LaVette has little rapport with Hood, and her uneasiness interpreting his lyrics and the strange cover choices (Elton John's 'Talking Old Soldiers,' Willie Nelson's 'Somebody Pick Up My Pieces') comes through in every vocal performance.

The more introspective moments show songwriting potential that's worth getting excited about, but at times the disc coasts along too comfortably to be truly remarkable.

The songs are ridiculously catchy, albeit predictable and overly comfortable in that 70s folk rock vibe he loves so much.

Hakeem Seriki's sophomore album kicks off with his heavy single 'Hip Hop Police,' with guest Slick Rick, one of the strongest rap songs of 07.

It sounds very much like the disjointed collection of rickety epics about fucking and frustration you'd expect from a BSS disc.

The experimentation pays off.

Only real problem is that the foursome tend to write the same songs over and over again, this time thinly veiled in arena- and hair-metal swagger, but still too similar structurally to sound like they've challenged themselves.

Akron/Family do joy justice. You could focus on the psychedelic country folk experimentation and the odd song structures, but what you really take away from this album is pure childlike joy, even during the darker minor-key moments.

Everything clicks on Let's Stay Friends, from blasts of Rocket from the Crypt bombastic rock on The Equestrian to Fugazi-sharp guitars backing Tim Harrington's feverish, controlled vocals on Patty Lee.

On their fourth album, the goal continues to be to outdo themselves in terms of heavier-than-thou riffs, thundering drums and ominous aggression.

50 is back with his larger-than-life persona and even bigger Mack 11, remaking his classic first album for the second time, with tiresome results.

West delivers another failsafe collection of sharp, soulful songs, exposing his new affinity for synths and electronic drums while adding new lyrical ground to that campus-sized ego.

It may be exactly what fans have been waiting for, but you have to wonder how long the band can keep using the same templates.

Replacement guitarist Luke Paquin is serviceable but stays in the shadows, while vocalist Steve Bays sheds more of HHH's former skin on a sonically big record that offers only rare doses of the pulsating new wave punk energy they once emitted.

Add an ability to string lyrical and musical narratives together to create a complete whole and Bluefinger should serve as yet another highlight in an already stellar body of work.

The range is fantastic but never jarring.

Their second album is full of clean, infectious dance numbers that bring to mind both New Order and Peter, Bjorn and John.

Just cold, robotic electro beats with Wiley's aggressive cockney flows on the usual subjects.

The rest of Autumn Of The Seraphs sounds a bit more meticulous, though it's self-assured in its footing.

This is still effervescent, hook-based pop, but it eschews the Delgados' more orchestrated moments in favour of simpler instrumentation, whipped into cabaret-ish arrangements or pared down into frantic post-punk, with driving lines of ringing single-note bass and guitar.

The SOLs are skilled at crafting songs rooted in striking specificity.

On the stylistically diverse Good Bad Not Evil, they confront many of the problems facing America today, taking short, sharp stabs at the Katrina disaster, neurotoxins destroying the upper middle class, juvenile delinquency, false prophets and an apocalyptic holy war.

Henry, fresh from co-producing the Knocked Up soundtrack, doesn't have an exceptional voice. It's croaky, with little range, and the piano- and acoustic-based music on Civilians (out Sept 11) is kept unobtrusive, serving his writerly lyrics well.

The surging crescendos and improv freedom give his wordy songs a refreshing dynamic that could gain the 41-year-old folk troubadour an entirely new audience.

It's more tripped-out and druggy, a looser version of the songwriting that gave Skeleton its immediate punch.

On La Radiolina, an unmistakable molotov cocktail of fierce resistance anthems, Manu Chao continues to do what he does best.

The rock 'n' role playing of Going Way Out isn't really as satisfying on disc as it may have seemed in the planning stages.

The album is as solid as its maker's last name but so predictable you could set your Flavor Flav clock to it.

A handful of songs, like 'Things I'll Do,' find Northern State at their zenith, perfect storms of concept, beat and lyrical cleverness. Others are catchy but inane. Enough are just insipid.

They occasionally slip into derivative territory, Beggars Banquet-era Stones in particular, but strong solo material saves Lifeline near the end.

It's frequently ridiculous and makes you a bit embarrassed for the folly and bravado of youth, but the guy has an uncanny knack for that perfectly evocative couplet and addictive hook, which is why his supporters are so vocal.

Aussie collective Architecture in Helsinki return with an awkward mess of shrieking faux island riddims and embarrassing rump-shaking elasto-funk.

What's immediately striking about Challengers is the unabashed mellowness of it all.

What makes Under The Blacklight a true disappointment is the shoddy songcraft.

Andorra feels downhearted, often recalling Elliott Smith; even on 'She's The One,' a collabo with Junior Boys's Jeremy Greenspan, it sounds like she's a real drag.

Kweli's curse- 'n' cliché-free rhyme-ripping proves he needs no help on the microphone. He outshines his celebrated guests, including labelmate Grae, KRS-One, Norah Jones (!), Sonia Sanchez, UGK's Pimp C and Bun B, Musiq Soulchild and Raheem DeVaughn.

You'll find great boy-girl vocals, muted guitars and quiet but hooky pop.

There are a few hot instrumental numbers, but most of this is your favourite undergrounders (add Ladybug Mecca and Z-Trip to the list above) doing their thing over bangin' live funk beats with ace production.

Some songs lack raw emotion but have sombre vocal melodies and engaging lyrics.

Tim McGraw's country-radio-friendly production weighs down the disc.... McKenna sounds best stripped down and rough around the edges. Both her voice and writing deserve more modest frames.

The Stage Names is much more of a balls-out rock album than most of Okkervil River's oeuvre, and also more orchestral and layered, with arrangements that include everything from non-sissy glockenspiel to metronome percussion. The complexity is the perfect counterpart to Sheff's dense writing.

If you can stomach the contrived slow jams and the sensitive soul-baring, there are a couple of decent joints produced by West.

Most bizarre are the contributions of studio drummer Terry Bozzio, known for his work with Frank Zappa, who, despite his reputation as one of rock's most talented stick men, fails to sound heavy, menacing or even relatively interesting.

Sadly, this landfill isn't biodegradable.

How poignantly they express their inarticulate messages through Blink-182 rip-offs and recycled versions of their own material.

Better than anything they've done to date.

Crammed with 18 efficient minutes of material generated in the liminal period after 03's "Fever To Tell," Is Is comes closer to the lusty nails-scratching-down-a-lover's back energy of 'Date With The Night' or early Yeah Yeah Yeahs tracks like 'Art Star' than anything on 06's "Show Your Bones. "

Redundant, needlessly long, Those The Brokes rarely matches the 60s California-dreamin' good-vibes pop of its successful self-titled predecessor.

It's quickly evident on We Are The Night that the Chemical Brothers are making a serious go at being contemporary.... They pull it off relatively well for the most part.

This is no-frills rawk that's been dumbed down for mass consumption.

In terms of writing and production, this may be Interpol at their best.

It's not the best album of Spoon's career, but it's far from a misstep.

The whole album is solid, save for Uffie's questionable club princess rap, and even that sounds better with repeated listens.

It's actually startlingly dark, and understandably so – drummer Paul Hester took his own life only two years ago, and the tragedy definitely shades Neil Finn's songwriting on Time.

While this album might not be their most mind-bending, its hooks and idiosyncrasies prove that after more than two decades, TMBG still know how to have fun.

Goodbye's overall prettiness is both its weakness and its strength; the album is pleasant but blends into the background a bit too easily.

If the Replacements were to release an album stuffed with vital performances of stylishly crafted roots rock like those on Three Easy Pieces, it would be hailed as the comeback of the century.

Isbell shows us his sensitive side in a collection of lightly strummed breakup ballads and weepy slow-dancers you'd expect to get from Ryan Adams. That's not an endorsement.

While New Wave will probably compel you to pay attention to singer Tom Gabel's rasping rants, it's still a record that's pretty damn fun to dance around to.

If Fantastic is saying anything meaningful, it's "shut the hell up and have some fun."

Fact is, the Enemy are better than that, and their debut full-length is also certainly better than some kind of classic Britpop rehash.

On Maps, BR breathe new life into their formula--short, fast and melodic Cali skate-punk ditties led by the always politically and socially aware growlings of lead singer Greg Graffin.

T.I. vs T.I.P. suffers from its star's inability to commit to character.

The Sheryl Crow duet works where his Norah Jones collabo didn't; I Taught Myself How To Grow Old is classic tortured Adams, and Pearls On A String is a rewarding reflection of the time he spent hanging out with Willie Nelson.

The Beasties have neither the musical chops nor the compositional skill... to hold listeners' interest for the length of an album.

Bad Brains can still blast with ferocity, but the jarring changes in tone and tempo could prove more of a problem than the lo-fi production for many listeners.

Probably his most personally revealing work yet.

Moving further away from sugar-coated post-Idol fare, Clarkson steps up with more rockers and a few ballads that, while not all destined to be radio hits, are all convincing and emotionally bare.

They seamlessly move from straight-up hardcore or punk to more traditional rock all over this record, and there's no shortage of fist-pumping anthems.

Ferry manages to breathe new life into [the songs] while maintaining their integrity and original purpose.

The novelty of it all has quickly worn thin.

Most of Icky Thump's songs sound half-assed, with keyboard parts thrown in ad hoc, but at least they had the good sense to trim the piano bar balladry.

This disc is dullsville.

Overall, as safe as Highway might be, there's no way long-time fans won't buy it.

Though QOTSA always seem to be on bland-rock stations, this is as different from the mainstream as you can imagine, and not in a bad way.

The problem is that all this stuff sounds terribly dated already.

A combination of insipid songs and uniformly soulless performances, it deserves high placement among the other legendary Macca misfires Pipes Of Peace, Press To Play, Off The Ground, Tug Of War and Red Rose Speedway.

What a joyously juddering load of comical clatter it is.

He doesn't sound convincingly comfortable in this power-ballad terrain that once worked so well for him in Temple Of The Dog.

There aren't really any Beautiful People-type moments, only a collection of songs that work surprisingly well as a kind of musical diary for a performer who has finally acknowledged that he's not the threatening icon he once was.

Maths + English is not without its gems.

A fairly satisfying collection of disposable pop R&B.

It's all a bit of a muddle.

Those lyrics may seem slightly ridiculous, but between them and his thinly veiled metaphors for his need to perform cunnilingus (Sweet Tooth), Kelly's originality and talent for making instant club hits is un-fucking-deniable.

A huge improvement over Alligator, and likely to launch the band into a new phase.

By no means a terrifically unique or fantastic sophomore album, it still manages to avoid mediocrity, and not just because our expectations were so low to begin with.

If you're only into the band for the music, then this will be a solid purchase – it's far more polished and focused than Songs About Jane. Lyrically, though, this album gets tired fast.

It seems as if they've done everything possible to distance themselves from their original, much more interesting sound, opting instead for songs with barely enough hooks and coherent structures.

It's almost as if, released from the role of playing less weird anchor to Spencer Krug's art rock savant, Boeckner's figured out how to maximize and expand what he does best.

The outlandish baroque-cubed excess here, from the warbling chorales to the bleating woodwinds, weighs down track after track after track after track.

All those self-consciously avant bits of the two previous albums have been ditched along with Jeff Tweedy's laughable lyrical abstractions in favour of tuneful, direct songs that at least seem to carry some emotional weight.

Try as they might to sound different, or even to touch on issues bigger than their own narcissistic garbage, LP still sound like they're stuck back in 00, which is where they should have stayed.

A well-considered 10-track song cycle of mostly shorter and tighter compositions that combine the catchy, guitar-oriented pop aspects of Ta Det Lugnt ... with the darker freak-folk stylings of 2002's Stadsvandringar.

Fans might find it a fascinating revelation, and Madonna will likely swipe a few ideas, while everyone else is left wondering what happened to the tunes.

It's lacking the melancholic darkness that added substance to Strange Geometry.

Too few of the two dozen half-developed tracks here do justice to Smith's talent as a songwriter.

The weird, nuanced Rhode Island-based MC burns his references, punchlines and cold truths through a batch of X-acto-sharp beats, focusing his strong opinions, sense of imagery and lyrical abstraction inward.

When they're flowing about anything but shooting people over the expensive-sounding synth-goo production, the record could pull a school bus with its teeth. But aimless, boring gunshot-laden tracks like 9mm and Gun Blast find Bone unable to let go of their dated murda-isms.