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.

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

It hits hard without sacrificing any of Lerche's classic pop appeal.

"Era Vulgaris" is dense and loud, and though there are hooks beneath the grimy surface, they're not always immediately apparent. Yet with enough patience, you'll find these tunes burrowing in a little deeper each time through the record.

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."

The bare-bones production style of Lifeline is practically experimental by today's standards, and it's a testament to Harper that he and his band could record a stellar album using outdated technology in a fraction the time it took to create most of the albums currently on Billboard's Top 40.

The enigmatic nature of his music aside, Oldham invariably sounds like he's having fun making it, which makes Beware a warning only to those who place too high a value on simplistic clarity.

Comprising organ, piano, upright bass and acoustic guitars, as well as the occasional fiddle or burst of New Orleans brass, the music wheezes and strolls with old-timey authenticity.

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

Although the group's signature speed raps suffer without Bizzy's haunting high harmony, the Thugs' collective ear for a hook remains undiminished.

Modern touches aside, many of the songs fall somewhere between the Stones' "Exile on Main Street," minus the desperation, and the Kinks classics " Village Green Preservation Society" and "Muswell Hillbillies."

By and large, though, the players justify their flightiness.

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.

He doesn't quite succeed, though in the process of failing, he turns in his most restrained and focused recordings to date.

Soft Airplane feels deeply odd and resoundingly alive.

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

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

Aesop's fables still require a decoder ring, but the plainer settings make them more effective as post-Beat poetry.

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

Her third album, collects 11 new songs that document Edwards’ growth from singer who writes songs to bona fide songwriter who has embraced the art of subtlety.

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.

Like "More Specials," the Specials' second-record departure, It's Frightening isn't nearly buoyant as its predecessor. Insofar as its purpose is to rattle the bones, it's a fidgety, impenetrable success.

It's a little less immediate than the first album, but also takes Ne-Yo's case where it belongs: to the dance floor.

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 band's third full-length, Touchdown, is more of a 10-yard pass than a score.

Taylor has vastly improved as an MC since last year's "The Documentary," and though his material is still largely built around hip-hop cliches... he shows flashes of mordant wit that are as sly (and smutty) as they are surprising.

No such luck on 'Cause I Sez So, an album that, despite a few bright spots, is too flimsy and forgettable to honor the Dolls' legacy.

It's easier to marvel at, than relate to, something like 'How Do You Tell a Child,' a country song about explaining death to a youngster. The same goes for 'Katrina.'

Springsteen's latest is very good, and a handful of tunes approach the level of urgency and raw desperation that made his earlier music so compelling.

A collection of smoothly produced, soft-pedaled cowboy anthems.

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.

These 13 tunes unfold at less of a breakneck pace than some of the band's earlier songs, but the musicians are as tight and the songwriting as strong as on anything the group has released.

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

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

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.

Despite his penchant for experimentation, much of his material remains accessible to casual listeners, even when he turns toward the self-indulgent.

It's a far-reaching and ambitious album, stronger than its predecessor and full of gallant wordplay and vivid imagery.

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.

This time, however, the subject matter is more mundane, and Jackson's flattened vocals are paired with less imaginative post-punk guitars and synths.

"Sky Blue Sky" feels more collaborative than the past few Wilco records... The dozen tunes here reflect the more organic sound of a band playing in a room, with musicians turning ideas into grooves, which in turn become songs.

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

Although Common has always been an earnest rapper, his drive to induce meaning on many of these tunes sometimes comes at the expense of catchiness. They're like cauliflower: nutritious, but without much flavor.

The natural energy of his performances keeps his songs appealing, but his catchy anthems sometimes sink into formula that does not take full advantage of his musical prowess.

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.

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.

The star power behind this album--a joint executive co-production between Jay-Z and 50 Cent and featuring Scarface, Rick Ross and Lil' Wayne--leads to the predictable can't-please-everyone mishmash, an appreciable step down from the sampled elegance of the Just Blaze-dominated "Philadelphia Freeway."

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

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.'

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

It's a glorious tangle of excess.

You could say the closing, piano-and-strings showcase 'Heaven and Alchemy' borrows from some of them. But as a whole. Mantaray proves it's much more the other way 'round.

Though understated compared to their predecessors, these songs are smart and catchy.

No Line on the Horizon is a considered and nuanced work with significant depth beneath the dense, sometimes thorny exterior. Getting there, though, requires some work.

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 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.

A record with stronger songs that somehow manages to sound just as banal as her first.

It's an improvement on the band's impressively dull 2005 album, "X&Y," but Coldplay's latest doesn't recapture the promise of the band's first two albums.

A collection of sleepy, emotionally blunt songs that feel whispered from the wee hours.

With such tight songs and a loose but relatable theme, Shout Out Louds easily avoids a sophomore slump--the new album is, in fact, stronger than the first

The Philadelphia group's fifth full-length release has a musical richness and depth of songwriting that weren't fully present on Dr. Dog's somewhat less-focused earlier music, though there were hints on "Easy Beat" in 2005 and "We All Belong" in 2007.

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.

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.

A late-album glut of so-so, mid-to-slow-tempo material like the Anthony Hamilton duet 'Losing You' and 'Work It Out' leaves you with a lesser impression than the disc probably deserves.

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.

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

They’re subtle, but loaded with the laid-bare emotion she spent so long learning to harness.

Gonzalez's debut disc, 2005's "Veneer," won over fans with its straightforward lack of production, and his sophomore effort, In Our Nature, does not stray far from the path.

The prettiest moments here come on less characteristic musings, such as the shifting perspective of 'Down Here Below.'

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

Thursday gets away with being so gloomy by keeping the energy level sky-high and the sonic assault dense, making Common Existence more thrilling than seething.

The Hives' best tunes are the ones that race pell-mell through churning guitar riffs and pounding drums while singer Almqvist hollers about, well, whatever.

Most songs, including the single-worthy 'Come Clean,' are still built on soaring vocal interplay and a childlike sense of wonder.

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.

He remains a singular performer, one who can't be overwhelmed by the usual Neptunes production. Williams' typically sparse 'Loose Wires' sounds simultaneously like Kenna's surefire smash--how could that Michael Jackson-inspired hook miss?--and the proof, thanks to its android-crooning verses, that the world will only see Kenna's face on his own, refreshingly distinctive, terms.

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

It's pub rock, but smarter and more ambitious, with music as nimble as the lyrics are sharp.

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.

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.

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.

It's an assured effort from the very start.

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

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.

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

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.

Lady Gaga has made a quintessential pop album with Born This Way.

A pop album that, for all the lightness and joy that come with humming synthesizers, punchy horns and sing-along melodies, requires listeners to do some pretty heavy lifting.

Grohl often shows off his sky-high vocal range, award-winning ear for bridges and choruses and penchant for ending opuses with dark, pitch-perfect shrieks.

The songs are pleasant enough, but they ultimately feel a bit over-thought, and Bragg often makes his best points with nothing more than his voice and an acoustic guitar.

The album is a credit to all involved; if merely pastiche, it's a marvelous one.

The Sword has avoided the dreaded sophomore slump and delivered a CD that builds on its debut with heavier riffs and a better sense of dynamics.

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

Holland's airy, electronic pop music with layers of vocals. It's pleasant enough, though it's not as compelling as March of the Zapotec.

All the fuss last week over Kanye West and 50 Cent was misplaced: Chamillionaire bests them both while neatly sidestepping the sophomore slump on his second major-label album.

Nash is more than just another girl on piano, and some of the songs on Made of Bricks are promising. But her inconsistent songwriting and penchant for falling back on cliches show that originality requires more than just an English accent.

Merritt dials back her soul-shouter instinct on her third album, a collection that finds her balancing restraint with the vivid emotionalism that has driven her music from the start.

'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.

Tracks like "Press Play" feature booming-enough backings, but even in the record's funkiest moments, like the left-field Prince homage "Cool," Snoop holds back.

Lewis has tons of charisma--but it's a shame the shift in focus coincides with an album so superficial that her characters' hollow-eyed come-ons seem genuine by comparison.