Maybe the record could have been improved by splitting up the opening duo of songs, maybe a less fussy production job could have done the trick.

Metamorphosis has a dire determination to its purported good times, its riffs grinding instead of greasy, its rhythms clenched where they should be loose.

Oldham's brand of folk music is certainly old enough and weird enough, but there are noticeably fewer moments of beauty and fewer lyrical revelations than on his best material.

His ability to pump out the music is admirable, now he just needs a filter to sift the crap from the gold. If he hones in on his vision, there's spectacular potential. Until then, we'll have to take the bad with the good or self-compile a "greatest-hits of Wavves 2008/2009" mix tape.

All the charm and fun to be found of "Looks" ends up being pulverized by this bland ambition, and Fist of God ends up being just a loud, inspiration-free, truly disappointing dance album that fails to capture ears or move feet.

If you are patient, there is more than enough here to hold your attention and take you on journeys through love, lust, tragedy, and longing and bring you home again.

The tone stays consistently buoyant, and a catchy chorus or a tasty guitar solo is never far away.

A fine, emotional and heartfelt effort from Marsalis, one of his best since "Requiem," it faithfully pays tribute to those late heroes like Alvin Batiste, Michael Brecker, Freddie Hubbard, Dewey Redman, Max Roach, Willie Turbinton, et. al., while also staying true to himself.

It took Seeland five years to issue Tomorrow Today, but it was time well spent--these unique and immediate songs build on the band's past but never feel restricted by it.

For those raised on dream pop bands and space rock songs, Some Sweet Relief sounds somewhat timeless, a 40-minute offering of neo-psych gospel that's more polished, more promising, and altogether stronger than most of the band's contemporaries.

At the end of the day, the best single word for describing Static Tensions is "unpredictable," and although this characteristic may demand a few more listens before the album's many amazing qualities can sink in properly, the ultimate payoff is very much worth the effort.

Enjoying Slipway Fires requires a suspension of disbelief, a conscious separation between the band's past and the somewhat ludicrous present.

It never seems like a collaboration, it seems like it was assembled by committee, discussed in boardrooms, farmed out to contract players and stitched together on computer.

This is a rare talent and while it's not perfect, largely due to those dreary Tedder tunes, much of All I Ever Wanted does justice to Clarkson's considerable skills.

It's just a solid album, and just another example of Boeckner and Perry's tingling creative chemistry.

Bare Bones is a remarkable work from one of the best artists in vocal jazz.

Ultimately, Love vs Money is Love/Hate's equal, stuffed with hooks, ceaselessly absorptive productions, and clever and often funny wordplay.

Taken as a whole, Not Without a Fight is a pleasant listen, mature in its outlook, and happily adolescent in its vigor.

Where experimentation with layered instruments enhanced the grandness of "Happy Hollow," here it's taken one step overboard with additional flute, clarinets, and violin arrangements added on top of the supplementary horn section, to the point of making this their lightest, earthiest release to date.

Repeated listens help to sort things out, though, and the subtle shadings of Grrr... do become more apparent the more you listen--in fact, the album is a perfect example of the old rock crit cliche "The Grower."

This kind of sophisticated indie pop and singer/songwriter territory is all her own, and (A)spera holds almost as much wisdom as it does hope.

Thank You Very Quickly is that rare thing in popular music as well as indie: that a band sticks it out long enough to find, among the various elements of its individuals, a real musical synthesis that creates a sound that is so much bigger than the sum of its parts.

is still the same Perkins who turned misery into moving music several years ago, but he's learned to dress up those sentiments in engaging Americana attire, a move that softens the blow but rarely cheapens the art.

Tim Hecker's elegantly inventive way around sound art moved into a full decade of released work with An Imaginary Country, one of his most serene and, from its striking start "100 Years Ago" forward, uplifting albums.

It's a weird blend of power-driven grunge and melancholy: a fever dream that sweats out weary sadcore as it primitively pounds out acid rock drudge.

One listen is enough to inform the listener that this is a group of very talented musicians who are quite capable of writing tight pop songs, but don't seem terribly interested--at this point in time anyway--in going that route.

Since the Riverboat Gamblers are regarded as one of the best live acts on the current punk scene, it seems curious that Underneath the Owl follows the strategy of sounding as little like a live performance as possible, and it neuters a band that knows how to get wild in the studio.

The second helping from Montreal's Bell Orchestre holds true to the Canadian instrumentalists' penchant for melodic/atonal slabs of cinematic chamber rock, but this time around they've reigned in the jerky, less-developed aspects of their work, allowing for a smooth, though still volatile blend of post-punk, classical crossover, and straight-up experimental rock.