The basic ingredients are delicate, minimal, well-conceived songs that utilize instruments ranging from guitars and analog keyboards to melodicas and chop sticks.

Other than "PMS," a misguided Lauryn Hill cop, the album also gets stronger as it plays, concluding with an impressive trio of songs that show off Blige's gospel roots.

[Her songs are] articulate and bright, enlivened by pithy metaphors and images that suggest a well-rounded English major with a sensitive side.

Bjork-obsessed fans hungry for more of the songwriter's customary eccentricities might be disappointed with the brief and thematic focus of the album.

Unfortunately, the album is a bit of a downer from a lyrical standpoint, making something like Jackson Browne's Late For The Sky seem almost upbeat in comparison.

But for all the high-level assistance the group receives, what keeps Built From Scratch consistently interesting remains the fantastic four’s work on the wheels of steel.

The only problem is that Ja's ear for a hit has begun to make his straight street-level efforts less enticing.

While they still tackle the same young person themes you expect--girls, loneliness, girls--they do so with professional aplomb.

Gray's idiosyncrasies are sometimes buried beneath the syrupy strings (which may have been the intent), robbing the album of unpredictable highs as well as lows.

There is some real grime and songwriting grit in these songs, that while outfitted in lush production, faux-soul effects and banal duets, rock harder than anything Sting has offered in ages.

A smartly schizophrenic solo debut filled with the anything-goes dancefloor abandon of the ‘80s.

Perhaps the formula is wearing just a tad thin. Nevertheless, it's always foolish not to celebrate melody.

Features a more worldly sound and outlook.

The production can be a little too clinical and antiseptic in spots.

An album meant to enrage, amuse and enliven.

Liars got the punk wave thing down, but what makes them more interesting than their peers is their willingness to explore beyond the edges of the new-wave box.

Where the Robinson boys once seemed perpetually stuck in the butt-skankin', Faces-meets-Sticky Fingers pit, Lions draws more on communal southern boogie rock--slightly less on doofus monster guitar riffs. Not that Lions signals any reinvention, the Black Crowes are just masters at resaddling their one-trick pony.

Rockist textures and lush dreamscapes that could very well be the Cocteau Twins take on heavy metal.

Channeling greats from Gaye to Wonder, his stripped-down bangers bang harder, his ballads have more gospel bluster, and he sings with the desperation of a loveman who knows the cops are waiting at his bedroom door.

The B.Coming is no metamorphosis; Beans remains the same powerful but limited rhymer, a blunt object hammering the mic and stumbling after the ghost of Jay-Z.

Listen beyond the surface and you'll hear an old school folkie who could just as easily curl up with her acoustic guitar and sing you to heavenly sleep.

Don't discount the reggae portion of the program; with island impresario Tony Kelly involved in much of the album, songs like "Party Hard" and "Pure Pretty Gal" strongly affirm the tropical origins of this storm.

Certainly a tougher and more traditional album than its two predecessors.

Most of these rhymes are too shallow to warrant the hopeful comparisons to Biggie and Tupac. But if you want the best disposable gangsta tunes on the market, 50 Cent offers a definite bargain.

[Tweet] offers more mature and demure R&B this time out.

Some of it sounds remarkably sedate and conventional ("Televised Executions," "American Mean") while other tracks ("Beggin' For Miracles") ramble psychotically into the good night of avant-garde minimalism.

Duritz isn't the soul singer he'd like to be.

Overall, the album is a little more rock, a little more sophisticated and includes actual artistic input from the artist herself. A wonder in these modern times.

His big voice and big, good-vs-evil themes now need the gold lame beats of Grand Champ to deliver one last howling high.

If you can forget that Mitchell once used to swing, the settings offer warmth and bring out melodies that weren't apparent her first time around.

Donelly focuses on tunes that enter your head with a determination to stay for the long term.

The good humor and easier tempos also make Twista’s forays into Guinness World Record speed more effective, even if manic window-rattlers like “Kill Us All” seem a bit predictable once you’ve heard his latest, slowed-down twist.

Most of Eve's third album won't come as much surprise to those who bought the first two--and that's nothing to complain about.

There's absolutely nothing revolutionary about what these guys are pulling, but they synthesize a gritty staccato new wave attack with the arrogant, swaying machismo of old school boogie with an authority far beyond their few years.

There's also a heady melodicism that suggests the theatrical firepower of Roxy Music, a droning tonality where big ambiance sets up.

Is this Mezzanine lite? In a way, yes. There is nothing here as gripping as "Angel," "Risingson," or "Inertia Creeps." Womblike and seductive, this is make-out music for hibernating astronauts.

After years of puzzling releases, Nas has finally delivered a collection worthy of his landmark 1994 debut.

The older, wiser BLACKstreet rides a sweet suite of slow jams to a level no teen quartet has seen yet.

For those who missed Nico’s erotic darkness the first time around, Midnight Movies have found the recipe.

The band builds on the power of the previous Thirteenth Step, applying hypnotic arrangements, brooding melodies, and droning rhythms to a collection that sounds absurd on its surface, but is woven together by A Perfect Circle's heavy and dark-lidded instrumental approach.

If Prince had ever successfully come to grips with hip hop, this is what the result might have sounded like.

What "Menace" lacks in continuity it more than makes up for with brass balls and a sense of adventure.

Occasionally, things are dumbed down by the naive politics you’d expect from any teenager.

Save for a few heavy-handed tracks, such as the lame religion-as-porn clunker "Blue Movie" and the drag of "Loreta Young Silks," the disc offers a satisfyingly rich aural texture.

Both accessible and fun.

LL Cool J's 10th album isn't a greatest hits collection--it just sounds like one.

While political manifestos are never something attractively wedded to song, Jones keeps humanity on the record, mostly with supportive grooves and her tantalizing way with twisting a note.

The album often revisits the troubled vibe of her early days, in sound if not lyrically.

The band's strong suit--which, when it gets down to business, has gotten noticeably stronger (and tighter and more focused) over the course of four releases--are earthy dance tracks like "Music Plus 1" and "Wog.com" which take hypnotic bass and drum tracks and embellish them with a variety of samples, noises, etc., and Tjinder Singh's simple, effective vocals.

A rich collection of tunes that definitely will put you in the mind of [Nick] Drake--but stop one (small) step short of sheer imitation.

Forget the brattiness and occasional lunacy that succeeded Tidal's ascent to hit status. This is the work of an adult artist, and onethat's going to be sticking around.

Dozens of like-minded female acts have followed the trio into the R&B arena, yet 3D demonstrates how wide a gulf there is between the originals and their imitators.

While the group's last two records have been majestic, pretentious, and overly polished, this one is more urgent and inviting, running the gamut from Beach Boys whimsy to Jesus And Mary Chain bluster.

How Animals Move, much like its creator, has "side project" written all over it. The songs meander freely, setting up moods, throwing together unusual sounds.

Nothing matches the artists' very best work--but, excepting a ghastly appearance by Linda Perry, it's still mostly fun.

The biting but insider-ish humor sometimes limits the potential audience, as Paul ironically marginalizes himself before the business and its politics can.

A scrappy little album that at times has a frustrating same-y-ness to it, but with each of the disc's tunes lasting no longer than three minutes, the Raveonettes' proto-punk formula never outstays its welcome.

The album forsakes Doe's past rockabilily, country, and punk leanings for a fairly morose, maudlin mood.

Musically, the tunes are more cohesive this time around, with more of a "band" feel then simply people accompanying Amos and her Bosendorfer.

She's probably an EP artist at heart. Or someone for whom the 20-minute sides of vinyl would discipline everything perfectly. So slice the CD in half and enjoy.

Spinning a zoo of samples redundantly, song after song, can only amuse the most blissed-out of stoners...

When Adams sticks to the pop-rock mode, he can be dynamic as well as one of the cleverest pop thieves since Nick Lowe.

Cole is a slick producer, dropping just the right sounds to impress fellow DJs and keep club kids doing the boogie fever.

While her voice has never sounded better, the lion share of songs she selected for the album are mediocre at best.

As good overall as the tracks here are, that bit about familiarity breeding contempt rings true.

It really isn't any different from any of the higher-charged rock albums in his repertoire.

Jean's most satisfying post-Fugees music yet.

If it isn't quite the debut that new soul touchstones like D'Angelo's Brown Sugar and Erykah Badu's Baduizm were, it's certainly far more ambitious...

Rufus is self-effacing and clever enough to keep the music from becoming totally insipid.

While the group attacks things with great velocity and singer Chud shreds his larynx at regular intervals, the always difficult follow-up album features actual melodies and mature textures that make the band's eventual transformation into a progressive rock band nearly inevitable.

Sum 41's second album careens with the impassioned joy of young men less interested in taking the system down than in entertaining their fellow mallrats.

Buckcherry's overblown rock 'n' roll is exactly the kind of music that can be dressed up by production, almost (but not quite) giving the illusion that something exciting is happening when, in fact, its merely recycling the already recycled.

No matter the song, from the stumbling “Me And The Devil Blues” to the murmuring “Come On In My Kitchen,” Me And Mr. Johnson sounds rehearsed and controlled.

Life For Rent breaks no new ground, and while the publicity machine proffers a failed Dido romance as its inspiration, the album retains her debut's style yet without its wonderfully miserable substance.

As a vocalist, she remains somewhat faceless.

Lose the skits and a couple of ballads Ashanti may never be ready for, and her summery second outing delivers on the limited promise of her first.

Glossy, electronic, and at times quite infectious, the record extends Vitamin C's bubbly reign.

Anyone hoping that this reunion with his old band would mean Springsteen's found his focus and was ready to rededicate himself to the freewheelin' spunk of his "classic" period will surely be disappointed with The Rising.

The remixes are extremely liberal, cutting and pasting with little regard for the originals in question.

Nothing terribly original here, but they do manage to kick out the jams with fervor and the kind of enthusiasm that only wavers when carpel-tunnel or rheumatism sets in.

When they go for the chill of classic Eminem cuts like "Kim," they come up short.

Meshell's best when making the political personal--as she does on the blistering, explicit ballad "Trust"--instead of the other way around.

The album may not improve on 2001's Sophtware Slump, but its pleasures lie in accepting reasonable underachievement, and knowing that speed kills.

The album, produced by her longtime collaborators Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, doesn't drift from their if-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it formula that supplies Janet with dreamy, radio friendly R&B/pop to balance the record's angst and lust.

Accomplished and occasionally great as this album is, Endtroducing still casts the biggest shadow on it of all.

While, lyrically, Keith's material aims for the lowest common denominator, even songs like the shameless arena-rock ballad "American Soldier," are a pleasant change from Nashville's typical assembly line product.

Yet while the familiar spirits-soaked verses of J-Ro and Tash will reassure old fans, it's the music here that should encourage them to set down their cans and bottles and listen.

The grooves here prove Chuck D and Flavor Flav can bring the noise of old.

He's got the beat rate up and lots of faux funk happening.

Kiss Of Death is certainly an improvement on its predecessor... However, what continues to bar Jada from the inner MC circle populated by Jay-Z, Eminem and even Kanye West is his lack of a broader vision.

Roughly half these 19 songs burn themselves out on first listen, but the rest are sublime.

Musically speaking, "Damn" is the only real memorable tune in the bunch. Which is exactly the expletive many of her old fans may express when hearing this often over-bombastic effort.

Testify is a perfect album for anyone who still treasures Face Value, Hello, I Must Be Going and No Jacket Required.

If there's a downside, it's that 13 may sound more like a sampler of ideas than a single-minded effort.

Few other contemporary electronic acts are quite so savvy in their subtle manipulation of traditional song elements within a cybernetic context.

Built To Spill have made a concise, pop-smart record.

What gives Afrodisiac its allure are the confident club jams that mask B-Rocka’s vocal limitations without overpowering her.

In reality Bounce is the next chapter in an incredibly successful non-descript novel about love won and lost in times of turmoil, with plenty of songs that even a championship soccer team could sing.