A collection of nourishing soundscapes, all of which are just as jagged and defiant as El-P's hip-hop work.

Another gripping CD of thunder and grace.

The stylistic seesaw between hyperactivity and placidity is almost too much to bear -- and will surely frighten the pets -- but that may be the point.

Quick, breezy and fun.

It is wonderfully all over the musical map.

A gigantic step backward.

Given Lamb's heady back catalogue, some may dismiss this album as digestible trip-pop free of synthetic intricacies and sonic meanderings.... [But] it's the first to harness 100% of their talent as a band.

Emotion and soul run deep throughout (thanks to Staton's raw vocals), with each track an honest revelation.

Feels sweeter and breezier than the Girls' previous few releases, and the record is stronger for it.

Try as the trio might to inform its '80s pastiche with an extra degree of menace, the disc ends up sounding like the same old Trans Am: part Rush, part "Miami Vice" soundtrack and part pranksters just taking the piss.

The type of minimalism employed by Xiu Xiu creates masterpieces of avant-garde restraint that truly haunt the mind.

"Spirit Stereo Frequency" unburies the dark side of this wistfulness by scrambling it with deep bouts of psychedelia and ghostly falsetto croons. The result is a debut that captures the vicissitudes of the past with greater authenticity and interesting sonic flair.

"Lucky" kicks off the proceedings; it's a buoyant, blistering winner of a song. Unfortunately, the track is also one of the disc's few high points.

The set is best taken as a hardcore thrash scrapbook that immortalizes how Grohl spent some of his downtime from Foo Fighters: It has captured the memory and fierce emotion instead of being concerned with structure.

The sexy, solid set is glued together by danceable beats and Minogue's knack for picking great songs and producers.

Longtime fans will find plenty to cherish on this very atmospheric and tuneful sortie.

Ghost sounds so together that even its nods to jazz fusion and prog rock sound utterly convincing.

Yet where the music is hard-hitting, the hoarse, almost drunken vocal style of lead singer Hamilton Leithauser can be grating.

"Me First" is an easy listen, but Sennett is not nearly as captivating a leader as Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis, and the coming-of-age tunes aren't always strong enough to account for the album's lack of tempo change.

Chesney shows development here as a writer, and past success ensures him top-shelf material.

Different from the touching--but too sleepy--"America Town," "Battle" impressively tackles new territory.

Beyond unnecessary remixes, there are joyous discoveries to be had here.

While by no means disastrous musically, it's a pale imitation of much better Stereolab albums, and in the end altogether dispensable.

This stellar, adventurous album just may be the best thing they've attempted since 1989's "The Mekons Rock'n'Roll."

The Special Goodness' has crafted a dozen punk and pop-influenced songs that the modern rock hoi polloi will have a hard time leaving alone.

Another pleasant helping of sweet headphone pop.

Characterized by production rawness--for better (the immediacy of the performance) and worse (traces of off-key harmonies).

Adventurous listeners are in for a treat.

Too many tracks get bogged down with a straight-ahead progressive trance formula, where zoning out feels more suitable than attempting to move your feet. Still, because the good stuff is so darn good (and it is), it is easy to brush aside any missteps.

And while it is a bit less corrugated than some of its early work, it packs a bite that's far more venomous than any of the sound-alikes that continue to nip at Plaid's heels.

"Per Second..." finds Wheat in the midst of an identity crisis, attempting to balance largely superb songs with an exasperating presentation.

Garage rock at its finest, messiest and most welcomingly insignificant.

Yet, for all of its strengths, the monumentally somber "Cedars" does suffer from a few ill-conceived pieces, like the needless, patience-trying "It's All too Much" and the abstractly rhythmic "Treat Yourself With Kindness."

Free from the noodling of past producers like Jim O'Rourke and John McEntire, who brought some great ideas but also a certain degree of fussiness, Stereolab sounds looser and lighter than it has in some time.

Retaining the naked simplicity of 2000's "We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes" while continuing to hone the more lush, hi-fi sound found on 2001's "The Photo Album," the fantastic "Transatlanticism" is full of the lovely melancholy for which Death Cab is known.

"Sheath" sounds immediately of a piece with LFO's earlier work, albeit rife with updated technology and boasting slightly broader ambitions.

More consistent and enjoyable than its predecessor.

His delivery is intoxicatingly smooth, even if his lyrics travel all the usual exhausted topics.

An album that would have been great in 1983; now, it is more of a nostalgic lark.

Sparxxx proves he's upgraded his whip-quick flow.

From the ugly album art to the stupid title to the strange, messy songs, it's hard to tell if the band is growing up or just goofing off.

Populated with high, lonesome soundscapes that condense the Americana epics of last year's "Black Letter Days" into concentrated studies of tears-in-the-whiskey depression.

Between the pounding pianos and the non-stop wave of arena-ready power chords and driving drums, most of "The Wolf" sets a new standard for fist-pumping anthems.

"Light" is considerably harder-edged and less accessible than the poppier tunes of their fellow Canucks, incorporating bits of soul, blues, punk, noise and even avant-jazz, in dizzyingly fresh ways.

Grohl's furious playing fits perfectly with the wall of rage erected by Joke vocalist Jaz Coleman and fellow founders Geordie Walker on guitar and Youth on bass.

A diverse collection of intricately composed pop music, in the broadest sense of the genre.

The band too rarely steps out of its dream pop mode to actually move the listener.

At over an hour, "Decoration Day" does feel a little unwieldy. But for better or worse, there's simply not a single song here that wouldn't be missed.

The group encapsulates the Atlantic seacoast just as 1980s twangers the dBs embodied the South and the Beach Boys captured California.

This is a surprisingly homogenous set of tunes, and on the whole, the album can make for a rather repetitive listen.

A duet record for the new millennium.

"People" boasts an uncommon beauty and originality, brimming with tunes that glimmer with pure magic.

Power pop just doesn't get any more powerful or poppy than this, with all three singers in fine form and the band -- all high-strung keyboards and frenetic drums -- blazing away at the speed of sound.

This is the stuff memorable summer days are made of.

Gore's reworkings sparkle with visceral emotion, aching vulnerability, and sublime intensity.

Unlike recent collections Music and Ray of Light, the lyrical content of American Life relies less on spiritual introspection and more on woman-in-the-mirror confrontation.

It's hard to find fault with such a well-crafted record, but one does wonder what would happen if the Jayhawks cranked up the amps a notch.

While the casual listener may tire of the repetitive synthiness of Anxiety Always, fans of the genre will dig the act's '80s-inflected tunes.

She is simply magnificent.

Sounds like something carved out of the earth, a soulful howl of Hendrixian guitars and Zeppelin stomp.

Never has the pair sounded more fresh and self-assured; nor has it delivered such a fully realized work before.

Sleeping With Ghosts is glorious; an unrepentant emotional exorcism that cohesively hurdles between the bleak and wounded, the exuberant and defiant.

Isn't so much a revelation as it is a ready-made crowd pleaser that delivers on the familiar.

"The Listener" is a low-key, early morning album, perhaps something Lou Reed would have created had he spent his career playing saloons in Tucson, Ariz.

Though this music could easily be viewed as Longwave's take on Interpol's take on Coldplay's take on Radiohead, it isn't that derivative or boring.

The songwriter's fondness of esoterica makes "Pig Lib" a trying listen; even the song titles can elicit an eye roll.

Seamless without being monotonous, "Buzzcocks" is punk rock for grownups, teenagers, and everyone in between, without pandering or becoming a caricature of itself.

It's a strange balancing act that Rutili and crew capably pull off, straddling the chasm between the straightforward and the self-consciously left of center.

The group has abruptly cashed in a good deal of its personality for an unflattering, generic modern-rock sound.

"Supper" is superior to the particularly subdued sound of its immediately predecessor, "Rain on Lens," landing closer to the Velvet Underground-inspired stomp of 1999's "Knock Knock."

Highly cerebral, the visceral kick hits on the third or fourth play.

Well-produced, albeit predictable.

Like a prize fighter coming into her own, Lil' Kim finally realizes her true potential on her third Atlantic effort.

A challenging, yet highly rewarding listen.

Street Dreams is a little too padded for its own good, and a handful of tracks suffer from all-too-familiar samples that have been used in recent hits by other artists.

While the album isn't nearly as compelling as Wilco's latest, it proves a thoroughly enjoyable listen nonetheless.

The group's live shows are the stuff of legend--perhaps that's why the act's debut album, #1, seems a bit disappointing without the corresponding over-the-top visuals.

Not only shares some textural similarities with Radiohead's "Kid A," but rivals it as an art-rock classic.

An album of uncommon intelligence.

With the roaring guitars and raucous attitude blaring from The Datsuns, it is tough not to crack a smile.

This is the throat-clutching Ministry that longtime fans have been waiting for: a grand mix of industrial rock and murder metal.

Like bourbon, his voice only gets more seductively potent with age.

A crowning achievement.

100th Window meanders along, emotion-less and soul-less—albeit with haunting Middle Eastern flourishes.

[The Bad Plus] aren't exactly reinventing jazz, but they are up to the task of aggressively disdaining genre conventions, in terms of upending arrangements, going with eclectic programming, and revamping their instruments' respective roles.

Much like KOC's albums, which tend to fade into the background as sonic wallpaper, the IKEA-sterile mood of "Unrest" does grow less distinctive by disc's end.

He just may be to indie rock what Springsteen was for rock'n'roll in 1973 -- a strong, original voice whose honest and painstakingly crafted art seems destined to be a benchmark for future generations as well as encouraging the current one to stand up and testify.

An essential experience for hardcore fans and those still not convinced of van Dyk's power.

Unfortunately, this disc's positives don't add up to a great album: Plenty of boilerplate g-funk thuggery serves as filler.

Boomslang is the album Marr fans have been waiting a lifetime for.

An ambitious and artful set of songs.

Overall, the album plays too stiffly for these experts of synth-hewn dance/pop.

While Zwan sometimes displays the anguished heart of the Pumpkins, the band also has a leaner, upbeat sound that is, at times, downright sweet and playful.

Often falters distressingly.

Looks at the Bird falls somewhere between chamber jazz and background music, a pleasant drift of different ideas that come in and out of focus like elements of a nice dream.

What makes Equilibrium special is the wonderfully atmospheric combination of Shipp's most minimalist playing and Jamal's glowing vibes; the rhythms, too, have a hypnotic sense of groove.

His most accomplished song cycle to date.

A stormy and engrossing sonic stew.