Approach it as a slightly goofy one-off, and you won't be disappointed.

From a Compound Eye winds up standing apart from the pack of Pollard projects even if it doesn't stand that far apart.

For Screening Purposes is worth checking out for those who like their music prickly but with an undercurrent of pop to it, too.

This album is extraordinary. It is brave, difficult, and honest. It is utterly moving and beautiful. Because it so successfully marries all of her strengths as a songwriter, singer, and musician, Black Cadillac may be the crowning achievement of her career thus far.

A mature and workmanlike metal monster-piece.

Lights and Sounds' good songs are very good, and the album ends up being the band's most accomplished work yet.

A deeply satisfying hard rock record.

Film School isn't breathtakingly original, but it is well made.

What prevents the album from being on par with the likes of 21 & Over and Coast II Coast is that the MCs have slowed a little with age.

This is right up there with his best.

Generally good but occasionally uneven.

They are trying very hard to be a specific thing, realize that they can't quite take it all the way, and add the occasional coating of camp in order to look less silly.

Detrola is slightly more subdued than some of His Name Is Alive's previous albums, but it's still a reminder of how much their beautiful, strange, oddly moving music has been missed.

At 27 tracks, the whole affair could do with a sizable trimming, as much of the material tends to sound the same, but as far as collections go, Omnibus is the real deal, and a Decemberists' archivist's wet dream.

Another very interesting and beautiful album.

Morningwood still feels like calculated fluff, even if it's calculated fluff that's mildly fun.

We Are Scientists come off well in being both snide and playful. Finding that balance is what makes With Love and Squalor a solid debut.

The Strokes indulge their every whim, and the results are their weakest album yet.

It's the first time Adams has sounded completely worn out and spent, bereaved of either the craft or hucksterism at the core of his work.

One of her best studio albums.

Though he fits somewhere between R. Kelly and Ginuwine, Foxx has more than enough personality and talent to defend his music against accusations of opportunism.

If rap-metal were ever meant to evolve, See You on the Other Side is the record that does it.

While this makes for an album that's substantially more interesting and cohesive than the gaudy Speak, it doesn't necessarily mean that A Little More Personal (Raw) is a successful record, either.

Not so much a letdown as a comedown, One Way Ticket to Hell...and Back just shows that the giddy highs of Permission to Land aren't so easy to get the second time around.

Other artists may be bigger than Shakira while others may make more fully realized albums, but as of 2005, no other pop artist attempts as much and achieves as much as Shakira, as this often enthralling album proves.

This is endearing -- Hot Chip's sense of humor is as contagious as their knack for reinvention is obvious. But those traits can't make Coming on Strong sound any less unfinished or even tossed off at times.

System of a Down confound and irritate even as they rock.

The Mendoza Line have mined this kind of socio-political territory before, but never with so much fatalistic maturity.