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.

Smile is one of the better heavy releases this year, and one of the best in the band's extensive catalog.

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.

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.

Far from easy listening, the tune, like the album, remains oddly accessible. Harvey is a tornado of anger, lunacy, and regret, but her punishing wind is something to behold.

Midnight Boom" opens with its excellent first two singles, "U.R.A. Fever" and the danceable "Cheap And Cheerful," and from there things get pretty sleepy until the cheerfully blown-out "M.E.X.I.C.O.," a 97-second anthem so catchy that you'll get a callous on your thumb from skipping back to it.

Essential background music, if such a thing exists.

Outside Love offers up the best and worst that life has to offer, with love and hate locked in an eternal struggle. It makes the Pink Mountaintops the perfect complement to Black Mountain's lyrical and musical heft.

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.

From this ambitious approach comes an unqualified stylistic success.

Ray Raposa's creepy folk explorations as Castanets remain intimate affairs writ in miniature, despite a backing band with up to seven members and a choir of 10.

The shambling London trio Micachu & the Shapes embrace all manners of homemade noises on this cheeky debut, surprisingly produced by electronic experimentalist Matthew Herbert.

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 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.

Parallel Play finds the quartet in fine form.

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.

A moody, stark and hypnotically discomfiting assortment of ruminations.

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.

His singing is a string of raspy exhalations, a measured and folksy wrapper for the despondent musings on 'War Is Kind,' one of several tunes that assess the outside world through introspection.

Detours clearly wants to be Bob Dylan but ends up being Bob Roberts instead.

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.