Deftones sticks a little too close to familiar territory this time around.

Harcourt experiments in more ways than one on this album, never overindulgent in the process.

The biggest problem with the record is that the eye is on the big picture - from how the songs fit together, to how the overall sound fits a song - that the individual moments aren't all that memorable, clearly lacking singles as forceful as those that fueled Throwing Copper and not quite as compelling as a whole as its predecessor, V.

It feels as if Manson now feels liberated from not being consistently in the spotlight, and his music has opened up as well.

If they can keep this sound and get back the hooks, they'd have something as good as their first two records, but, as it stands, this is their first stumble.

It's an album that kills with catchiness.

Decadent, theatrical, and magnetic, Alter falters only when the band's ambitions get the better of them, but the album's slight unevenness doesn't prevent it from being tremendously exciting.

As a whole, Politics of the Business never quite jells into the cohesive statement it wants to be.

The weightless drones and light filigrees are as mesmerizing and familiar as ever when folded into each other.

Other records from 2003 have been more innovative and certainly heavier, but Easy Listening is so golden, so upbeat and so perfectly right out of the Midwest's sleeper hotbed of rock that it simply sounds bigger than life.

While it's not quite the revelation that That's Not What I Heard was, Movement is still a dramatic album that shows that the Gossip is a powerful group continuing to define and redefine their music.

It's honest and raw in the sense that McCulloch is cool with where he's from and unconcerned with where he's headed.

The record offers something to nearly every audience that could approach it, with a bit of a groove for electronic fans, an obtuse sense of music-making for experimentalists, and a dreamy melodicism sure to endear it to indie-pop fans.

The Old Kit Bag is Richard Thompson's simplest and most unadorned album since Shoot Out the Lights, and while it isn't an immediate masterpiece like that album, it confirms that this man's work is best presented at its simplest, and the result is a modest triumph.

A record that practically demands a set of headphones to fully appreciate it; concentrated listening is the only way to reconcile the long passages of ambience with the bracing pop songs that often interrupt.

Electric Version is an enjoyable and easy listen, chock-full of hungry hooks and brimming with indie rock's classic humility.

If there were any doubters about Lamb being the brightest, most talented singer/producer combo in electronica, What Sound is all the argument needed to the contrary.

A set of electronica that's nearly as challenging as Autechre's relentlessly academic beat manipulation but just as funky and instantly gratifying as a Fatboy Slim flag-waver.

The Long Winters get happy on this one, and Roderick's vibrant, newfound confidence as a showman and songwriter allows the Long Winters' sound to finally gel.

While their artistic risk-taking is commendable, unfortunately the same can't always be said for the results: Black Cherry sounds unbalanced, swinging between delicate, deceptively icy ballads and heavier, dance-inspired numbers without finding much of a happy medium between them.

A sparkling sophomore effort, carefully designed to avoid any kind of critical slump.

The album almost sounds like an original cast recording of a musical -- the next best thing to being there, but not the same by a long shot.

Sure, it might be easier to accept if it was called a Damon Albarn solo album, but that's splitting hairs. A lousy album is a lousy album, no matter who gets credit.

Gore is almost too polite to these songs, but surely that can be forgiven when his love for them is so apparent.

While their beginning might have had many labeling Elliott as just another emo band, the growth and beauty in their albums continues to show their remarkable resiliency and evolution.

Ultimately, Fever to Tell might be slightly disappointing, but it delivers slightly more than an EP's worth of good to great songs, proving that even when they're uneven, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are still an exciting band.

Dynamic, taut, feisty and clever as ever, Send is this group's fourth-best album.

There's an innocence that's like slow dancing at twilight that sets Night On My Side apart from all the rest.