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.