Maas has done what not many others in his class have managed to successfully pull off: making a truly decent, engaging record that is more than just 72 minutes of electronica generica trading on name recognition.

A feast of post-punk and seminal house.

The most honest-sounding collection of songs Westerberg has penned in years.

Daybreaker's more conventional nature puts a greater and more intriguing challenge on Orton's vocal cords to be the album's main instrument; that voice, a breathless cry that falls somewhere between Natalie Merchant and Bjork, is more than equal to the task.

While a little too dense in spots, NYC Ghosts & Flowers is 42 minutes of the most neatly executed pop noir you'll hear.

Unlike the band's earlier material, which echoed with thunderous volume, Leaves Turn Inside You is textural and sedate, combining the hazy urgency of Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation with the creativity of Yo La Tengo and the ethereality of Slowdive.

His rhymes often approach the immediacy of raw, street-level reportage, like CNN with a better soundtrack.

Lenny benefits from being Kravitz's most consistent album in years, if ever.

Semisonic's newest release, All About Chemistry, hits all the right pop spots, but will likely appeal to a very niche group -- the same group that embraced the easy, witty pop of bands such as Crowded House or Ben Folds Five.

Few bands can both rock and pine as well as Duritz and company.

Guitar-heads will automatically buy this, but it also deserves to reach any audiences excited by imaginative music working outside commercial boundaries.

Weaving fragmented elements of hip-hop, folk, and bossa nova, Whoa, Nelly! is one wildly entertaining multicultural jam.... Though her lyrics are a lot smarter than today's average pop offering, they do wear the more common clichés of hippy-chick wisdom a little too proudly at times. But that's OK: If she's got to get her cosmic ya-yas out, the first record's the place to do it.

Packed with classic R&B and making clever use of electronic/dance, blues, and rock, Everybody shies far from the bloated vocalizing and obvious production that have marked the genre of late, helping put the soul back into a previously moldering art form.

A more polished sonic effort than Dilated's 2000 debut, The Platform.

There are no real surprises on Figure 8, just the same gorgeous, soft vocals and acoustic guitar heard on his previous releases...

Yup, the angst and fury of 1997's Pinkerton is a thing of the past, as the band indulges in the kind of buzzing hooks and euphonic harmonies that made songs such as "Buddy Holly" and "Undone (The Sweater Song)" such huge hits.

A dark, methodical, and ultimately beautiful album.

Unlike most acts who tend to get over-hyped and fall far short of expectations, Norway's Röyksopp does not disappoint.

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

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.

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

Fans of both Parton and refreshing acoustic roots music should find the album unambiguously divine.

Spending the last decade releasing mediocre discs with great tracks surrounded by filler, Public Enemy returns with an album reminiscent of Fear of a Black Planet.

While Low turns to touches less subtle than before on Trust, the drape of ambient tension over gently ramping repetitions results in the band's most assertive album to date.

Not every moment of Revelling/Reckoning is a winner. But the record is probably DiFranco's first where all the tags -- staunch D.I.Y.-er, feminist, bisexual folk-punk -- and the baggage of her brutally personal songwriting play second fiddle to the songs found within.

The most alluring aspect of The Platform is the array of finely-crafted beats assembled by Evidence and DJ Premier protégé The Alchemist, which are in turn juggled and sliced at will by the hands of DJ Babu, the oft-forgotten man in the hip-hop equation.

May well be Donelly's definitive post-Belly work.

It's refreshing to see a high-profile album like this take a long-form risk and stand on the merits of intuition and musical construction alone.