Listened to with an open mind, it's a refreshingly retro rock & roll album that uses its waste-oid imagination in capturing every fantasy that entered Bobby Gillespie's teenage mind.

It's Cursive at their finest, challenging and smart and absolutely riveting.

Idlewild is certainly a spectacle, and an occasionally entertaining and enlightening one at that, but it translates into an elaborate diversion when compared to what this duo has done in the past.

They make honest indie rock for those looking for a solid, good song. There's no frills, no fancy production, just the purity of these songs.

Future Crayon is a must for Broadcast obsessives and a good way for casual fans to explore some of the rougher edges of their music.

This ranks with the best work of one of America's most original musical visionaries.

[An] impressively diverse album.

With The Body, The Blood, The Machine the Thermals haven't made another thrilling noisy gem like More Parts Per Million, they've made an inspired and inspiring, semi-grown up indie rock record with more thought than thrills.

Post-War is not only Ward's best effort yet, it's one of the best records of the year.

A compelling and touching record.

Fans of Bachmann's gruff Neil Diamond-meets-Steve Earle vocals and lonesome and literate subject matter will find everything they love about the Carolina native on display, while those who prefer his vocal affectations surrounded by the din of a full band should stick with his group efforts.

Though it's disjointed, a little bumpy, and -- in places -- perceptibly unfinished-sounding, The Shining is a very worthy addition to Dilla's discography.

Paris makes no apologies for being mass-market pop, but everybody involved made sure that this was well-constructed mass-market pop.

What makes it less successful than 1999's Kaleidoscope and 2003's Tasty is that it's extremely choppy and excessively long, and it doesn't have the range of emotions to match the varied backdrops.

VanGaalen's a skilled musician, and compositionally the pieces are well-constructed, but there's nothing on the record that truly blows you away.

Outwardly it's a fun album, triumphant and full of majestic refrains and riffs... but there's still something in it,... that makes it somehow all very sad.

It's clear from the first notes of Trying to Never Catch Up that this is a band that knows what they're doing, and is pretty damn sure about it, too.

Maybe by the time their next album rolls around they will be able to tame their influences into a more coherent-sounding body of work that will more fully represent their abilities.

It may be all about style, it may be a little crass and self-centered, but it's also catchy, exciting, and unique.

For those listeners who pine for a world when Seven Mary Three received heavy rotation, this will satisfy, but anybody expecting the spark of Jane's Addiction or even a dose of Navarro's campy on-camera charm will be sorely disappointed.

Barat's music doesn't have the baggage associated with Doherty's brooding, poetic aspirations, but it doesn't quite have the same impact, either.

More often than not, Avatar is stunningly beautiful, even if the definition of that word needs to expand a bit to embrace it.

The downside of Reprieve is that it isn't as musically arresting as earlier albums like Out of Range, and DiFranco, on a song like "Millennium Theater," can be rather obvious.

As a whole, Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School is a lot to process at once, but untangling the mysteries of Friedberger's music feels like more fun than it has in a while.

You will be hard-pressed to keep from walking around all day grinning like a fish once you give the album an airing.

An anti-Christian/anti-Islam/anti-Theocratic, anti-war album, Christ Illusion is essential for anyone interested in the genre.

It's more of the same old, same old.

Against productions this diluted, Jurassic's top-notch rhymers -- Chali 2na, Soup, Akil -- fail to make any headway, usually spitting rhymes already familiar to listeners of their earlier work.