It all informs this feel-bad album of the year, which sounds fantastic thanks to Sanford Parker's no-frills yet full production.

While they could tone down the synth on their next effort, this disc definitely lives up to the hype.

Even as they cop the slinky white funk of INXS and David Bowie on Love Me and aim for an easily romanced demographic with the electro-tinged ballad A Change Of Heart and the anguished The Ballad Of Me And My Brain, they sound suspiciously like dudes too eager to come off as sensitive and edgy.

Broken Boy Soldiers won't reverse global warming, but it certainly tops Get Behind Me Satan for rockin' entertainment.

Live fails to replicate the experience of seeing Eels.

The Double Cross, a slyly titled nod to their anniversary, returns to the songwriting style not of their beloved first two records, but of the equally strong One Chord, Navy and Bridges era.

Her best album in more than a decade.

[The album showcases] her technical precision as a singer but reluctance to colour outside the lines.

It’s exhilarating, cheeky, Pavement-influenced indie rock that’ll leave you exhausted – and maybe anxious – by track 15.

The unending lights and sounds of Bangkok, Manila and Beijing inspired the duo's most electronic and propulsive album to date.

It sounds like FutureSex, so you’ll desperately listen over and over hoping to replicate how that album made you feel and end up surrendering to its pleasant, sanitized soundscape. But you’ll feel nothing.

After 9/11, it seemed like every North American recording artist scrambled to come out with a political message album. Unfortunately for Sheryl Crow, words that to rhyme with “gasoline” have become painfully redundant in 2008.

McCombs’s songwriting has become less opaque and more direct, without losing any of his signature poetry, mystery and dark humour.

Meat And Bone finds Spencer at what is arguably his most Bowie-esque.

It's mostly just softly plucked, atmospheric guitar and Webb's weary vocals building up songs that are achingly slow, sombre and intimate.

Pura Vida is more subdued (relatively speaking) than the group’s usual celebratory style, but the album’s best songs are still the most anthemic, the ones that sound the best alongside a hoisted, spilled beer.

Mostly, though, it's the usual whining about his tortured life as as a once-celebrated pop star and being unloved in a harsh world, but with fewer droll song titles and clever couplets.

It's so soft-focus as to rarely assert itself or command attention, but fuzz-pop Free The Skull brings to mind Pink Mountaintops, boogie rocker Slow Down Low has a blissful pulse, and Thieves gets terrific mileage out of a hypnotically repetitive riff.

As he wrestles with his isolation--a major theme here--Maine shows shades of Grizzly Bear, but he still fails to narrow in on his own distinct sound.

On MTMTMK, the duo moves through a range of global sounds, from Congolese kwassa kwassa to reggaeton to electro house.

Bejar’s singing with admitted half-fluency in another language is no barrier to enjoyment. Actually, it removes an element of his style that can frustrate some of us.

This time around he's found his soul. It's in his phrasing, his rhythms, the occasional Hammond organ punctuation and sultry balladry.

Monds-Watson is startlingly accomplished for her age, showing a deft hand at songcraft.

Some might say it lacks bite, but it works nicely with Liam Corcoran’s good-guy vocals, the hum-along choruses and the band’s stunning pop chops.

Though melancholy, the album never wallows or gets stuck or even treads water, largely due to all the movement constantly happening in the vocal and piano lines. It feels like an exploration rather than a sealed-up document of the past.

After the band’s polished, dance-friendly 2009 effort, It’s Blitz!, Zinner’s hard-charging riffs on Area 52 are a welcome return to the urgent, sometimes messy art punk of their early days.

He stays true to his reputation for unconstrained madness.

Green Naugahyde is very much a return to their glory years, which makes it a great introduction for new ears and a satisfying addition to the catalogue for long-time fans.