Wolf’s touch here is easy and assured, so it feels familiar upon the first spin but better upon repeats, when the songs truly take hold and the conversational nature of the performances settle in, revealing the warmth and skill beneath the surface.

Robyn Hitchcock doesn't really make bad albums, but he doesn't always make legitimately great ones; Propellor Time thankfully feels like one of the high-watermarks of his post-millennial body of work, and it's beautiful, essential listening.

This is still a Dr. Dog album and it's bound to put a smile on your face. These guys have a real knack for making classic-sounding rock & roll and Shame, Shame is the sound of a fine band really hitting its stride.

Woman + Country is somewhat of a grower--it's so purposefully hazy it seems to pleasingly fade into the slipstream upon the first play, but those repeated spins reveal the deep craft at the heart of Woman + Country, deep craft from both the songwriter, his producer, and musicians.

Sometimes it's enough to write really catchy and fun songs and play them with a minimum of fuss. Harlem has done that on Hippies, and for that, they deserve all kinds of praise.

Yeah, it's that stoney and weird, but it's also really, really good. Potentially their most accomplished work.

It's a comfortable and familiar fit that poses only one significant problem: nobody bothered to write any songs; they're just playing for the sake of playing.

For the most part, the cutesiness is kept just controlled enough to make the songs intriguing.

Per usual, the music is skewed and exhausting (in the best way imaginable) and the rhythmic interplay between bassist Jacob Long and drummer Damon Palermo is fantastic.

The record isn’t a complete knockout, but it’s a nice consolidation of the Dum Dum Girls sound to date and a fine starting point in what could be a nice string of noise pop records.

Freight Train, Alan Jackson’s 16th album, has none of the momentum of a locomotive but all of the reassuring sturdiness of a hulking piece of steel: this is music built for distance, not speed.

The sleek dancefloor track “So Many Girls,” one of a few songs in which Usher sounds dead in the eyes, going through the motions, desensitized by the bounty of women at his feet, is followed by the sarcastically titled “Guilty,” where he whines “I guess I’m guilty for wanting to be up in the club” — which warrants a response like “Yes, attached 31-year-old man, that’s correct.” A few songs before that is a quasi-redemptive ballad “Foolin’ Around”; he humbles himself, seems to take responsibility for his actions, then casually drops “Guess that’s just the man in me, blame it on celebrity.”

Return of the Ankh is a relief in that Badu does not attempt to trump herself with a set that is even more intense and powerful than its predecessor.

While the experiment with a more edgy, rock-oriented sound worked well for the British duo, singer/songwriters Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian are obviously most at home with their comfortable brand of melodic folk-inflected pop, and that is the sound that makes up most of the tracks on Outbursts.

There are too many good moments, and Golightly is too talented a singer to dismiss this, but at the same time, this album just doesn't live up to her high standards, and she's done too much work far better than this for any fans to not feel a bit letdown by this release.

Down the Way may be a bit long by 2010’s standards--there are 13 tracks here, none of which is particularly short--but the songs are solid throughout.

This is not an indispensable part of the Wu legacy, but it's a consistent, duly rugged, and satisfying one nonetheless.

There are occasional missteps, of course, with Becky Stark’s spoken interlude in “Cradle”--a spot-on vintage ballad that dissolves into pure camp--being the worst offender. But the vocals rarely disappoint, and vocals are Love to Live’s bread and butter, anyway.

Even if this isn’t some of Francis’ most striking work, it continues the more personal vein of songwriting he began exploring after the Pixies.

Where Vol. 1 presented shorter versions of singles from their earliest incarnation and shaped them into a seamless full-length, this set is different in approach and sound, though no less worthy. It covers a wider sonic scope and brings us up to 2009 in their evolution.

Starting with demo versions of "For Ex-Lovers Only" and "Throw Aggi Off the Bridge" that are enjoyably scraggly if not as overwhelming as the final takes. The remaining four consist of new recordings by the original band, though they're not new songs; instead, they're selections from their irregular live sets that were never formally recorded and released at the time. The production style makes it sound like they were recorded at the same time as the rest of the disc, making it a seamless treat.

Produced by the band itself, these songs help bridge the gap between Annuals’ two full-length albums, taking their wild eclecticism from "Be He Me" but keeping the melodies that anchored "Such Fun."

A comparable but slightly superior outing to E-40’s nightlife-oriented Revenue Retrievin’: Night Shift, which was released on the same date, Revenue Retrievin’: Day Shift finds the Bay veteran sticking more closely to his comfort zone and making songs about what he knows: the streets.

So once again, they're preaching--at top volume--to the converted. Which is fine, because they remain very, very good at what they do.

Archie Bronson Outfit might be testing their limits by taking so many stylistic risks on Coconut, but it all works surprisingly well for them; they never sound like they are pushing for the mainstream or losing their sense of individuality.

Like the previous album, Volume 2 would suffer under the weight of its own pastiche if it weren’t so darn endearing, filled as it is with call-and-response vocals, studio reverb, sweeping orchestrations, and other bygone tricks of the trade.

Many bands start to lose their way around the time of their third album, but on Two Thousand and Ten Injuries Love Is All sound better than ever and well-positioned to keep making smart, hooky, passionate records for a long time to come.

If the album seems somewhat slight, it’s purposefully so: Head First is a love letter to the frothy, fleeting, but very vital joys of pop music.