This cuts back significantly on winding jams, upping the ante with tight songs and performances, a clean muscular production, and a lack of vocal histrionics from Popper

Cycle is ultimately no more than 50 minutes of standard-issue desolation, but the softness of many of the tracks gives it compassion, something most of Staind's peers have no time for.

The album's consistency easily outmatches even the highest watermarks of either predecessor.

Flow demonstrates that industrial music remains potent and vital in the early 2000s, and that one of its greatest pioneers is still one of its greatest innovators.

As contrived and calculated as a Mariah Carey record, only without the joy.

The problem is that the songwriting has gotten a little mannered, a little undistinguished, and the performances, while sturdy, tend to be slightly flat.

Dilate proves that the members of Bardo Pond keep finding ways to reinvent their sound, surpassing themselves each time they do.

While there are come similarities to their previous efforts Bedside Drama and The Gay Parade, Coquelicot is more ambitious in its concept, arrangements, lyrics, and even artwork.

The thick textures, crazy drawl vocals, and grand flair of later Modest Mouse albums such as The Lonesome Crowded West and The Moon & Antarctica are not fully realized on Sad Sappy Sucker.

This is her sexiest-sounding record, thanks to Jam and Lewis' silky groove and her breathy delivery, two things that make the record palatable throughout too many spoken interludes and songs that just don't quite click.

When it works, this can be pretty invigorating, but when it doesn't, it's utterly maddening.

It might come off as too much of a mish-mash if not for the tongue-in-cheek glee with which Leroy pulls it off.

A unique, epic effort from one of the most inventive and dynamic rock bands in recent memory.

Bucks expectations and actually makes good on the indie rock promise of the band's full-length debut, 1998's overhyped albeit underwhelming I Become Small and Go.

With the gleaming, self-aware production as well as both Danny Vicious' embarrassing rapping and Elisabeth Troy's overly soulful vocals, it's clear that Cole wants respect at every turn. Despite the consequences.

At best, a rich man's Air. At worst, tedious, superfluous, hippy-dippy, overly ironic trash. Lemon Jelly .KY can be both, of course -- often at the same time...

The album's long-delayed release only makes its joyous sound that much more refreshing; its inviting mix of gentle and fuzzy guitars and Kozelek's empathetic vocals make it the Painters' most hopeful, accessible work.

Simply the finest effort yet from the Bad Seeds; one which leaves the listener in awe, full of complex emotions and pondering the fact that they've just been in the presence of great art...

Cole, at age 40, seems comfortable with himself and his career -- quirks, blemishes, and all -- and one would be hard pressed to find any of his U.K. '80s contemporaries making such a strong, winningly melodic album... if they're still making albums at all.

This self-produced major-label debut boldly plunders a reverb-and-white noise course previously trampled underfoot by long-gone British bands of the late '80s and early '90s (the Jesus & Mary Chain, the Verve, Ride, the Stone Roses, etc.).

Isolation Drills sounds like the real rock album GBV have always wanted to make...

Train is a classic rock wannabe band in the mold of Counting Crows.

Whole New You may not contain a song that will spark sales and awards the way "Sunny Came Home" did, but anyone who, like the artist herself, has come to the safe harbor of family life (even with its many challenges) after a long, uncertain voyage through personal relationships and life experiences will appreciate Colvin's ruminations on the subject.

Still, no matter how many of these admittedly incredible rhymes end up surfacing over time thanks to his mother's part-earnest, part-exploitative efforts, the bottom line is that 2Pac never finished these songs -- there are a few fully developed songs here worth marveling over, just not nearly enough to justify the album's double-disc length

Arguably the band's most diverse set yet, and certainly their mellowest.... In the end, some may be disappointed by God Says No's all-around sense of restraint, but open-minded fans will have to acknowledge Wyndorf's courageous insistence on breaking new ground with his continually inspired songwriting.

In a few cases, the songs rival or eclipse material on Sound of Water, but they probably weren't included because they didn't fit the general, easygoing flow of the immaculately sequenced album.

It's painful to hear such floundering work by a performer who listeners know can do better.

Woozy, trance-like, and sublime...