[It] ends up being some of Trans Am's most satisfying work yet.

It's like a Beach Boys album when it's calm and a Queen album when it's crunchy, but all filtered through what must be one hell of a record collection over at the Goreas-Lasek homestead.

Where Jackson occasionally seemed as if they were in a rush to jam as many styles into their sound as possible, Cunniff digs deeper into her idiosyncrasies, creating music that feels unhurried and flows easily.

Or Give Me Death is fun yet serious, cheerful yet depressing, simple yet intricate.

A magnificent set, awash in textures, atmospheres, moods, and emotion.

Four years in the making, Can Cladders could have come off the presses as an indulgent, overwrought opus. Instead, it simply (but oh-so-craftily) distilled a career's worth of creative tangents into one solid, focused effort that, if you're observant enough, holds its own amongst the likes of the Llamas' comparative "elite."

Perkins avoids reveling in depression and instead follows the route that other singer/songwriters like Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, and Bob Dylan have put down before him, telling detail-driven stories of people and life.

This album is the prescription for anyone who thinks rock has imploded or has nothing new to offer.

The album is just so uniform in its beauty that tracks simply blend into one another.

West is flawless; it is actually destined to become a classic.

Tones of Town cements Field Music's place as one of the best pop bands of any kind operating in 2007.

He's already a masterful player in his own right and he has his ear cocked toward the future, not only the past.

A crisply recorded set of bouncing rockers, sweetly strummed ballads and vaguely trippy mid-tempo tracks that are full of hooks, melodies and goofy fun.

This album isn't as brash or immediate as the band's earlier work, but its gradual move from alienation to connection and hope is just as bold as Silent Alarm, and possibly even more resonant.

It lays down incontrovertible proof that Sondre Lerche can make a convincing and exciting straight-ahead modern rock record.

For a band that was once so self-assured and able to utilize its talents so compellingly, the album is regrettably haphazard.

If anything, this is the most satisfying offering from Sykes and her band yet.

Children Running Through is Patty Griffin's masterpiece thus far.

This is the least polished and crafted recording of Rickie Lee Jones' career, and it stands alone in her catalog. It's a ragged kid in ripped blue jeans singing her heart out to you without drama or falsity. How can it be anything less than a masterpiece?

Highly recommended.

Writer's Block is the work of a band at the absolute peak of its writing and performing skill.

It does signal a turn toward a more thoughtful, artistically ambitious sound than before, not just maintaining the Scottish neo-prog quartet's penchant for forward movement but catapulting them out of minor-league status.

Enough of Alright, Still works -- as pure pop and on the meta level Allen aims for -- to make the album a fun, summery fling, and maybe more.

There's definitely an unfinished and tentative feel here.

Its ragged, unfinished nature illustrates that she's more interested in pursuing her art than recycling Come Away with Me, and if this third album isn't as satisfying as that debut, it nevertheless is a welcome transitional effort that proves her artistic heart is in the right place.

Youth Group's poignant and thought-provoking lyrics and storytelling style have pushed the group into the emo bag, but with their incandescent music, they're far too glittering to be left with that label for long.

RoadKillOvercoat will certainly win him some fans who have previously avoided hip-hop, but for those same reasons, it might also cost him some, too.

Bracken makes thoughtful, reflective music, like Brian Eno, or even fellow anticon labelmates Alias or cLOUDDEAD.