Au Revoir Simone came back to show their contemporaries a thing or two about being a great synth pop band.

Outsides is yet another strange installment in Frusciante's unabashedly weird and sometimes uncomfortably naked evolution as a solo artist.

It's an ironic title for an album that's so sure, and even if his early fans frown as their dancing shoes collect dust, complaining about what doesn't happen on Lost seems silly when compared to the wonderful and intoxicating things that actually do.

Take Me to the Land of Hell delivers performances with the kind of weight--and lightness--that can only come from an artist entering her ninth decade.

In essence, the album is everything you could want, finding Mazzy Star older and wiser, but still as dreamy as ever.

This Is...Icona Pop is a consistently fun album, and it would be even without their big single.

Having grabbed their career by the horns with Mechanical Bull, it's clear that Kings of Leon aren't letting it get away from them anytime soon.

Nothing Was the Same doesn't show large amounts of growth, but the small changes to the sound and the slightly wider net his lyrics cast make it worthwhile.

There's a disarming emotional directness to The Bones of What You Believe that makes it a unique, fully realized take on a style that seemed close to being played out.

All People is about feeling good and hopeful. Split this collection of peace and sunshine down the middle for greatest effect.

While a few more songs on this level would have taken Hell Bent from good to great, the vibrancy Potty Mouth bring to angsty reflections like "Sleep Talk" and kiss-offs like "Shithead" (one of the few times the band actually sounds riot grrrl-ish) makes it the kind of album listeners can take to heart.

There aren't enough songs like "Recollection" and the very poppy "Room 14 (I'm Fine)" to counteract the moments of heaviness, though, and the album ends up being capsized by the sheer heaviness of the majority of the songs.

Young always seemed a shade too earnest on his earlier records so this unabashed embrace of country-pop--one that wasn't necessarily pushed on him, based on the six co-writes he has here, almost all of them among the poppier material--is at first a little startling but it winds up being the right direction for an artist whose greatest asset has always been his inherent likeability.

While it's no shock that the bandmembers had an album like this in them after all this time, Saves the Day's effervescence makes for a pleasant surprise, giving listeners a brief escape from their day into a world filled with poppy hooks and sparkling melody.

There is much that is admirable about The Diving Board--the feel is spacious and haunting, the ambition is commendable--but the emphasis on tone over song means it leaves only wistful wisps of melancholia behind with the actual songs seeming like faded, distant memories.

It's still a label sampler at heart, so a pre-love of platinum gangsta music and that slick Maybach sound are still advised.

Great things happen all over The Roaring 20s, an album where the cool kids become the smart kids while losing none of their baller status.

This album shows Wong at his most refined and compositional, maintaining the spontaneous spirit of his playing while delivering a final product more focused and satisfying than anything he's done before.

Rufus Wainwright's "Jimbo Jambo," an example of the jaunty exoticism of the age that might be a little troubling to modern listeners. On the whole, however, Boardwalk Empire, Vol. 2 is an expansive, entertaining soundtrack that captures just how thoroughly the show crafts its mood and atmospheres.

While some bands need that kind of safety net, these guys excel without it, making Dead Language an album that's sure to please fans of the band's live set.

As it is, Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-Blooey! works perfectly well both as a tribute to one of the most underrated musical styles ever, and as an album that's fun from beginning to end, Dirtbombs-style.

There may not be anything challenging here, but even though the lyrics are abstract ("Why don't you call the cops/Wild eyes, you don't have to be good") and the song titles can be misleading ("Harrison Ford"), at the core these are just love songs, and sometimes love is best kept uncomplicated.

In the end, it's an admirable and interesting effort where the highs offset the lows, but those with molly in hand and dancing shoes on feet should just cool their jets and get ready to sit a spell.

The way he mixes sounds, styles, and moods on the album is, like it was on To the Sea, a nice step in the right direction; the songs are typically strong; and the whole thing goes down as easily as ice-cold soda pop on a hot summer day.

Thematically, Múm return to contrasting innocence and danger.

The release is among the group's most accessible material, even if their tendency toward goth romance and arch fantasy are still very much intact.

It's not exactly alienating but Wise Up Ghost does require work from its audience, and the more you know--and the more you listen--the better it seems.

Appropriately titled, the album exudes warmth but occasionally sounds so relaxed that it seems to lack inspiration--more suited for a department store soundtrack than vacation listening.