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.

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

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

Grace includes lots of atmospheric touches that are two steps beyond country and miles too ethereal to call pop.

While Elvis is quite the crooner, an entire album of achy-breaky heartache is too much for the casual Costello listener to bear.

No, Fred, the results don't vary. The results are consistent throughout your new album--consistently crappy.

Slogging through this stuff is so soul consuming that by the time you get to "Too High," with its pompous rock opera orchestral arrangement and portentous drums, you'll just surrender and let Dave have his way with you.

Combining the two discs might have insured an unbeatable follow-up; however, the flawed, fascinating separation reveals what makes this partnership so special.

Stellastarr stand out from 2003's even-newer-new-wave-of-new-wave pack in that they manage to borrow from the suddenly-cool-again decade of Pacman and parachute pants without sounding like they've spent the last six months sequestered in a loft watching VH1's I Love The '80s documentary series in a constant loop.

Hard rock that is neither hard nor rock.

Offering musical redemption for the New South's old hang-ups, Deliverance delivers.

This time around, she and her collaborators have also figured out how to blow away the incense without losing her mystique.

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

Permission To Land is actually good enough to motivate more than a few curious, intrepid listeners to give their dusty old Dokken albums another spin.

Reality is easily one of his most emotionally transparent albums.

By muting Tool's over-the-top attack, Keenan has more time to devote to deepening the textures throughout.

Horn's work is so effective that it takes several listens before you notice how often Seal's songwriting depends on it.

The elements of free-jazz, mopey techno, and hypnotic riff rock find familiar combinations as Pierce's peace, love, and drugs philosophy takes on a perfunctory turn.

This is still an excellent band composed of three excellent musicians who can produce one hell of a noise.

This is 33 minutes of pure pop bliss; there isn't a bad song or a missed opportunity anywhere here.

You'd be hard-pressed to ask much more from a record.

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

Features a more worldly sound and outlook.

What Clones proves, beyond its certain hits, is that the Neptunes have to be considered alongside the handful of great artists (Bowie, Prince, et al) who kept pushing boundaries as they pushed up the charts.

Always undervalued as a songwriter, Franti reassembles his familiar building blocks of rock, reggae, and vintage R&B into the funkiest, most inviting neighborhoods he's yet created.

This is classic underachieving at its peak.

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.

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