With those sharp synth lines, and an interesting sense of melody, the Killers have made a good album.

All in all, this is pretty good album and it is by no means horrible.

There's a nagging feeling that Life Coach is a sketchbook instead of an art exhibit, and feels a little insubstantial at times. The album hits more than it misses, though, and makes up for the fact that it doesn't really have too much new to say by trading in an impressive range of styles while managing a moody cohesiveness.

The fuzzed out riffage and ethereal interludes are in place, but Swoon lacks the diverse textures, clever lyrics, and emotional depth that the Pumpkins honed over a 10 year span. And this is as it should be.

Chthonic offer up an exceptional album that is worthy of praise and closer inspection.

Blue Lambency Downward is best played in the background of your day. When it becomes interesting (and it will many times), your ears will perk up and you’ll be impressed. For the slow and boring intervals in between, feel free to focus on something else.

The fluidity of the music allows for interpretive wiggle room. New Universe sounds like a great, sun-slowed summer album, but I can also see it playing into the feel of other seasons, making for a subdued autumn album or a twinkling winter album.

Last Light is a compelling expression of compassion, frustration, and love in a variety of forms.

Where The Messengers Meet might be the best MSHVB can do with their current MO, it's a remarkably compact album of emotionally-swollen, disillusioned folk rock -but you get the feeling that the band might be on the precipice of something much more titanic.

An original and exquisite album full of playful and energetic indie-rock that, while retaining some of the same qualities as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, is also a step in a new direction that suits the band fine.

Emoh is one of the first surprisingly great albums of 2005.

There’s so much going on here that you have to listen close. And still, it’s a fun album, catchy and wild and full of exuberance.

The band's most eminently danceable record, featuring enough grooves to work your dance party while still retaining enough good ideas to deliver a challenging experimental record that fits well with the rest of the band's catalogue and points to exciting new directions the future could take.

Ultimately, the peaks and troughs of Grinderman 2 RMX come from magnifying both the good and the so-so qualities of the original source material and from finding the most imaginative or laziest ways to refashion them.

It’s a tight, very good album and although it’ll have its unfair share of detractors, like the rest of the band’s albums, it will shine no matter what.

All Delighted People is very succinctly, a superb masterwork from a musical genius--with plenty more greatness to come.

Too much of the edge is gone, too much emphasis is placed on guitar solos, and the guitars sound, at times, rather flat and listless.

Whilst it has a few unconcealed flaws here and there, that a tighter trimmer tracklist might have edited-out, Say Yes! is a robust, well-rounded and re-signposting listen; which should reward completionists looking for choice off-cuts from their favourite featured artists, remind us to revisit the original source material and hold-up to plenty of standalone spinning.

The music itself isn’t quite as bad as the singing, but it still lacks the sincerity needed to keep Sun, Sun, Sun from sounding like a collection of Eagles’ outtakes.

It's not so much "old sad bastard music," as Barry described it--more like charmingly puerile lullabies.

All of the pop-coated rock that was immediately catchy, aggressive, melodic, seductive, melancholic, and driven from those two albums [Garbage and Version 2.0] can be found here – from the ramped up, unrelenting beats to the bright electronics and propulsive guitar lines, to Shirley's changeable, ever-engaging vocals.

Laswell and company have crafted something deeply personal and profound, and it's destined to be a milestone in his career.

Time to Die reveals a band that is continuing to grow with scintillating results. Luckily for us, no one’s sitting in the backseat here.

Incumbent crescendos and contemplative guitar interludes notwithstanding, Mono has chosen to cloak itself in the inescapable fog of its forefathers and influences rather than transcend the sum of its parts.

If well-crafted folk-pop leaves you feeling lukewarm, by all means join the naysayers; otherwise, I'll be on the side of those dancing and singing along.

As a release for anyone else, this would be a well received and respected release. But for Ben Folds, whose first two solo outings were both phenomenal, he simply hasn’t lived up to expectations.

Xenophanes might be the most concise statement Rodriguez Lopez has ever made (11 tracks in 45 minutes), and its tidiness is evident from the (mostly) taut song structures, urgent pacing, shortened solos, and singable melodies.

[The album’s final track is] a satisfying conclusion to the band’s best album since 2000’s Black Market Music.

Calla's sound continues to evolve as they explore divergent musical avenues within the context of potent, atmospheric alt-rock.

Ultimately, for a more cohesive and less exhausting listen, the most accessible parts of Dead could have been crunched-down into a more easily-digestible mini-album.

Whatever the circumstances have been in Lana's rise to fame, all that doesn't detract from the captivating quality of the songs on Born To Die.

The Thrills still have more musical verve than many other second-album victims, but too much of this album seems as if The Thrills have wearied of their own sunny musical dispositions.

[Its] strongest songs more than compensate for the few lapses in songwriting found elsewhere.

While Sydney Vermont's shaky, unusual voice might rub some the wrong way, I found it to be awkwardly beautiful - much like the rest of Hello, Blue Roses' debut album.

The album feels like a grab-bag of the band’s process, but not a cohesive expression of their craft.

Lament after lament, they start to all blend together, and all of Thomas's considerable skill as a singer, musician, and composer can't seem to create any really arresting moments, just a lot of pretty songs.

Combining vaudeville melodies alongside a quirky pop sensibility lifts the eleven songs here above the merely angular and takes us to a unique space, and probably not somewhere everyone would want to go, but to my ears Moonwink's only real flaw is its brevity.

Sing Along To Songs You Don’t Know is another fine example of how múm is evolving and continually expanding on their already diverse musical pallette.

For every standout track on the record there is another song where Sparta takes a step back to assess the situation and falters a little bit.

An unquestionable oblique listen by mainstream standards, but compared to Of Montreal's previous offerings, Paralytic Stalks demonstrates an intimacy and immediacy which Barnes would do well to repeat.

All in all, this is a very impressive record, one that succeeds on just about every little tweak of the pop idiom it attempts.

Despite the band’s annoying lyrics, their beats can be catchy and they have a kick-ass bass player.

Talk about a debut album, Panic Movement is worth more than just NME hype.

It might be an altogether superfluous release but when the music is as expertly crafted to begin with, it's a solid sensation for anyone to notice.

There’s enough depth and variety here to keep you entertained after the first listen.

Joan Of Arc’s latest is much more abrasive, much edgier and squeamish than what I’ve come to expect from them. And that’s not a bad thing at all.

7th Symphony feels like an album that's 60% true artistic vision and 40% simply borrowed from the mainstream to fill out the track listing. If Apocalyptica can craft songwriting that's unique, mature and deep, they should include it on the next album. If not, they should just stick to the instrumentals.

The songs themselves feel loose, a bit non-cohesive, making How to Get to Heaven... a good, though not great, album.

If you've only heard of their work on The Ugly Organ or Domsetica, then I suggest picking this up. It's a great archive of the band's early unheralded accomplishments.

As stirring as it is absorbing, Talkdemonic's music is an engaging set of blended fusion that is a solid step forward.

The Dave Grohl production is the best the band has ever had, and the disc absolutely catches fire in a few places, but there’s still a nagging doubt about Rye Coalition.

The music is repetitively tight and although not much more than a three-set EP, The Ganzfeld EP is a strong showing.

For all the energetic, dark, brooding noise of Howling...It Grows and Grows, the Catheters are missing one thing: variety.

There are few efforts as noble as Fink’s attempt to express the realities of human suffering. It’s unfortunate that Invisible Ones can’t consistently relate these messages musically.

Dumb Luck has [its] share of intriguing moments, on a few shining tracks.

Upon first listen, some of Calamity, though fun, sounds like partial ideas rather than full-fledged songs. Some tracks never recover from this symptom after a dozen spins; some do.

Thecontrollersphere is another thrilling addition to the Of Montreal catalog, but it's hardly a welcoming entry point for those unaccustomed to the depraved yet tantalizing world of Kevin Barnes. For longtime fans though, this EP represents another exhilarating turn from one of America's most singular musicians.

Under the Boards, still doesn’t quite live up, it is their best since that timeless classic, "Stay What You Are."

While not every song on Glass Floor is a gem, the best ones here are so good, I can only assume Maritime will be a step forward even for these artists’ illustrious careers.

Despite the experiments with the various flavors of hip-hop and glitch techno, Spacesettings is a solid album from some of the more exciting artists in the IDM scene.

On the whole, Grey Oceans seems to be the same old thing. I wouldn't recommend this to a first time listener of the band.

Barrett combines his best strengths to deliver one of the album’s few shining spots; it’s just a shame there aren’t more of them on here.

It is refreshing to meander through the songs without any clear lines to cling onto or boxes to fit it in.

Grand National takes risks and does it well; these multi-instrumentalists explore different genres, and have made music that is not only accessible but also never repetitive.

It's unconvincing and bland.

With soaring, beautiful vocals, lush layering, intricate guitars and rhythm, and a flair for the dramatic, ...It Falls Apart is both powerful and lovely, at times dark and at times soaringly beautiful, and it is truly the band’s crowning achievement.

Remind Me ... has the feel of two albums compressed into one, and a slightly more minimal approach to instrumentation would have given some of the slower numbers added gravitas.

The songs here seldom rise above the level of being really cute.

Glossy production adds a haze of late summer mist to some cleverly realised songwriting and Hit The Waves is an album that stands on its own terms musically, without its needing to explain itself or its influences.

This record is easily on par with Corgan's solo record as one of the worst things he has ever done.

This isn’t a horrible album by any means, but it also isn’t very good. Sitek has done an astounding job of creating misty atmospheres and it’s these small touches that aid the album in becoming an interesting listen.

The Vision stands far above many of the other products of its genre, and hints at the ability of McClean to eventually gain massive crossover appeal and subvert the trappings and constrictions of his genre.

It is supposed to be shoegaze, and there is enough fuzz to justify the genre, but fuzz is not the good thing about this album. It's the melodies.

Wading through the next 70-plus minutes of wandering noise and blank hissing for the gems was painful, to put it mildly, because when I got to them, they were played off-key and incredibly quickly, as if the band wanted to get it over with and get back to banging on the guitars and making nonsensical noise.

The songs hold up well live, and the recording quality is terrific.

There is not much on The Real Feel that is daring or new in terms of musical explorations, but the emotionally energetic vocals and intestinal fortitude of the lyrics coupled with the honesty and the understated transcendence of the songs is quite alluring.

A good, albeit soft, Brit-pop CD, from a band that continues to mature.

Contrary to what its title might imply, there’s really not a whole lotta "new" goin’ on here.

Wasif aspires for the guts of Neil Young and the tortured soul of Ian Curtis but captures neither, instead sounding like an inappropriately self-pitying, passive-aggressive whiner.

They’ve amassed a collection of songs that stand together, proudly. It’s not a life-changing moment, nor is it even something that will win tons of new fans but it is a solid album, from front to back.

The lack of complexity, tension, and propulsion in most of these songs is a big disappointment because the soundscapes are not grand and glorious enough to overcome the simplistic musical lines and repetitive nature of the lyrics.

Welcome to the Drama Club shows that he’s still got plenty of catchy hooks left.

The songs unfold with an understated elegance as soothing voices emerge from the colorful, melancholic backgrounds. Ambient drones and spacey synths blossom with shimmering arrangements while the contemplative stylings form a winning combination of radiant sonics and lilting choruses.

Life Has Not Finished With Me Yet may not be the most instantly-gripping Piano Magic LP, however when granted some mandatory immersive listening its enveloping and eclectic embrace is hard to resist.

The Raven is downright awful, perhaps Reed’s worst album since Metal Machine Music.

Codename: Rondo showcases a softer sounding group and it's one that sounds neither confident, nor too amusing.

This synth pop rhythm and blues album is nothing out of the ordinary. I do believe, however, that there are some clever twists throughout the album but unfortunately it all becomes a bit repetitive both musically and lyrically.

Even the better tracks fall a little flat.

A solid collection of delicate songs.

It sounds like 4th generation Stooges impersonators.

Sure, sometimes, House makes for an enjoyable listen--but when those little electronic beats come in, and when autotuned vocals slip into the picture, it becomes increasingly more apparent that Le Concorde--or at least House--isn't special, but it sure thinks it is.