It's hard to call an album this spirited and alive irrelevant.

The album is savvier still, crafted to evoke the spirit and feel of the Eagles' biggest hits.

These songs sound like they were written as she was fed chocolate-dipped strawberries while sprawled out on a bed cloaked with rose petals.

Crucially, all these nods to Blanche's influences end up enhancing the band's uniqueness; rooted equally in the traditional and more experimental sides of Americana, country, and rock, Little Amber Bottles expands what a Blanche album can be, and it's a joy to hear.

This is a very good Jay-Z album. He is, for the most part, doing what he has done before: what he does best.

Smoke never sounds dated or rehashed--instead, it's a fresh, consistently creative, and consistently listenable debut.

Winehouse's record has the feeling of being allowed to grow on its own--without being meddled with and fussed over.

As on their first two classic full-lengths, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo display excellent crowd control, pacing the record well, spacing the hits, and building the mood like the good crowd-pleasers they are.

These eight songs may not be able to be covered by anybody else, but they are wonderfully constructed, beautifully textured, and exquisitely played.

While not all of the remixes hit these heights, overall it's a fun set, and a good complement to the eclecticism of D-Sides' first disc.

With Intoxication, Shaggy has once again found that perfect balance of slick and streetwise, and added career-defining single number three as the cherry on top.

Carnival, Vol. 2 strives to give the immigration problem a face, turning those thousands of marchers seen on the news into a thousand personal stories of struggle and hope. It does so while pulsating with life and displaying an unabashed love of music that's rich, daring, and delightful.

So while the performance isn't perfect, particularly toward the end of the show (where, after two hours of performing swing tunes and jazz standards, Wainwright is understandably low on steam), it's still nice to hear the singer in his element, crooning about dinging trolleys and zinging heartstrings with flamboyancy that only he can muster.

Even with the amount of expectation-lowering context heavy on the mind, Free at Last sounds like a very strong follow-up.

Whether they love it or hate it. It is a departure from previous releases and it does focus on melody and guitars and strings, but it is also lush and well-crafted and smart and addictive.

She has been able to do what few others before her have: cater to her crossover audience without losing the essence of what she really is and where she came from, and so all of Growing Pains, from its upbeat beginning to its reflective, personal ending (though the last track, 'Come to Me [Peace]' is the only real miss on the entire album), doesn't seem forced or calculated.

If musical adventurousness and short attention spans are viewed as positive attributes, then these 13 short songs offer ample rewards.

Angels of Destruction! is an album that brims with joy, rage, and adventure, and deserves your attention.

Nimol's vocals are as beguiling as ever, Ethan Holtzman's Farfisa organ still swirls, Zac Holtzman's guitars still chime and chunk, and Paul Dreux Smith's drums clang happily along.

It's packed with stuff, but there's enough space here, and wonderfully warm atmospheres, to bring the listener right into the deeper sonic dimensions that Black Mountain is trying to create.

It isn't everyday one comes across an honest, and honestly surprising, set of love songs such as this.

Despite the ever-present irony, the songs never feel insincere and the record is inherently strong throughout, making it a solid start to their career.

They're still a quirky band, no doubt, but now they're using those quirks to make their most accomplished album to date.

Fans of the fuzzy, decadent and over-driven version of the Raveonettes can be happy that they have their band back; nastier, prettier and better than ever.

Nobody else sounds like Xiu Xiu, and they've made themselves even more singular on this album.

This is a significant improvement over "The Love Experience" in every respect--somehow displaying an increase in both modesty and ambition, as well as offering a more refined yet bolder set of material.

By the measure of pure sound, It Is Time for a Love Revolution is a glorious feast of retro-rock pleasures--a feast of empty calories, perhaps, but sometimes fast food is more irresistible than a five-course meal.

Protest the Hero is having fun with their creativity here, and Fortress is a better album for it.