[A] very wonderful, very adult set.

There hasn't been this entertaining or hard-rocking an Aerosmith album since who-knows-when.

It comes across as unnecessarily tame.

At 22 tracks, "Damita Jo" has its fair share of hits and misses.

While "Hives" isn't as easy to digest as previous Broken Social Scene outings, it still deserves many a spin.

Murs' command of his rhyme scheme -- and the uniformly banging, soul-drenched beats of his labelmates -- make this one of the most engaging hip-hop records of the young year, even at just over a half-hour.

While the production is good, the divergent styles and lack of cohesion add up to a somewhat schizophrenic offering.

A dreamy gem steeped in the tradition of '90s shoegazer rock.

A diverse and highly enjoyable ride.

A consistently moving, subtly beautiful experience.

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.