This is intense, serious music for serious times, and writing off Sparta as the "other," less interesting half of their previous group would be a major mistake.

Lacking the startling mark of cool-hearted covermongers such as Cat Power and Mark Kozelek, this is still an easeful album of mostly slow-blooded tunes.

An album that, despite all its misty melancholy, is filled less with lyrics of heartache, and more with words of warmth and romance.

Brings to mind an image of someone stuck on a treadmill who has been fooled into believing that he's actually moving forward.

Rainer Maria have never been more skillful in their playing or stronger in their singing than on the slickly recorded A Better Version of Me -- which some may see as a problem.

Guitars riff, drums pound, the bass plods, and the singer yowls -- but nothing gels.

In the future the restless, insecure South-men may perhaps harness their broad tastes into a more cogent sound, but From Here On In finds them a well-produced but overly expansive mess.

This is gloriously trashy glam-rock with an updated cybernetic edge.

A set doing less of the poker-faced electro revivalism and more of the palette-diversifying pop-song penning.

The New Danger is overambitious and undercooked, adventurous and bland all at once.

[A] tired, uninspired collection of music and songs.

The gear is buffed to such a productional sheen that its every sound seems like a reflective surface, the compositional complexity leading to an album as confusing -- and, ultimately, distancing -- as a hall of mirrors.

It's well produced and mixed, but lacks the edge to make it really interesting.

The disc is basically a more straight electro-pop variation on the Gold Chains angle.

Yes, the overall sound is more uniform. Uniformity, however, is not necessarily a bad thing.

Amber Headlights fails, when it does, because it's trying to be two things at once: a personal reflection on life and death and a commercially acceptable rock record. But when the album ditches the tricks and conventions that define mainstream rock and focuses on Dulli's songs, it is very powerful indeed.

Let's face it, no one else today is making music as cool and original as that of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Their debut album flits between uneasy ambient pieces, pop songs buried in layers and loops, and crunchy takes on the IDM sound.

It's not bad, it's just so goddamn mediocre.

Left to his own devices here, Marr has penned vague lyrics and delivered them in a monotone, coupled with uninspired melodies that only underline the singer's limitations.

His songwriting shine is soon obscured behind the dark clouds of densely layered home recording.

Gemstones is shit. It's awful. It really, really is.