Live at Shea rather remarkably captures the band conquering the soon-to-be-demolished stadium, turning the cold, sprawling space into a sweaty Brixton club.

His most accomplished song cycle to date.

Beautifully spacey and searingly brash all at once.

The band retains a certain backwoods spookiness, meaning songs like 'Many Funerals' and sci-fi lead single 'Invasion' keep their edge amidst a clutch of tunes ('Come Clean,' 'Ten Cent Blues') that resemble nothing so much as mid-period Fleetwood Mac.

Fans of Carlton's indelible white-chick anthem "A Thousand Miles," on the other hand, have plenty to be excited about, since Heroes presents another batch of appealingly wistful reflections on life and love.

The band stretches out in some new directions on the trance-y 'Washington Square' and incorporates psychedelic overtones into 'Insignificant' and 'Le Ballet d'Or.' 'You Can't Count on Me' sounds like the flip side of a Bruce Springsteen love song, and such tracks as '1492,' 'Cowboys' and 'Come Around' rock with sweeping dynamic energy.

This much more polished follow-up goes down smoother but still packs plenty of fire.

Some of its strongest work to date.

When this sixth CD opens with a cataclysm of "Transformers" noises, it signals a record that's a little more unapologetically electronic than their previous ones.

Burnett's settings are much more stripped-down than his work on Robert Plant & Alison Krauss' "Raising Sand" but no less precise: 'My All Time Doll,' one of the strongest cuts, Jeff Taylor's accordion shades the desperation in Costello's lyric with just the right amount of sarcasm.

A challenging, yet highly rewarding listen.

One by One, in all its thunderous angst and desperate expressions of hope, represents a full-on exploration of the Foos '70s influences.

An ambitious and artful set of songs.

The unlikely resurrection of the New York Dolls is solidified by this second recent album, an output that now matches in quantity and mirrors in quality their epic early-'70s sprint.

He's embodied literature's most popular archetype--the survivor--by transforming his woes into a reflective, enjoyable album.

Repeated spins also find this wonderful, soul-influenced collection to be one of slow, flowering appeal that ultimately ranks among the Glasgow septet's most rewarding efforts.

Despite undeniable similarities to other bands that arrived at this party earlier, this album lacks pretension and self-importance. [21 Jan 2006]

The roots-rock of Detours is old-school-sounding Crow now with a heightened consciousness of the world around her.

It's an intriguing, somewhat surprising collection of tunes. Oftentimes dub projects can be anchored in a recurrent groove, but Page has created a group of tracks that are quite distinctive.

The performances are so strong throughout that one can only pray this collaboration turns out to be more than a dalliance.

The 10 songs are all strong, and placed in an order that creates an emotional arc, like a real--what's that word again?--album.

Snoop Dogg's ninth album is perhaps his most progressive one to date.

Intimacy is the English dance-punk outfit's most urgent-sounding effort yet, and frontman Kele Okereke and his bandmates probably couldn't bear the thought of waiting two or three months for it to be heard.

Alone is quirky, but also an intriguing glimpse into one artist's creative process.

Without question, Stillmatic is the artist's most complete album since he debuted eight years ago with Illmatic.

Two bonus cuts, 'Till We Ain't Strangers Anymore' with Bon Jovi and 'When You Love Someone Like That' with Reba McEntire, are icing on an immensely satisfying collection.

Orton has a flair for penning languid, spacious songs whose forlorn characters seem as adrift as the music's fleeting acoustic guitar chords and absentminded piano tinkles.

A stormy and engrossing sonic stew.