The problem facing New Kids on the Block on their 2008 reunion The Block is the same one they had on their last album, 1994's "Face the Music": the quintet are no longer kids and don't quite know how to be adults.

Even if it falls a distant third out of the first three, the scattershot Recession is still a welcome and even risky step forward, one carried by its highlights and the newfound awareness that the cocaine grind isn't everything.

You keep wishing something would spread the information across a broader landscape so you can more readily take it all in. But then again, maybe the chemically enhanced listener will be better prepared to absorb all the color Shall Noise Upon enthusiastically radiates.

It doesn't take long for Separation to rescue itself from painfully serious, aggro-MTV mediocrity, as those two tracks are quickly followed up by the riveting 'A Fault Line, A Fault of Mine' and 'Emergency Broadcast: The End Is Near.'

The wisdom, humor, and literate, biting world view, is all balanced with the wisdom of tenderness, and a poetic sense of the heart's own aspirations and disappointments.

Andersson brings a real sense of songcraft to the project, and many of her melodies are appealingly ethereal.

Brotherhood's track listing could easily be quarreled with, but it includes most of the approved highlights from each album, early or old, innovative or orthodox.

There are a few additional moments of greatness, but also a few more tracks on the opposite side--they may make for great background listening, but seem to require altered states to get through while focusing on the music.

Ambitious as some of that may seem, Exit never feels like a show-off record--just a thoughtfully put-together one.

It's pleasant, even comforting, which makes Forth as pure a sequel as possible: it's an album that offers more of the same many years too late, which will be enough for the legions of faithful who have waited to hear all the old characters back together again, yet seems a little pointless for those who no longer remain quite so invested in the band.

The art never gets too over-indulgent and it never gets in the way of the songs.

Add the "Jam on It" sample producer Nottz lays on "Ya Heard," the sultry backing track Scott Storch designed for "Let Us Live," and a superstar guest list that's a mile long, and this scattershot album is easy to recommend despite its flaws.

In spots, it sags, and a couple tracks seem more like sketches than neatly bundled songs, yet it's one of the year's more entertaining and easily enjoyable R&B releases, fronted by someone who does not take herself all that seriously.

All Hope Is Gone as a whole winds up being as bleak and unforgiving as its title.

The crisp, unadorned production--courtesy of Matthew himself, who recorded and mixed this in his home studio--keeps the focus on his brilliant pop hooks, which shine brighter and cleaner here than they have in quite some time.

Power metal may not be the most inventive musical style on the planet, but Dragonforce are making it more exciting than most anyone else has for quite some time.

The Rocky Road is well worthy of being mentioned alongside classic albums by the Dubliners and Planxty, and that's as big a compliment as it could be paid.

The ex-Noise Ratchet founders shift to more rootsy territory with their new band, yielding impressive results.

Motorizer falls short of essential and isn't quite in a class with Motorhead's best late-'70s/early-'80s output, but this album is definitely respectable.

Alias has created his most welcoming and positive dream world on Resurgam, an album where the creaks comfort and the low cloud cover comes off as heavenly.

Even if King winds up returning to his familiar slick, star-studded sound somewhere down the line, having an album as earthily elegant as One Kind Favor in his canon provides a fitting coda for one of the great musical careers of the 20th century.

Cohesive, eclectic, expansive but never ponderous, Cream Cuts proves that Tussle don't have to do something radically different to craft music this exciting.

All of Never Never Love is a satisfying step forward for Pop Levi--a congruent collection of tunes that temper an enjoyable excess of rhetoric with a workman-like adherence to properly serving a hook.

For Fed, [Hayes] recruited everyone from veteran R&B arranger Tom Tom MMLXXXIV to jazz session drummer Morris Jennings to stalwart indie noisemaker Steve Albini to create a record as rich, complex, and ornate as the previous record was simple and spare.

Both youthful and novel--Li was twenty-one upon its release, which may explain both her occasional goofy vocal affectations and the hesitant freshness of her sound--it's hard to pigeonhole but refreshingly easy to enjoy.

Ra Ra Riot sound elated to have finally arrived at this point: the release of their debut, the payoff after a very tough year, and the proof that they're one of 2008's most promising newcomers.

Chemical Chords manages to be even more concisely charming than that album, sacrificing little of Stereolab's distinctive sound for its immediacy.

The musicianship is mature--a jangly, shifting cornucopia of guitar, bass, organs, and drums--but it is practically ignorable behind the caterwauling wail of Johnny Whitney, which takes precedence over all.