Among Manson's most compelling records.

Jay-Z sounds much more engaged on American Gangster, a collection of taut, focused songs heavy on musical references to the '70s

White, a Wesleyan graduate, takes the best elements of punk, new wave, dub reggae and electronica and fuses them into an utterly arresting sonic pile-up different from anything else around.

From this ambitious approach comes an unqualified stylistic success.

There's plenty for everyone to love here, actually, and despite the silly title, Spoon's latest is worth going ga-ga over.

With its varied sound and newly expansive songwriting, "Attack & Release" is a bold but entirely fitting way for the Black Keys to prove they know more than one way to make a statement.

Jumping from Sub Pop to Toronto-based Arts & Crafts, the band is as strong and endearing as ever on Kensington Heights.

Challengers live up to a certain essential challenge: They’re catchy enough to spend long periods stuck in your head.

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

His melodies are subtle, but don't confuse his restraint with detachment--these songs sound deeply felt.

The Lady Killer doesn't have the same tightly focused future-soul sound as Green's other project, Gnarls Barkley, but that gives the singer a chance to show his wider ranging musical appetites with elements of vintage R&B, irresistible pop and even a couple of sleek spy-movie riffs.

These songs have deep bones, and though they don't always have an in-your-face immediacy, they're worth revisiting.

It's by no means a cheery album, but Narrow Stairs shows Death Cab for Cutie has overcome its major-label jitters and resumed making vital music.

Tapping into the sensuous mode of such classic divas of desire as Julie London and Peggy Lee, Diana Krall is at her most seductive on this bossa nova-flavored collaboration with Claus Ogerman.

The best record the Strokes should have released after "Is This It."

For all the impressive ambition inherent in its size and scope, its working parts boil down to a testament to the fun of making music.

It’s ecstatic music, surely; and intense, too, even as it’s joyful.

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.

His double-tracked voice makes these songs truly mesmerizing.

We should have known. If his raspy, cartoonish voice didn't mark him as different, his quick wit, offhanded wordplay and quirky subject matter should have in a genre populated largely by grim-faced imitators.

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.

Singers with powerful voices often gravitate toward material that lets them prove it, but Neko Case demonstrates the power of subtlety on her latest.

Stay Positive is an optimistic record that continues Finn's search for a sense of place.

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.

Their latest, A New Tide, is their most accessible set yet.

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.

"Tio Bitar" is an excellent follow-up to "Ta Det Lugnt," offering another far-out trip courtesy of Ejstes and his musical magic.

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

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.

Robotique Majestique is compelling and eminently danceable, and it has as much visceral kick as cerebral appeal for the indie dance kids who demand both.

It's a gruff, sometimes paranoid album with a decidedly subjective point of view, but Rising Down cuts no corners as its tells some hard truths to a society that is only too happy to stay in the dark.

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

The soul of Van Zandt is evident on all of these songs--even in the distorted voice effect on 'Lungs'--but Earle best captures his spirit on 'Colorado Girl,' a high lonesome song with rich acoustic guitar chords and wistful vocals.

Opener 'All in It,' a slow-building swell of voices and guitars, sets the tone for album that's unashamed of its epic accessibility.

A more mature Allen might not be as much fun, but in the absence of acidity, her sweetness shines through.

The songs on Oracular Spectacular are considered and carefully constructed, and as a result, they’re taut, hooky and highly danceable, in a hipster-dance-party kind of way.

The beats are tight, the rhymes are tighter and the ladies seem like they're having fun without trying too hard or taking themselves too seriously.

Green Day's latest is a collection of powerful songs worth waiting nearly five years for.

It's provided great fodder as devotees of celebrity gossip speculate on who, exactly, she's singing about, but with Swift's endearing appeal as a singer and ever-growing skill as a songwriter, Speak Now makes for great listening, too.

The National hews too closely to established formula on "Boxer," content to revisit previously explored territory without expanding its sound.

It's a glorious tangle of excess.

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.

His gloomy tales are not silly, but neither are they especially threatening, despite Cooper's mildly fetishistic focus on the predatory instincts of a character who spends most of his time wallowing in self-assessments.

Lots of singers set their dating woes to hard guitars and hummable melodies - Coxon just does it better than most.

Lyrically and musically, the album is not a big departure from the band's classic sound, with all 13 tracks telling a glam-rock story of tattoos, drugs and strippers.

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

The set's signature disc Lotusflow3r, is its most consistently enjoyable, a far-flung cornucopia of electric guitar licks from one of the instrument's sharpest practitioners.

Soul music impeccably poised between past and future, anchored by a warm voice comfortingly similar to Bill Withers'.

An honest, humble, rootsy record that shows the band maturing.

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.

No one is likely to describe Lee as "happy" - her music relies on an element of gloom - but she sounds confident and in control, and that gets Lee most of the way there.

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.

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

Mandy Moore faces the same challenge any other singer-songwriter does: delivering songs that are consistently compelling. She does a decent job of it on Amanda Leigh.

Although the alter-ego suggests that Banks would be happy to keep his own name out of it, the fact is that Julian Plenti is ... Skyscraper is the truest reflection of Banks' musical impulses, which don't always shine through in the democracy that is Interpol.

At its best, Keep It Simple is a comforting dispatch from the fairyland where folky soul Morrison masterpieces like 1971's "Tupelo Honey" were born.

Those who care not only about hip-hop but the culture it reflects and shapes will find Nasir Jones' latest the most intriguing, provocative and ultimately troubling album released this year.

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.

Produced by the Pixies' Frank Black, the band's third album is pretty straight-forward musically, all chugging indie rock with fat bass lines and scribbled guitar solos.

The 42-year-old Kansas native continues to mine that vein on her 10th studio album, "Shine," but although her singing is still strong, polish and predictability are its defining traits.

If the lyrics occasionally seem first-draft rough, the melodies are sharper than on 2005's "Other People's Lives," and the varied musical settings--such as the rockabilly of opener 'Vietnam Cowboys' or the spooky New Orleans blues of 'The Voodoo Walk'--throw into sharper relief the classic Kinksian pop of songs like 'You're Asking Me' and the title track, which show Davies alternately snarling and sighing at the world as winningly as ever.

An incisive and funny introduction to the 21-year-old English singer.

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.

Mellencamp's folk-leaning rock style remains as distinctive as it is uncomplicated.

No one ought to begrudge Tweedy his hard-won peace of mind, but there's less of the emotional, or musical, turbulence here that made for such compelling listening on previous Wilco records.

Mostly, it's a trip into the not-too-distant past worth taking.

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

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.

At their best, the Meat Puppets tackle swampy rock, erratic punk, boisterous country, ruminative folk, and seedy psych with equal authority, all while instilling a surreal scent of the desert.

A noodling version of the Truckers' own 'Space City' wanders a little too aimlessly to close, but Potato Hole overall is a subtle album with enough fire to prove that Jones can still bring the heat.

After several listens, the album's warm, golden melodies surface, like cream rising to the top.

He picks solid songs with themes just about anyone can relate to, and he sings them with a hint of twang in his warm voice. His songs feel like home, and his latest, Twang, is no different.

Even when the guys indulge in cheesy temptations, like the piano at the end of 'Lawless River,' it's usually in the service of making their catchy, extroverted anthems even more so.

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.

The Last Kiss ends up a reasonable, though backward-looking, outing.

There are plenty of worthwhile moments, such as the banging soul romp of the title track, but Weller surrounds them with exhausting filler cuts and showboating genre change-ups.

"Baby 81" isn't an all-out fuzz free-for-all, though, and the California trio retains some of the gentler ideas it explored last time out.

Gray's latest is an engaging, soulful effort from a singer who is proving herself to be more of a career artist than a hit-maker.

Seventh Tree is the inevitable comedown, a pastoral holiday that trades glittery hedonism for quiet contemplation.

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

She saves the best for last, though, layering piano, subtle guitar and synthesizers over a steady four-beat rhythm and singing a lilting melody with strong lyrics taking stock of life and love.

He overreaches on occasion, but more often pulls off the sort of trick he manages with 'Families Cheating at Board Games,' merging faith and offbeat, cerebral underpinnings to forge quirky slivers of fresh perspective.

Libertad, is another riff-happy collection of big, juiced-up rock songs perfect for summertime thrashing.

The result is a restless hybrid that never completely settles into the groove that has defined the singer and guitarist's best albums.

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.

A collection that finds the 49-year-old singer laudably unchanged on tunes that are comfortably quaint and rich with homespun charm.

Hersh returns to her rocking roots, straying from the confessional folk that dominated her post-Muses solo work.

Although Free Somehow doesn't reach the energy level of Widespread Panic's best live performances, with Herring in place, the band has certainly rediscovered its musical roots.

Healy is back to penning unabashed, sparkling pop gems.

Band leaders Justin Warfield and Adam Bravin write songs that are well-constructed and generally catchy. Then again, that's not such a marvel when so much of it--the drums on 'True Romance,' the stinging guitar riff on 'Pretend the World Has Ended,' the synth-heavy hooks of 'She Will Always Be a Broken Girl'--comes from a template some other band crafted

The disenchanted Brits drag their romantic confusions onto the dance floor, where they hope sparkly synths and pulsing club beats will point them toward some much-needed answers. As might be expected, they make little headway, though their wheel-spinning isn't all for naught.

Like Maroon 5... Fall Out Boy has found a middle ground where its raffish charm is edgy enough to engage teens in love with angst, and safe enough for the mass consumption that's sure to follow.

The Heavy shines best on stage, where the band is an overwhelming force, but Great Vengeance is an entrancing peek at crush-worthy musical raw power.

It's really not that complicated at all - it's just good fun.

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.

With haunted, abstract songs that are about as easily grasped as passing specters or gusts of sea mist, the Good, the Bad and the Queen is a dream collaboration that sometimes feels like a nightmare.

The guitars are rough and the lyrics mumbled, but even the most rote garage tunes betray a craftsmanship often missing from the genre. The collection is the Lips' first that would have benefited from some trimming.