There are still some moments that show what Doughty is capable of, where he holds back on the production and instrumentation and lets his acoustic guitar chords and voice take over, like in the darker 'I Got the Drop on You,' which references his Soul Coughing days while still coming across as an original, but this is a rarity among the slick and silly tracks that make up the rest of Golden Delicious.

It is her warmest, most ambitious, searing, and gutsy record yet.

It is hard not to listen to Kula Shaker and their banal, blissfully insulated retro-rock and not be a little amazed that a band can get so many right elements so wrong.

The change does the Godfrey brother's music good, bringing it more in line with the Morcheeba name and the masterful good songs/good vibes combination that made their first two full-lengths so haunting.

Adding harmonies from Curtis Hall, Ron Lewis, and Jeff Montano helps to thicken the melody, and Grand Archives revolves around the strong singalong hooks that turn this debut into a soft rock record for the indie crowd.

There are a lot of bands playing indie pop in 2008, but very few do it as well as Headlights do on Some Racing, Some Stopping.

With Ghost Games, Apes have expanded their sound and pushed their brand of experimental art pop even further than before, making this one of their most exciting and enjoyable works to date.

Less busy instrumentally than P:ano, the band still deals out polyrhythms generously and peppers its tunes with a vast arsenal of instruments that include expansive lap steel, woodwinds, and string and horn sections.

59.59 is an astounding album, quite unlike anything one's ever heard before.

It may be only their first full-length, but Time:Line is a strong showing from both musicians, and promises what could be a very fruitful partnership.

DYLRM should be a mess, but the band has crafted a wintry, nuanced, and bold collection of epic songs that integrate the sweeping theatricality of Arcade Fire-era indie rock without all of the insularity.

The whining hasn't let up (see 'No Love' and 'Generation'), but the fun hasn't either. Credit the producers.

So while Free Somehow can't quite rival the energy of a Widespread show, it still offers something that those concerts cannot, making the album a worthwhile purchase for most dedicated fans.

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

Crow hasn't been this free or fine since "Sheryl Crow," but there is an emotional directness on Detours that makes this a progression, not a retreat.

So even when Lucky tries to turn down the glow, it still radiates with the oomph of a solid power pop release, making Nada Surf's fifth album a fine finale for a weekend well-spent.

Many of her fans will no doubt be delighted with this artful yet accessible return, and hopefully, those who embraced the younger, wackier, campy aspect of lang's persona will allow for the fact that there isn't anything close to that here.

No matter what instrument he's playing or what he's singing about, his music still feels the same, which is enough to satisfy his fans but not to win him many new ones.

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.

It's a consolidation of Mould's considerable strengths, an album that showcases his gifts as a writer and record-maker, one that touches upon almost every phase of his career, yet it's filtered through a maturity that feels vital because of its unadorned honesty.

It may be considerably more commercial than their first album, but Promises Promises is, crucially, also much, much better.

Where the group used to sound like a bulldozer demolishing rubble, now they're more like a snow plow gently shoving away a winter wonderland. It's still good, but isn't stoner rock supposed to sound destructive?

High-pitched coos gatecrash the song's chorus like they've just been kicked out of the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil," and a harmonized keyboard solo injects a bit of the Steve Miller Band into an otherwise minimalist, Southern-styled slow jam. Such unexpected moves seem to be a new thing for Collett, and they combine to make this his strongest solo effort yet.

Whatever the case may be, what's left is a record with some promise but too many flaws to be truly enjoyable.

Circular Sounds is altogether smoother than the musician's previous work, but it's far from slick, packed with enough grit (note the slightly off-key horns in 'Everything Begins') and solid songcraft to set itself apart from the retro-rock catalog.

Really though, just about any song could be singled out for praise. It's that strong of an album, strong enough to satisfy a desire for tattered glamour, for dramatic, inspired and powerful guitar rock that kind that only maybe the Bad Seeds at their best could once conjure up.

This should have been the album where the Mars Volta either wore the formula down to nothing or abruptly turned in a different direction, but instead the band created an album that nearly perfects what they've been working toward.

Fully realized debut albums like Vampire Weekend come along once in a great while, and these songs show that this band is smart, but not too smart for their own good.