Summer Sun doesn't have the collective impact of its predecessors, a problem typically attributable to song selection, sequencing and mixing.

This is the kind of album that grabs you on the first listen and doesn´t let go until you drive yourself crazy from playing it over and over again.

So the news is good. They didn't sell out, they didn't run out of ideas, and they were able to find still more places to yell "Whooo!" Go buy this now.

Often dreamy, sometimes rockin', but rarely more than pedestrian.

Malkmus' songwriting is back from blandland, the backing Jicks rock, and the production got it all on tape without screwing it up.

Grand Mal takes a connoisseur's approach to classic rock, and when it works, the best of Bad Timing can stand tall next to its forefathers.

This is an absolutely satisfying listen and a feat of songwriting that few acts could match.

Quicksand/Cradlesnake establishes Califone as an ambitious band with the songwriting chops to back up its penchant for studio strangeness.

This is an ambitious album that aims high but falls short.

There’s a consistency in quality throughout the record, but nothing stunning enough to send you running to your stereo to hit the repeat button.

The New Wave sensibilities and unorthodox flows become predictable, and the absence of APC's Priest and Saayid is felt by the end of Tomorrow.

The Grotto isn't the type of record that will win Hersh many new admirers, but it will send longtime fans into fits of ecstasy.

Throwing Muses is an exhilarating ride that manages to marry the helter-skelter rhythmic pulse of the band's first few records with the poppier sensibilities of their nineties releases.

While the sound here is undeniably on the lo-fi side of the spectrum, the arrangements and production on the album seem more carefully crafted. The result is Sprout's best album in years.

It is not groundbreaking, or particularly clever.

Greater accessibility does not necessarily mean higher quality.

Halfway through the album, it's clear that this is a glimpse into the future of pop music.

The one thing that holds the whole record together stylistically, though, is that Shipping News play Very Serious Rock Music.

May very well be Dirty Three's greatest accomplishment to date.

While the record isn't necessarily an instant classic, the unabashed embrace of simple pop sensibilities, both old and new, make it a record that is hard to stop listening to.

Bright Yellow Bright Orange is a much better album than Friends of Rachel Worth primarily because it largely abandons the formers' modern rock ambitions for a reflective and more natural folk-rock sound.

Sure, with so much to hear and such a range of styles, the album can take a couple of listens before it starts to bloom. That said, after these requisite spins, one can't help but admire how smoothly Feast of Wire glides from track to track, style to style.

The album's last third slows to the glacial pace of 2001's Covers Record with underdeveloped song fragments rendered in a numbing, spare style. But the album's first half more than makes up for it with Marshall's inimitably concise songwriting painting roses on demons and frowning children alike.

Cave proves himself to be a continually fascinating and vital songwriter.

There have been releases that have excited me so far, but none that have completely recharged my faith in intelligent rock music. This is the first essential album of the year.

Whether you find Kinsella's brand of experimental pop insufferably pretentious or delightfully challenging (I find it a bit of both), you have to give the man credit for his vision.

This is the natural and logical epiphany of three musicians who have been getting to know one another for some time. It's also a damn good album.

The outcome is alternately brilliant and awful, adventurous and boring, incisive and pretentious, over-wrought and subtle.