Ultimately, while Lewis himself remains an enigma, the music on L'Amour offers us a fascinating glimpse of a long-forgotten Canadian pop auteur.

The resulting album has a fuller sound, though it's still distinctly intimate. Lyrically, Placeholder explores various relationships--good and bad--which is reflected in a musical demeanor that's both melancholy and sweet.

The performances are universally lively, often with dramatic shifts inside each piece.

Grim and exultant at once, this is low-profile hustling on wax at its finest.

Significant Changes is a superb album which balances a concern for the planet with a shameless urge to have fun, all representing a sincere, unconquerable love of life.

Since 2000, every record she's released has been at least as good as the one that preceded it, and this is no exception.

So overthink it if you must, or accept Burning Love's emphatic kick in the head for what it is and let your ears do the rest.

They're still blazingly idiosyncratic, but in taming the sprawling improvisations of the past, they've discovered their pop acumen.

There's no filler to be found on another accomplished and quietly haunted release from a group celebrating a decade together as a unit.

There's too much life and imagination in the Handsome Family's work to not find some sort of joy in it, and they're far too good at writing songs and working them up to not earn your admiration. If being bummed out allows someone to make an album as good as Hollow, maybe there's some upside to it after all.

Be isn't likely to be referred to by anyone as groundbreaking, but it's one of Common's best, and it's also one of the most tightly constructed albums of any form within recent memory.

For their third studio album...Megafaun dial back the more progressive elements of their sound in favor of a languid, Laurel Canyon-inspired foundation that treads the middle ground between Blitzen Trapper's experimental, neo-Southern rock romancing, and Will Oldham's post-Palace Music infatuation with American Beauty-era Grateful Dead.

The resulting Blue Water Road is undeniably lighter and less fraught than the singer's previous LP -- and not without grief and tension -- and also has a continuity justifying the decision to stay on a forward course.

Anyone expecting a courageous game changer will be disappointed by all the swaggering, sexual bragging, and irresponsible pimping the duo frontload onto the effort, but coming to terms with the overall weekend attitude is quick and easy, thanks to rock-solid hooks and Quik's production.

Though a couple cuts aren't as quick to stick to memory as the sweet and sour soul displayed throughout the stunning 2011 album, this less novel but engrossing sequel is another worthy addition to the Younge discography.

It's clear that Working Men's Club are talented and there are a couple songs here that work as singles, but in the future they need to discover their own sound and let go of their tight grip on the past, both distant and recent.

A career highlight filled with well-earned warmth, Night Network is exactly the kind of album the Cribs should be making as they near their 20th anniversary.

The band's confluence of rough-edged workingman's rock and unique melodic character was arguably never stronger than in 1970, and At the Royal Albert Hall offers a snapshot of just how strong that combination could be on-stage.

Much like the best of Eno's ambient work, Centralia is captivating without demanding attention, instead letting the listener wander into its web on their own.

A bit of a slow builder with an almost cinematic trajectory.

With this album, the Octopus Project sound as jubilant and ecstatic as peers like Deerhoof or Dirty Projectors and channel the same optimism and weird charm as the Flaming Lips, while pushing their own unique sound into warmer, more accessible places than expected.

["Sparrow" and "Stone"] are melancholy grace notes on an album that's otherwise strikingly open-hearted and resilient, proof that McBryde is broadening her horizons while deepening her core humanistic strengths as a writer and performer.

Voir Dire pushes the bounds of both Alchemist's old school warmth and Earl's heady verses, landing someplace new that neither would have gotten to on their own.

Less than three weeks into 2008 it's hard not to escape the feeling that with this disc we may already have the best album of the year.

It's an album that doesn't really need to peak, as it never promises a thing it can't back up, boldly and loudly.

In a word, Scandalous most certainly is; it's a party record that bleeds Saturday night into Sunday morning and beyond.

Given that the core members are composer Dustin O'Halloran and Stars of the Lid veteran Adam Wiltzie, it's little surprise that both those conventions, and how to work well beyond them, are within their grasp on this debut release.

The album plays like a greatest-hits collection, and since it doesn't seem to cater to a musical or emotional middle ground, it makes for a guilt-free pleasure.