The record maps for, and makes for, an unhurried listen, stringing between buttery grooves with an apparent smoker's-delight vibe; the set only goes up a notch when The Pharcyde step up to the microphone, their goofy, lithe lyricism upping the relaxed pulse for a pair of fine moments.

Overall, it is clear that Hitchcock is having fun creating music with Welch and Rawlings, and that joy comes through in the listening.

Heroes to Zeros, in spite of a few uneven tracks, makes the cut.

Unlike previous albums, Ovalcommers wheezes and squirms its way inside.

. Ditching some of the more Cali-like, pop-like and psych-like vestments of past longplayers, Argyle Heir finds the quartet-cum-sextet making the most medieval indie-rock this side of dungeon-dancing Helium honcho Mary Timony.

Their record runs through a range of instrumentalist archetypes and quietly surprising turns-for-the-worse, from electrified screech to tape-op minimalism, through pastoralism and soundscapery, to numbers where they knock out all manner of feigned sturm und drang.

The tracks fail to hang together in a convincing way -- often giving the impression that they were more or less strung together on a whim.

His best work since 1997's Built to Spill album, Perfect From Now On.

It is hard to say which side of Mogwai is more moving, the quietly beautiful or the transcendently loud, but the great thing about Mr. Beast is that you don't have to decide.

This is a compelling debut/reunion, with the two men seeming to push each other far more than any of their recent collaborators have.

As if its size alone weren't enough to set the album apart from his preceding Spiritualized outings, Pierce has removed all the sounds he thought were immediately identifiable as Spiritualized -- delay, phase, Telecaster, Farfisa -- and left the songs as largely orchestral numbers.

There's no question Aesop Rock makes essentially no sense half the time. The other half, he's painting abstract art all over fractured soundscapes. The music is smart and progressive; it's also pretentious and challenging.

Their newfound versatility detracts somewhat from their own identity.

In the midst of all this Neptunian mastery, there are two absolutely unlistenable "rock" songs that no fan of modern productionist fervor could possibly stand listening to.

At their best... Pearls & Brass churn out hard-rocking sculptures of distorted sounds at buffeting volume, but with a meditative, trance-inducing core.

Combining dramatic, ethereal pop vocals with moody guitar and piano theatrics, Summer in Abaddon recalls a tighter, smoothed-out Built to Spill, or maybe a Dismemberment Plan reunion.

With this album, French Kicks have taken a sizeable leap forward, taking the right bits and pieces from half a century of rock 'n' roll to make something new and, yes, unique.

Rain on Lens isn't awful, but boy, is it a long way from The Doctor Came at Dawn.

An eclectic, highly promising debut.

Alive to Every Smile finds TBS swanning through a set of soft-pop numbers giddy with the misty misery of melancholy and coated with the softest frostings of studio icing-sugar.

Too much of Half Smiles of the Decomposed, however, does not rock.

All for You is, for the most part, signature Janet.

Seemingly taking its cue from Congleton's willfully bizarre screaming, the band favors atonalism and discordance in its cobbled-together brand of mighty-uptighty protest rock.

Their sound is dirty and raw, sexy and wrong.

This record finds a band scaling the heights of their precise craft in a way that gives upward mobility a good name.

More than just a sick joke, Souljacker is a rocking, thought-provoking journey.

Sticking to a formula -- a formula that works for them -- the band sounds fiercer than ever on Riot Act.

Nick Cave, no mistake about it, is still a major talent, and Nocturama isn't nearly as bad a mid-career flop as Lou Reed's Mistrial or David Bowie's Never Let Me Down.... But nevertheless, this is also far from essential Nick Cave, as most longtime fans will immediately discern.