entire album.

The melodies on Alice are easily the most direct Waits has written since Blue Valentine, but are more elegant than even those found on Foreign Affairs or Black Rider.

Thematically, this work -- with its references to German cabarets and nostalgia -- echoes Waits' other Wilson collaborative project, Black Rider. Musically, however, Blood Money is a far more elegant, stylish, and nuanced work than the earlier recording.

On Believe, Disturbed takes the sort of jump that their heroes in Soundgarden and Pantera made after their respective breakthrough records.

Overall, the album leans more toward the melodic end of their oeuvre, but they have grown into this kinder, gentler mode organically, progressively working toward this groove little by little, album by album.