A couple of songs sound like Much More Music hits (Breakfast, Forever Be), but a few genuine surprises--the Simon & Garfunkelesque cover of Labi Siffre’s Bless The Telephone, the slow-burning Floyd and country-rocking Friday Fish Fry--demonstrate Kelis’s deft versatility.

Jamie Stewart, as usual, sounds like a man on the edge of checking into a white-walled care facility, but that shouldn’t be seen as a negative against Women As Lovers.

The songs are excellent in their own right, but when they’re all lined up, Interpol start seeming like a one-trick pony.

Like all Hip records, this is a snapshot of a band constantly moving away from their past and toward a strange musical unknown.

Antisocialites doubles down on Alvvays’s strengths while also helping the band carve out a stronger identity within their well-established sound. By highlighting the band itself, Alvvays one-up their exciting debut.

The band's straightforward punk leanings give way to more angular, spacious, softer songwriting--and some welcome metal nods in the title track--partway through the 10-track album, but Paternoster's vocals never back off. That's where the power, hooks and originality come from, but they're a little relentless.

Frontman Bobby Gillespie’s lyrics still don’t sound as effortlessly cool as his breathy delivery (see Culturecide), but it feels like the band is back on the pulse of something.

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.

The large cast of vocalists are quite upfront in the mix, and the quality of the songs tends to depend on their talent, but for the most part it’s a strong collection of bangers, with few missteps.

It even sounds like producer Ted Hutt tried to mimic Jon Landau’s production, since singer Brian Fallon sounds like he’s singing through vintage mics. It works incredibly well, though, as Gaslight earnestly blast through 12 tracks of melodic punk.

What's really impressive, though, is how all the nods to glam rock, shoegazer, new wave and 80s indie rock blend together to produce a sound that's maddeningly familiar but completely unique.

It's really only when you find the time to sit down and listen to it all that it starts making sense. Yes, this may require some patience, but you will be rewarded.

The range is fantastic but never jarring.

Like fine wine, Bill Hader or Gillian Anderson, Greys are only getting better with age.

The spare melodies and bleeps-and-loops approach result in chillingly direct songs.

More than a decade out from the band’s shift into electronic music and their reinvention as what at times seems to be a soundtrack band, it’s hard to tell if Mogwai have aged well or just sort of boringly mellowed.

On slick, feckless romance ballads like I Belong In Your Arms, that rooted-in-the-past sound can seem like empty nostalgia, but it blooms with freshness when used as a springboard for experimentation.

The laid-back riffs and grooves are balanced by big hooks and melodies that make the most of Jackson’s airy (and refreshingly unprocessed-sounding) voice.

Add it all up and you get a typical Ryan Adams release.

Azari & III's sound is less about chasing contemporary club trends than it is about summing up the last 30 years of underground dance music, so the album still sounds fresh.

Nihilism doesn't even begin to describe the mood created by the skittering electronic drums, uneasy atmospheric noises and MC Ride's manic scream-rapping.

Mayberry may be better known as the husky voice of HSY, but it's with Anamai that she's truly getting at her roots.

On the first three tracks, she tackles enduring pop-music themes like love, loneliness and friendship with the kind of unsentimental yet empathetic songwriting fans of the Pet Shop Boys might admire. Midway, her worldly confidence morphs into outright cockiness and the beats grow aggressive.

It's the kind of warm summer record you put on without much thought, and that's a large part of its charm.

The inventiveness in James's vocals draws attention to the lack of that quality in Roddick's production, which grows clichéd after a while.

As far as comeback albums go, Seasons Of Your Day doesn’t disappoint, but few songs truly stand out.

The album's biggest flaw is that Jonsi's opted to sing in English. Sure, we can now understand his lyrics, but hearing about people riding bikes, making out and just gallivanting about derails the experience.

On his third album, experimental electro sounds that initially seem grating and disparate weave together to form bona fide pop melodies.