The entire affair is more open, relaxed and loose than he's ever been on record, qualities that appear easily and readily during his live shows.

Young Magic transform their emulation into a transformation of a style that's like nothing else out there.

Most of the songs are littered with cosmic debris, but fortunately it's all relegated to the background so as not to interfere with the percolating pace.

The record is a stellar collection of power pop rock songs.

In terms of pure triumph, Port of Morrow provides its listeners with safe harbor regardless.

Sonik Kicks may prove his most intriguing effort yet, an album awash in psychedelic suggestion, cosmic noodling and swooping, soaring performances driven by fresh enthusiasm.

A furtive solo debut, Simone Felice provides the perfect setting for meditation and musing.

Guitar player Wymond Miles plumbs deeper, existential questions on this four-song EP.

Big Star was more than the sum of its parts, and as evidenced here, Chilton was only just beginning to mine his.

Musically Stew and Rodewald hit a new peak, deftly mixing the psychedelic pop that's TNP's usual stock-in-trade with the musical sophistication acquired from writing for Broadway.

This is a record of experimental sound, no more or less, and is arguably as important an element in Batoh's musical makeup as anything involving guitar chords. But that doesn't make Brain Pulse Music particularly compelling, especially not to anyone craving a helping of Ghost music.

Consider this music a salve for the soul--restful, resigned, pretty and pensive... and yet as fragile as it is fleeting.

The textures of this material will transport its listener in ways that few albums of its ilk have achieved in recent memory, implementing the hallowed harmonies embedded in the Sunday mornings of Coldwell's Catholic upbringing to a new level of impassioned cohesion.

Earle has proven that he can embrace the past, look forward to the future and find peace through his music.

Dispossession works as a whole, rather than a collection of songs.

There's not an obvious departure from their last few releases, but there doesn't need to be as the band has settled comfortably into their sound.

While Memoryhouse might be demographically marketed to the youngsters, there's something in the retro-alternative beauty of The Slideshow Effect that aging Gen-Xers raised on the golden age of college radio might appreciate a little more.

Andre Williams, ladies and gentlemen: one of the last living links to the heyday of dirty R&B, super-soul and first generation booty funk. And certainly one of the few left who still brings it like he means it, every time.

Their strongest collection by far.

There are hints of a potentially great band on Strange Land, just not enough to sustain a full length.

Contraband pushes Taylor's music forward, if by short, measured steps, and the qualities that make him the 21st century's classic bluesman keep his sound deep and true.

Vee Vee is a ballsy record, and hard to love.

With a sympathetic producer in Don Was, who worked with Ryder in the 1990s with his own Motor City band Was (Not Was), Ryder is able to make a late-career statement that stands tall alongside anything he's ever done.

The overall sound feels live, where Van's ear-splitting power chords might drop out briefly during a verse, only to return right when it's time to drive things home.

Most of the record finds organic urban grooves, frosts them with sweet pop-soul hooks and serves them up hot and fluffy.

Shimmering and ethereal, A Church That Fits Our Needs finds the band as ambitious as ever.

If this is his starting point, his future seems limitless.

He knows exactly how to build and sustain interest in a song, even the ones that don't hit you over the head with obvious hooks.