One of the most stunning and gorgeous records of this young decade.

Central Reservation finds Orton's unique, husky voice glowing within her assured, slowly simmering tunes. With her voice, which aches and yearns, caressing the ears like a worn, wool mitten on a winter day, Orton beguiles as a '90s natural woman.

Although they were written as early as 1996 and recorded in 1997-98, the songs on Old Ramon (like most Red House Painters material) have a timeless, dreamy quality to them that prevent them from sounding stale. An album this beautiful can never come too late.

Although it may appear frantic, Play is an eclectic and coherent work where Moby accesses an array of sounds from his milieu of influences.

It's great for kids and parents, because TMBG, like former Del Fuego Dan Zanes, are among the only children's musicians who recognize that real rock and roll has always been goofy and childlike.

The Hives seem to have approached Vicious with one aim in mind: to rock – hard -- for 27 minutes straight. Even more impressively, they actually pull it off.

The effect of the combination of all these elements is stunning and profound, and ranks among Waits' finest albums, albeit his most depressing by a long shot.

After fifteen years of continually blossoming brilliance, the Flaming Lips can count themselves among the most essential American bands in rock history.

Piled high with elegant strings, horns, and vibraphone, these 10 tracks mark a new sophistication for this talented group.

Isolation Drills may not match Bee Thousand's magical, mystical tone (not many records can), but it's as melodic and powerful as the best of GBV's vast catalog. It also firmly cements Pollard's reputation as one of rock's all-time greats...

The group studiously avoids the hackneyed synth-slabs that propelled their ascent up the hip-hop production ranks. In doing so they reveal an unforeseen musical sophistication, healthily cleansing themselves of all familiar bling-bling excesses, and reinventing themselves by delving into the realm of live instrumentation.

The arbiters of mellow have turned the fully realized indie pop of their last and most accessible effort, I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One, inside out, exposing a softer, fleshy side that's more akin to some of their earlier outings.

Rarely does a relative unknown come across with an album as fiercely confident and fully formed as this.

Unlike Odelay, the mix-and-match pastiche of Midnite Vultures doesn't show its seams.

His latest album manages to find a middle ground between mindless crowd-pleasing and progressive sound manipulation.... Unreasonable Behaviour is obviously Garnier's attempt to push the creative envelope, with entirely satisfying results.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?, features some of the finest bluegrass and old-school twang to be assembled in one place in recent memory. Put together by a team that includes production maestro T-Bone Burnett and singer Gillian Welch, O Brother is carefully -- almost encyclopedically -- compiled, with an emphasis on the sort of gospel-like, acoustic-and-harmony-reliant country once popularized by the Carter Family and other such groups.

Sharing with Marvin Gaye and D'Angelo the ability to sing in forceful anger while seducing you with sweet talk, this 22-year-old Philadelphia singer positions himself to become the next great soul man.

Indulging in various vices, imagining exotic locales, and pining after the bad boy, he is now more worldly and wise; it makes for a more textured -- if not as immediately winning -- album.

As a result of Bragg and Wilco's increasing ease with Guthrie's enormous legacy, this album sees both more experimentation and a stronger contemporary feeling than its predecessor.

Call it urban ethereal, grounded in gritty raps and coiled funk rhythms, bolstered by jazz keyboards, soaring vocals, and synthesizers.

An angular art-punk record that twitches as if in the throes of electroshock treatment.

But, despite the added highlights of obscure noise effects and spaced-out keyboards, you can't help but notice that the music seems, at times, to lose a bit of momentum on certain tracks, serving as merely a backdrop for Malkmus' spontaneous bursts of guitar improvisation and catchy hooks.

Ray at last gives full voice to her riot grrrl urges, and if the CD isn't exactly combustible, it does evoke the spirit of such Ray heroes as Husker Du and mid-period Replacements.

Both sober and celebratory, The Rising makes a strong case for the transcending power of rock and roll.

His music remains lively and contemporary even when he reworks traditional songs old enough to have their copyrights lapse into the public domain.

Secret South may be an even stronger work than its predecessor, 1998's exceptional Low Estate

Their playing is loaded with the confidence of established veterans.

One listen to Asleep in the Back's "Newborn" invokes a feeling of unmistakable contemplation and a sense of beauty entirely absent from the repertoires of the Oasis and Verves of Brit rock's last generation.