Get past the more pedestrian fare like "Yes/No" and "Return of the Berserker," and the full scope of the Futureheads' ambition reveals itself, particularly in the poppiest track, "Skip To The End."

For all of the music's surface catchiness, the writing is some of Moorer's deepest to date.

Busta has never sounded so mature.

It's a consistently intelligent and daring record, yet remains enormously listenable.

What could have been a curiosity is instead a hallmark in the catalog of each artist.

Free to Stay is loaded with complex harmonies and awesome distorted keyboard sounds (hey, this is what Quasi were supposed to sound like!).

The result is an energetic paean to the Cars' power-pop heritage, capturing the band's classic feel-good vibe with all cynical subtexts intact.

Hollywood producers and directors could learn a lot from this deceptively modest score.

On first listen, Taking the Long Way seems too somber--in need of a bit of levity and more than a couple of uptempo songs (like the sexy, '60s-flavored "I Like It") to resonate for the long haul. It also seems to lack the writing quality that Darrell Scott, Patty Griffin, and Bruce Robison brought to Home. But on repeated plays, those concerns dissipate.

Solid songs all, delivered with a muscular vocal conviction that does considerably more than merely sell them.

Like so many all-star bands before them, The Raconteurs could be one and done. But don't place the blame on this fertile and genuine debut.

On The True False Identity, Burnett substantiates his role as a composer and performer steeped in traditional American music.

There's a resonant bearing to the set as a whole.

A severe line-up change has left the Stills devoid of much of its original edge.

The darkest, most mysterious album of his career.

It's as if they peeled away a layer or two in order to reveal more of the pop band beneath the off-kilter country-rock trappings.

What's changed is that maturity has granted Jewel, now in her early 30s, greater perspective.

The band socks away the adventurous experimentation that dogged some of its most recent records to investigate a post-September 11, war-ravaged world overflowing with urgency and significance.

When Tool sounds as good as it does on ["Jambi" and "The Pot"] it's hard to get enough. Which makes it all the more baffling that a surprisingly large chunk of the disc is given over to mood-enhancing soundscapes like "Lost Keys" and "Vigniti Tres."

Each [song] is epic (and not in the bad Creed "arms-spread-on-the-mountaintop" way): packing in more drama, billowing guitar solos and stealth pop hooks than the Strokes' entire back catalog.

All the Roadrunning--while beautiful--seems somehow underwhelming, and without a true centerpiece.

All in all, this is a calmer Truckers set, less ragged and more polished.

Garcia and company wear their '80s influences proudly throughout, yet bring enough fresh ideas to the mix to avoid being mere slaves to precious retro-fashion.

By and large this is a delightful power-pop excursion.

Not as promising as 1999’s Lipstick Gamemight have indicated, but an aggressive, hard-rock effort nonetheless.

Positively radiant.

It's what Sigur Ros might sound like if they came from Arizona, and it's truly excellent.

More skilled than the debut, Lunatico is no sophomore slump, though hardcore house music fans may want to wait for remixes.

Keith occasionally appears to be stretching himself... but often seems to be coasting.

Coyne is a shrewd observer of human nature, and an even shrewder songwriter and this album stands as his greatest and most varied work yet.

Where this translates, then, is with those willing to man up and embrace what makes Pink Pink: her spellbinding ability to render rebelliousness in all the many colors of the rainbow.

Fabulous.

This is his best since [Supreme Clientele].

Add 3121 to the mounting pile of evidence: Prince is the black Beck.

It takes a few listens to sink in, but Everything is transcendent, shimmering, layered, and smartass emo-pop fully ready for stadium saturation.

Grand National's main skill lies in their ability to twin their fine songs to tight electronic productions, striking the perfect midpoint between live organics and cool digital sequencing.

Her uncanny, often eccentric lyrics have always been delivered with an inherent passion behind the impulse, but rarely have they approached the boldness of these dozen.

His most consistently compelling release in decades.

Pay the Devil reiterates Morrison's own musical diversity and flair for making any song his own.

Although this isn't the masterpiece that the self-titled Black Mountain disc was, it certainly gives devotees lots more music to listen to until their next disc comes around.

A moving, eloquent gift to Jackson's entire audience.

Despondent and furious by turns.

Reverberate[s] with the wistfulness and introspection that have forever been his trademark.

In drawing on the theatrical, macro-orchestrations reminiscent of Scott Walker and expanding on the slapdash, quirky, musical humor of the Red Krayola's Mayo Thompson, this album reaches another peak for Bejar and is one of Destroyer's best works yet.

You'd buy this album for the same reason you buy Robyn Hitchcock, for the observations, sardonic-ism, and sarcasm--not to mention Eef's singular, strained voice.

Both her most musically spare and artistically complex [album] to date.

Black Cadillac is darker than its predecessor, but with melodies often more complex and lyrics more stunningly poetic than anything its creator has conjured before, the album is more transforming than depressing, and exquisitely beautiful.

He continues to take chances and not all of them pay off.

Blige, never far from the thoughts of the lovelorn, didn't need a breakthrough, but anybody with an ear for artful confession will be glad she's given us The Breakthrough anyway.

Unpredictable actually gets rather predictable over the course of 15 songs, too many of which begin to meld into one another.

Its center becomes weighed down with bland mid-tempo numbers and the final song detracts from the powerhouse close the record might have had.

Has she grown up? Maybe not entirely yet, but Lohan is showing the promise of an honorable mainstream career.

Oral Fixation Vol. 2 finds Shakira reclaiming some of the bite she showcased on 1998's smashing Donde Estan Los Ladrones?

Their songs are infectious, silly and often weirdly beautiful.

Amarantine sounds like it was born in cloistered solitude, self-referentially echoing Enya albums past.

Sweaty, head-spinningly good dance music.

The amazing thing is not that there are still so many unreleased tunes in the solo Pollard/ GBV vaults, but how engaging this stuff is despite fidelity that at times is atrocious.

A fabulous collection of delirious, dizzy alt-pop.

This is music you listen to when drugs don't work anymore.

A record that is wholly satisfying: not too overwrought and never self-assuredly slick.

With Extraordinary Machine, she shatters already sky-high expectations.

Not so much a series of songs as it is a musical mood.

It's a stunning, confident piece of work that suggests the band is merely getting started.

Phair doesn't need her angry-girl persona to prove she has talent, but she may still need it to stand out from the crowd.

His most straightforward country music to date.

Wildflower moves Sheryl Crow one step closer to Hall of Fame status.

A solid, if not wholly overwhelming album.

Truly remarkable... Fans of Fela and the Ethiopiques discs will dig this, as will fans of the Notwist, Prefuse 73 and Aphex Twin.

The band is seeming lackluster and suffers from it.

The album isn't without its problems––come the halfway mark ("Sons of Plunder") vocalist David Draiman and his mates lapse into the expected, with a series of songs that are good but rarely as remarkable as those found in Act I.

A little more subdued than the songs on its firecracker debut, Make Out?, yes, but hardly lacking brains or bite.

The band parlays its tuneful edification into an experimental collage, bouncing between art school rock, guitar-heavy psychedelia and keyboard hippiedom, yet interconnected by lyrics that are both shrewd and satisfying.

While previous releases have found the pride of North Mississippi exploring various manifestations of their musical identity, on Electric Blue Watermelon they pull everything together and bring their artistic progression full circle.

Some of their best work in nearly two decades.

Late Registration can't replicate the novelty of last year's College Dropout, but otherwise, this is an impressively more mature and labored-over album.

The Outsider may be a cut below its predecessor, the artistic, critical, and commercial breakthrough that was Fate's Right Hand--perhaps the element of surprise is gone, perhaps the songs aren't quite as sharp, perhaps it's just not possible to catch lightning in a bottle twice in a row--but that was a tough act to follow, and this one's none too shabby.

Fans of albums such as 2001’s From Chaos and 2003’s promising Evolver will likely find Tread familiar and perhaps even comforting, but it’s unlikely to invite a new horde of fans as the album often sounds like an imitation of the bands 311 helped inspire in its decade-plus career.

The acoustic guitars have largely been set aside on Chapter V, leaving Staind to pummel away at its troubles and hoping that people still have time to listen to self-pitying grown men moan about their dysfunctional childhoods.

Even when he turns down the volume, he never tones down the creative intensity.

Why Should the Fire Die? is certainly the trio's boldest and most creative album, albeit one that might not appeal to their earliest fans.

For a woman who once used lyrics to shock listeners, there's nothing terribly shocking about this new CD.

Fortunately, producer Steve Lillywhite is on hand to clean things up, giving even the most bumbling lyrical experiments, such as "Wordplay" and "Geek in the Pink," at least the illusion of a newfound maturity.

If there's one thing the R&B phenomenon demonstrates on Grown & Sexy, is that growing up is sexy.

A few songs are experiments that should have stayed in the studio; "Left-Handed Dub" is dreadful and the remixes by Flowchart and Two Lone Swordsmen are a bit dated--too ‘90s-sounding. But that's still only one tenth of the album, the rest of which is a pleasure.

[The] consistent quality belies any notion of the extraneous.

Brit-leaning space-pop that switches rhythmic gears with pleasing regularity from dreamy to driving.

The time apart has made the Posies come back fiercer, louder and heavier.

Somewhere Down in Texas could have benefited from the addition of an irresistible rhythm tune or another example of the western swing that Strait embraced so fervently early in his career.

His richest and most consistently satisfying release since the late '80s.

The result is an CD that sounds like it's aspiring to be something far more ambitious: a DVD, a theatrical production, even a time machine.

Another Day on Earth is a more personal album from the ambient avatar, a recording of rare and meticulous maturity.

No one can breath breezy, sun-splashed melodies into three-minute fits of aggravation and despair quite like songwriting maestro Joe Pernice.

While the material seems to document the end of a relationship and the hope for romantic renewal, there's a freewheeling playfulness to the arrangements.

Out of Nothing is a truly exceptional album.

Not since the days of The Tom Tom Club, Bananarama, and "Lucky Star"-era Madonna, has dance-pop been this fun, this bouncy, this unabashedly optimistic.

Get Behind Me Satan is the strangest and least focused effort by these unlikely garage rock superstars to date. It's also their finest, an Exile on Main Street-ish mish-mash where the sum is greater than the parts.

Minimum-Maximum is essentially a greatest-hits album with an audience applauding and occasionally shouting.

Shakira's bleating, biting voice is in fine form, and it gives the material an electric urgency.