Like all Delgados records, it takes repeated drives along the city outskirts to sink in, but when it does there's no going back, and the listener is rewarded once again with something rich, happily overcast, and strangely intangible.

Morrison is challenging expectations and listeners by stretching his musical boundaries and defying people to come along for the ride through close listening.

A resounding success... She won't get the same press that Loretta Lynn got for her "comeback", but this may even be more impressive an accomplishment because it come out of nowhere.

At no point are they longwinded, and they keep the variations on their sound rolling throughout the closing track.

Couture, Couture, Couture is an uneven album, but it does tend to wear better than some other albums by '80s-inspired bands.

To the band's credit, the weaker songs aren't necessarily eating space for no reason -- their B-material here is more affecting than the average indie band's A-material. The problem is that, during those lesser moments, the band shows signs of attempting to cannibalize Turn on the Bright Lights' magnetic sulking, and their hearts don't seem to be as in it.

Knopfler fans and lovers of Chet Atkins, Gordon Lightfoot, and J.J. Cale, as well as late-night poker players and early risers with an acerbic streak, will find much to love here.

Infectious and hummable, to be sure, and a remarkably unified, irresistible piece of pop music, but no musical watershed on par with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or Wilson's masterpiece, Pet Sounds.

It misses a little more than it hits.

If you like your pop a little left of center and found the Postal Service to be too cute and syrupy, your fix is here.

An uneven but promising debut album that suggests that the group may still create something distinctive.

Jean Grae continues to improve in every respect, but the negative aspect is that too many of the beats bleed into one another.

Thoughtful production, meatier music, and broader scope makes City worth hearing.

While most would classify this record under "folktronica," Memphis don't attempt to strip down the clicks and plucks. Instead, they go for the big pop sound of Burt Bacharach and George Martin to make something almost as ambitious as hiring a real horn section.

It never feels as urgent as his prime work, but it's at once his most accomplished and visceral record as a veteran rocker.

In its musical muscle and sweeping, politically charged narrative, it's something of a masterpiece, and one of the few -- if not the only -- records of 2004 to convey what it feels like to live in the strange, bewildering America of the early 2000s.

K-Os doesn't necessarily pursue Rebellion's themes far enough. But give him a break -- it's only the cat's second album.

It's fitting that an album that truly deserves an expanded edition not only gets the deluxe edition it deserves, but one that makes a convincing argument that the sometimes ridiculous practice of expanded, multi-disc editions has a purpose after all.

Like its companion recording, Nino Rojo is about the shared delight of new encounters with music and language and is an adventure in the hearing.

They seem like a garden-variety hard rock band, one that would have been generic and forgettable in 1974, and one that is generic and forgettable in 2004.

Everybody Loves a Happy Ending will do little to convert those who winced at Orzabal and Smith's obtuse lyrics and over the top production the first time around, but loyal followers, fans of XTC's Apple Venus, Pt. 1, and lovers of intricately arranged and artfully executed pop music will find themselves delightfully consumed by this enigmatic group's final (?) chapter.

Like Richard Buckner, Zedek holds the amazing capacity to make the saddest stuff compelling, even heartening.

No one makes records that sound quite like this: a shambolic, atmospheric mixture of hushed tones, deadly distortion, tender poetry and rock and roll.

A really good record by a potentially great rock & roll band.

If you are unfamiliar with the band, there are at least six other records that should get your attention before this one; just the same, this is hardly a disposable piece of the band's puzzle.

[The songs are] all distinctly clubby and therefore get a little tiring after a while.

Hands down, In the World of Him is Timms' masterpiece.

Barely enough for five years of waiting and hardly up to the old standard.