As a spirited reintroduction, the album is by no means too little, but given the time the band has been away, it may be too late.

The 33-year-old from Arizona keeps things interesting with low-key traces of gritty personality, a quality that rears its head on Feel That Fire and elevates the appeal of its carefully manicured rowdiness.

Wynonna Judd takes what appears to be a quirky assortment of songs she enjoyed while growing up and unifies them into a consistent and appealing album with her roomy vocal warmth and expansive personality.

A subtler, smarter album with a considerable capacity to get you moving.

Never has grocery shopping seemed more promising, and if there weren't plenty of other reasons why Working on a Dream is a keeper, that one would be enough.

The duo's follow-up is a more relaxed affair. Though it, too, has cleverness to spare, the album is less cutesy and self-conscious than its predecessor. The beats are stronger, at times hitting with hip-hop force, and the music is fuller and more imaginative.

The irony is that such a colorful person and performer in life has seen so little of that fire (no pun intended for those who recall Lopes' most infamous exploit) carry over to her work.

Hegarty wrote and helped to arrange all the songs on The Crying Light, and his writing bears the same pensive sensitivity as his singing on what amounts to a spellbinding album.

The best songs here stand alongside the best songs in Newman's repertoire, but not everything on Get Guilty lives up to so high a standard. Make of that what you will.

Whatever the sound, his songs are unfailingly catchy, and his smart lyrics and lovely melodies make them stand out even when they're understated.

Skin of Evil may come off as an unwieldy curio at first pass, but lingering listens will reveal the gripping gothic undertow of Mercer's warts-and-all songwriting, even for newcomers.

The Crawling Distance, Pollard's umpteenth disc since officially going solo in 2004, offers more of what listeners have come to expect.

Throughout the CD's 10 tracks, Wino lets his personality show.

The prog-rock elements that begin the disc and surface throughout help to make the familiar sound fresh.

Derek Trucks Band has produced its most commercially viable CD to date.

Thanks to a certain screw-it attitude and massive, enveloping soundscapes, Glasvegas is a deeply engrossing and relentlessly catchy introduction to a group that's hyped enough in Britain to have already generated plenty of backlash.

On its ninth studio album, the group tells tales of true love and trucking--subjects all country artists are entitled to explore--but it also takes plenty of off-road detours.

This is a more sophisticated record that manages to keep intact the brash sensibility that helped attract all those fans in the first place.

Universal Mind Control gets stuck in the same rut as so many other booty-jam records do: It's not all that memorable.

The preponderance of slow jams makes sense, given the introspection on display, yet none of them stands out enough to remind you that Brandy is more than just human.

It's too bad the best songs here don't really match up with her best performances, but that's nothing new for Spears.

Akon's undeniable gift for hooks makes this an easy listen, and the ex-con posturing isn't missed.

Here, Eno, who wrote the music, opts for a more familiar sound, mixing electronic elements and acoustic guitars to create cottony, unobtrusive pop songs.

He has done what few hip-hop stars (and precious few pop stars) have the inclination or ability to attempt: make an album with a consistent vision, which will play convincingly five years later, when its novelty is long gone.

The Killers only stumble here with the nearly seven-minute closer 'Goodnight, Travel Well,' a sleepy meditation on all things cosmic that's hopelessly lost in space.

There's no denying the passion and skill behind the group's fourth album, its most accessible collection yet.

While few have ever actually accused the singer of using good judgment, Chinese Democracy shows him to be a man who, however divorced from reality, hasn't lost the instincts that once made him great.

The ballads are nice enough, in a syrupy, overwrought way. But slamming dance songs have always been Beyoncé's strength, so it's no surprise that the "Sasha Fierce" half of the album is the better showing.

A vigorous cross-section of wallop and weepers that revels in its down-home personality.

Lanegan and Campbell are different creatures, but they have the same concept of cool.

'Ringleader Man,' remind you that whatever his vocal limitations, T-Pain has reintroduced the idea of melody to urban music, which is no small feat. However, predictable overkill of both the signature AutoTune warble and guest stars (Ludacris, Ciara, Akon, et al) obscures that accomplishment.

The Pennsylvania native delivers another pleasant assortment of precocious pop country on Fearless, a set that keeps her natural polish in the middle of the mainstream road, and sports uncommon refinements for a singer her age.

As it turns out, the 45-year-old English singer's exploration of Soul comes up short in interpretation as it retreads ground long since broken by others.

This is the grittiest album the band has yet put out.

He gives indulges that portion of his muse on the instrumental-centric Play while also managing to deliver a collection that is consistently lively and fun.

The music on Take It to the Limit is forceful and full of bright, churning guitars, with just enough melody to elevate the songs above most of the hedonistic hard rock out there.

From this ambitious approach comes an unqualified stylistic success.

Whereas its early tunes built from twitchy verses to shout-along choruses, the new material skews glossy and nondescript.

The album may lack the emotional heft of the Cure's more patient, atmospheric recordings, but should it wind up being the group's last, it will be remembered as more than an unnecessary footnote.

Anything that reduces Pink's in-your-face presence, and that includes a preponderance of slowed-down, tarted-up examinations of divorce, is probably an ill-advised move.

It's a very consistent record, with lots of wide-open spaces and quivering quietness, and just about every sound seems to fit perfectly exactly where it sits.

Evolver delivers what it promises: A singer, songwriter and musician pushing himself to grow. This is a good first step.

With its poignant beauty and powerful songwriting, Adams' latest is, well, the latest in a string of ever-better sad-bastard records.

The 47-year-old Oklahoma native alters that repertoire somewhat with That Don't Make me a Bad Guy, sticking to accessible, down-home rock even as his singing ranges from new directions to bland drains on his natural character.

Barnes and company's ninth studio album isn't as catchy or cohesive as the past few, hitting upon sublime moments--like when he quietly asks "Why I am so damaged?"--that are frustratingly few and far between.

The Chicago quartet has been making this kind of music since the '90s, and its eighth album is much in the spirit of past releases.

Womack's natural balance of tasteful and evocative shapes each tune it touches, carefully stretching the likes of 'Solitary Thinkin'' to make it sweet-sounding and substantial.

Not every missile here reaches its target, but the older, wiser Dears will remain darlings of all who keep hearts affixed firmly to their sleeves.

It's a strong album that rarely skimps on gut-churning guitars.

Little Honey is easily Williams' least depressing album in years, which doesn't sound like much of a compliment until you consider that she sounds downright happy on some of these tunes for the first time in, well, maybe ever.

Chesney's sincerity is never in question, but his songs are uniformly garden-variety and obvious no matter how they are dressed.

Noel Gallagher comes up with a half-dozen tracks as good as the classic-rock epic 'The Turning,' or 'The Shock of the Lightning,' which swaggers as confidently as Oasis did a dozen years ago.

They succeeded admirably on a pair of sexually frank EPs in 2006 and earlier this year, and they're back for more on their full-length debut.

Many of Hynde's new songs call for honesty and compassion, and even if she never quite finds those things, her search yields some pretty vital rock 'n' roll.

As always, her uniquely sooty voice gives her the feeling of an old soul while lending levity to her darker songs.

City of Refuge is an eerie, archaic record, and even the CD version sounds as though there's years of thick dust packed into the grooves.

The result is a wealth of different musical imaginings, which provides a fascinating glimpse of his creative process on Tell Tale Signs.

Folds is clearly having fun, but is he laughing with us or at us? Sometimes it's hard to tell. But it's even harder not to smile.

She has a magnificent voice that deserves a lot better than this formulaic pop and soul.

Built with introductions and interludes as if it were a live performance, the 25-song set is an exercise in community that employs friends and family wisely, enlisting a choir to fill out the jaunty 'Wonderful Friends' and making Seeger's quavering yet impressively vital voice the centerpiece of his again-relevant Vietnam-era protest, 'Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.'

The album is a refreshing reminder that, in the right hands, the blues is very much a living genre that need not be stuck in a formulaic 12-bar past.

It's the mark of a great band when each new album is better than the one before it, and with Only by the Night, Kings of Leon shows once more just how great a band it has become.

Dear Science finds the band pushing still further, using its big beats and graffiti textures in service of its most accessible songs to date.

Hagerty's chords radiate like heat from hot concrete, forging shapes from the nothingness, like an audio mirage. So it goes for most of the album's 33 minutes.

If it's a well-worn groove, it's also an accomplished one.

Few songwriters are capable of making misery sound so elegant, and even desirable.

The Way I See It doesn't break any new ground, but it's a very well-executed homage that serves to remind that classic soul is timeless.

They responded with Death Magnetic, the best Metallica album since "Metallica."

It's a gorgeous, low-key album, full of musical nuance that unfolds with slow grace and exerts an irresistible pull back to the start after the last note has sounded.

She boils songs down to their bare essences, and colors them in simple, evocative ways.

These songs are fine, if unexciting, vehicles for her voice.

The Kentucky-bred singer builds an ideal showcase for her strengths on Sleepless Nights, unearthing a string of jewels from country's past with a passionate, pure revival of classics both familiar and rescued from obscurity.

The 46-year-old Kentucky native rejoins the production team from her breakthrough on Little Wild One and spins a broad spectrum of rock tapestries married to warm, personal musings centered on a common theme.

Soft Airplane feels deeply odd and resoundingly alive.

His sun-and-fun lyrics can be saccharine and anachronistic, but his complete lack of artifice helps to sell the sticky likes of 'Forever She'll Be My Surfer Girl.'

The Atlanta crack rapper's third album is largely a faithful rehash of his first two platters, which transformed him from unrepentant hustler to unlikely inspirational figure.

There's something of a jukebox feel to Apollo Sunshine's third album, despite the near-radioactive levels of reverb-hazy psychedelia throughout.

The 58-year-old songsmith shifts gears and lets someone else produce for a change on Sex and Gasoline, but continues to hit the right notes and nerves on tunes with earthy roots charms bubbling over with smartly phrased discontent.

Forth is classic Verve, epic in scope, with layer upon layer of sound.

Solange combines retro warmth and current cool in ways her more commercially successful sibling probably can't.

SlipKnot's fifth album finds the nine-piece alternative metal band at an unquestionable creative peak--but the effort may only further alienate some of its diehard, shred-metal fans.

Some may be turned off by his showy leads and somewhat cheesy sentiments, but those are the very things that hooked longtime fans in the first place.

Ra Ra Riot persevered (and recently added West Hartford drummer Gabriel Duquette to the lineup), recording a full-length debut by turns soulful and super-catchy.

For as combustible as they are, the songs are catchy and conducive to repeated listening.

Lewis and Staind sound as though they have emerged from a long, dark tunnel, and that kind of progress is more than just an illusion.

Whether grasping for resolve in the stoutly punctuated pulse of "Now I'm Gone" or taking a sober angle on the rattling flow of "Shining On," she soul searches with the best of them, even when it sounds like she might be searching one that belongs to someone else.

However nonsensical, Perry's rants remain entertaining, and despite its flaws, the album holds together from start to finish.

Pro Tools surprises because it features consistently powerful backing tracks, several built on the strings-and-scratchy-soul brilliance of Wu mastermind RZA.

The Winnipeg band's fourth studio record, Fast Paced World, is a juicy mixture of components from across the musical spectrum melded into a quirky but cohesive whole.

Enjoying the Moondoggies, though, hinges on being able to accept a couple of Seattleites in their early 20s digging so earnestly into the '70s.

The trio's new wave-inspired songs may be derivative--and sometimes too derivative, as on the corny, Cars-lite opener, 'B.B. Good'--but they simply sound fresher.

Best of all, though, in these 14 piano-driven, acoustic settings is the pure, lustrous Thomas approach to everything from blues-drenched soul to chic jazz balladry.

Conor Oberst (Merge) is the richest collection of songs from Conor Oberst--via Bright Eyes, Desaparecidos, whatever--in a long time.

A savvy storyteller with an acid-tipped language, Newman packages yarns in a voice that is the sonic equivalent of an Emmett Kelly clown face, naturally hangdog while subtly playful as he reminisces about life's rough patches.

While not all of the songs are so wide-eyed 'Time' is about resigning oneself to a life of domestic boredom--the Strips tend to keep things bouncy and light.

Thanks to their increasingly varied sound, the Girls remain aloof and unknowable. They have us right where they want us: behind the velvet ropes.

Oxford Collapse reportedly wrote 30 songs for this record, keeping most of them short and not finishing the lyrics on many until right before they were put to tape. That would explain the more straightforward feel of BITS, and why the band can't quite match the heady, smart-acre highs of "Remember the Night Parties."

It's a slick collection heavy on pop hooks and packed with glossy guitars and studio-perfect bass and drums. Too perfect, in fact: these 12 songs have had all the personality produced right out of them.