Most of these tracks merely feel professional or workmanlike, sincere recordings that sadly lack inspiration.

These are talented musicians-- and Vol. 2 is superior to the first disc-- but that development hardly merits owning two full albums of indifferent collaboration.

Everything about Laugh Now, Cry Later feels utterly tapped of inspiration and vitality, and Cube's former greatness only makes this exhausting slog that much more depressing.

The better part of this record is certainly charming, even more likeable than the folk that came before it... The only problem is that the magic fades.

The drab sound is a shame considering the well-constructed songs and Galia Durant's emerging strength as a vocalist.

A warmed-over stew of scrubbed-up psychedelia, scrubbed-up sunshine pop, scrubbed-up soundtrack music, electrofunk, and lounge that's all produced immaculately, right down to the "messy" parts.

There are shortcomings... When Smoosh are good, though, they're really good.

The first hour or so of It's Alive is perfect for Cars fans so diehard they'd not only pay for a live album of songs they mostly already own, but a live album 20 years after the fact with only two original members and a different lead singer.

This soundtrack is a nice surprise, exceeding expectations when it eschews the expected.

It's so gleefully over-the-top that even the most absurd and token-tortured lyrics neatly circumvent being taken at face value.

This is electric music in every sense of the word-- amplified, processed, and imbued with a neon glow.

Given A Vintage Burden's relatively standard space-blues construction, there's sure to be those Charalambides fans who will miss the levitational scope of the group's more free-form transmissions.

Herbert has outdone himself when it comes to his usual conceptual three-ring circus. But, crucially, this time he's put all that theoretical effort into his most memorable songs.

For all the great ideas and fantastic moments sprinkled throughout Peeping Tom, it turns out that Mike Patton's idea of pop is as uncompromising as his other musical notions. In this case, what's great in theory doesn't work so well in practice.

Even at its most dissonant and abstract, this record is human to the core, and if you're ready to face a few demons, it's as inspiring as music gets.

It's a sound as vital and inspirational as ever.

The interplay between lazy strumming and everything-in-its-right-place arrangements effectively rewrites the history of the garage-rock revival, drawing a line between "Last Nite" and Tom Petty and erasing the denial that "Maps" was the biggest song that scene's brief heyday produced.

Despite occasional flashes of inspiration, much of the record blends together into a whole that is somehow much less than the sum of its parts; the ingredients are colorful, but the end result is disappointingly dull.

[To Find Me Gone] finds Cabic nudging Vetiver toward the lost canyons of airy West Coast soft-rock and laid-back, country-tinged introspection, all harvested with a dreamy, narcotic warmth and just enough melodic grit to avoid a complete departure off into the twilight.

Tie on the celebrity blindfold, and Broken Boy Soldiers no longer seems like that much of an achievement-- just another case of men recreating their favorite vinyl deep cuts, if a bit more skillfully than most FM scrapbookers.

This could be the group's most accomplished record musically, but when Anthony Roman opens his yap he consigns the band's good deeds to the remainder bin.

Powder Burns doesn't reinvent the Twilight Singers' sound, but it's clear that Greg Dulli is searching for new and darker back alleys to walk down.

II is a perfectly balanced record, and its arrangements are so exact and delicate that it almost feels like one buzz of a doorbell or ring of a telephone could send the whole thing toppling over, splattering into useless bits.

But for now, basking in Pink's riptide, Wata, Takeshi, and Atsuo are 2006's balls-out riff-makers to beat.

Like the Betas' Heroes to Zeros, Black Gold isn't a flashy record.... But unlike Heroes to Zeros, Black Gold sounds agreeably homespun.

It's tempting to think of Art Brut as the foreign replacement for the catchy/clever observances Weezer used to traffic.

As scattershot and weirdly limp as parts of this are-- two guys just knocking things together, seeing what happens-- well, it feels better to hear someone trying.

Living With War's short gestation benefits Young's performance, inspiring him to make his loudest, rawest release of new material since at least Ragged Glory, maybe even Rust Never Sleeps.

The Spell is Black Heart Procession's best album, cohesive though it lacks the conceptual arc of its predecessor, and dynamically arranged, with the sense of interplay that flows naturally from a working band.

None of Smith's previous records-- and in fact, very few indie releases this year-- have flat-out rocked like this one, with blaring trumpets signaling snares to exact their force beneath sweeping multitracked vocal choruses that simply won't stop crescendoing.

It's all vaguely familiar, but Lytle's fine-grained production pops a freshmaker or two into the mix.

Every element on Springtime-- the relaxed tempos, fluid arrangements, dark moods, unobtrusive instrumentation-- is deployed in service to Holland's decidedly eccentric voice.

The band's longtime devotees will find plenty to love here, but the album isn't memorable enough to make its way into most people's heavy rotation.

There are a few moments when the concept's cooler than the result, but in general The Rose Has Teeth's experiments result in frenetic dance tracks doubling as reading lists.

Whereas poor production values and drug-fueled exuberance once excused their George Clinton worship, 20 years on, in Rick Rubin's sterile environment, the band sounds like they're in jamband training camp, filling in all the empty spaces with blippityblap reminders of Flea's virtuosity and John Frusciante's desire to use every effects pedal ever invented.

His one-man band's busy textures can't fully distract from insipid songwriting.

If Eyes Open lacks the vivacity of its breakthrough predecessor, it remains an assured example of a band still paying more than lip service to the notion of rock music as a vital pop form.

Feathers seems less a continuation of Logic than a valuable complement, cheerful and heartfelt as the latter was somber and stylized.

With Dawson, the focus is on the lyrics, with her music tending to serve as a mere platform for sprawling, humorous stories whose serious subject matter contradicts the childlike catchiness underpinning them.

Time and again, the most powerful element of Gulag Orkestar, and what ought to be emphasized, is Condon's acrobatic, powerful, emotionally nuanced voice.

These aren't 11 songs so much as 12 blood-riling arguments.

Far too many tracks here opt for atmosphere over impact: In particular, the interchangeable dubwise ballads-- "City of the Dead", "Road to Paradise", and "The Architect"-- veer perilously into a Club Med cocktail-hour circa 1984.

Anyone who enjoyed Gomez for their more adventurous traits will be left in the cold by How We Operate.

Too much of Blood Money represents something sad and fascinating-- two demons domesticated, two artists who have willfully transformed themselves into hucksters.

Instead of trying to rage against the machine, they're appealing to its intellectual nature. Unfortunately, this nuance is steamrolled by the group's need for fan-friendly riffage.

Rather than delving further into experimentation or exploring their strengths, Tool have made an...A Perfect Circle record.

What makes their self-titled debut rise above mere pastiche is how capably they strike a balance between meaty vintage metal and crisp, stoner-rock melodies.

The cumulative effect of Shut Up I Am Dreaming surpasses "I'll Believe in Anything"'s ostensible perfection. That's a brilliant song, yes, but this a brilliant album, ballooning with those sorts of moments on repeat.

Auer may have the lower profile of the two lead Posies, but he's every bit the artisan his bandmate is-- and his solo debut is ultimately a satisfying listen.

Unfortunately, Capture/Release might be the victim of bad timing: It's going to sound pretty rote to American audiences who've been steeped in this stuff for the past couple years, and while it's doubtful that the Rakes are overtly ripping off any of the bands they resemble, it scans as a failure of imagination on the listener's end.

Lacking the dynamic cohesion that made its predecessor more than the sum of its tracklist, it feels like merely a collection of random tracks, which, despite their common themes, begin to sound haphazard in their arrangements and sequencing.

Not only are there scattered moments of lyrical brilliance on The Hardest Way, but from a producerly standpoint, it's probably Skinner's most accomplished and interesting record yet.

Less an exhumation than a celebration, The Seeger Sessions is the best proof we've got that America's folksongs are also our finest artifacts.

Some who fondly remember Kill My Landlord or Steal This Album might initially wince at the less-abrasive sonics, but just as Riley's rhymebook includes more of himself than ever, so have his rhythms become more intimate and seductive.

As ornate orchestral pop goes, Starlight Mints are too oddball-flip. They cram their songs with every sound imaginable without making a compelling case for any, and music that's so congested needs a sense of hierarchy.

Songs' best moments occur when Verlaine complicates the pop formula with serious tension.

Too many of the songs are flimsy and fragmentary, never shaping into anything substantial and coming across like incidental music.

Too bad the songs aren't as adventurous as the music. This lack of songwriterly imagination severely limits the band's range.

Unfortunately, these tracks don't have the charm of their more traditional jangle-rock, and at times the disc suffers for it.

Even if everything here is already familiar to Analord watchers, it's a welcome return.

Yes, Virginia doesn't have the expressive range of the Dresden Dolls' debut.... But what is here is frequently engaging even if-- for a band that thrives on discomfort-- the record sometimes gets a bit too comfortable for its own good.

For the first time in the group's decade of existence, they've made an album that doesn't entirely live up to their reputation.

Elefant's latest is only as deep as its clenched-jaw fake-Brit hooks.

This is not by any stretch a turn toward the accessible, though there are a few great pop moments.

We, the Vehicles not only exceeds its predecessor, but serves as a corrective to every one of its deficiencies.

With so little added to the originals, you have to ask: Why do this? 'Cause it's good fun.

There's a fair share of undeveloped sequences and meandering noodling, but that's the price you pay for the effortless pop collages.

It's the songs they've neglected: They plod forward with generic piston-like rhythms, focusing solely on the one-dimensional vocals and limp songwriting.

White Rose Movement's "electro-clash" 80s sound basically candy-coats Nine Inch Nails industrial and metrosexualizes the lyrics, making Kick pretty redundant.

More ephemeral than Clor, more cerebral than the Rakes, Field Music has, like the Magic Numbers, fashioned a distinctive voice and near-perfect arrangements, but the songs hint at greatness nearly as often as they achieve it.

Aside from its abundance of overlong songs, You in Reverse is marred by a lack of strong melody when compared to Built to Spill's other records.

I'd never wanted Calexico to change, but the new direction suits them well, proving that even in the face of radical metamorphosis, they remain as stunning and distinctive as ever.

Death by Sexy rubs out the line between novelty and earnestness, reminding us that music doesn't have to be ironic to have a sense of humor.

The album packages a loosened-up (read: defanged), groove-centric sound, infinitely more urbane but so much more boring, too.

Crucial parts of the album don't sound as intriguing today as they once did-- namely, all of the voices.... On the other hand, the rhythm tracks still kick ass 10 ways to Sunday.

Estudando o Pagode is an impressive album, musically, conceptually, and lyrically, and the cast of musicians and singers Zé assembled delivers on his singular vision.

After an hour of getting your heartstrings tugged with such intense proficiency, You Are There starts to feel no less egregiously manipulative than hearing Celine belt out "My Heart Will Go On" for the thousandth time in a Vegas ballroom.

While Some Echoes starts out as a good album, by the end it reveals itself as the best thing they've ever done.

The album is less immediately memorable than Wilderness' prior work, but its glittering suspension of pensive melodies and resounding rhythms is just as fine in the long run.

Coupling their graceful, intuitive musicianship with a resolute outward-bound gaze, Feathers appear ready to join the elite of the avant-folk underground.

The rest of the album doesn't sustain the highs of its first two tracks. At their best, the remaining songs are soothing, if unremarkable. But, at their worst, they plummet into less tuneful and more lyrically cloying territory.

The aggressively banal orchestral arrangements and cornball baritone make Jacket Full of Danger something like a rakish Scott Walker for the post-Beck era.

Before, it seemed like these beautiful free spirits were just cranking out great happy-sad songs, one of which happened to sneak into a Target commercial. Now it seems like they're trying to make music for a Target commercial.

While the band has always played around with a variety of sounds, when you get down to the nuts and bolts of songwriting, most of Mystics doesn't measure up.

Ringleader of the Tormentors is, rather than the now-anticipated letdown, another fitting heir to [his] legacy.

Meds isn't a terrible album, but there's very little to get excited about on it either, and Placebo's calculated naughtiness is no more convincing than it's ever been.

Seeming short at 40 minutes, it's a slight album, and it's marred by Blueprint's slavish devotion to his own goofy song-concepts.

On the stupid loud songs, Craig Nicholls sounds like a bored Kurt Cobain. On the stupid slow songs, Craig Nicholls sounds like a bored Liam Gallagher.

The Charm... is surprisingly great as conciliatory moves go.

Overall, South are in roughly the same place they've always been, making good post-Britpop music that sounds fantastic and sometimes erupts in a moment of unadulterated brilliance.

The voice is willing, but the musical backdrop is weak.

A formula ain't necessarily a bad thing: Think of it as a carefully considered training technique, designed to flex and strengthen certain sonic muscles in aid of achieving ever more impressive results.

Return to the Sea is a case of Diamonds and Tambeur yanking up their anchor and setting sail for new waters, enjoying the freedoms of exploration and discovery.

The band has... streamlined their songwriting, whittling away the unconventional turns and multiple pre-choruses that made their earlier material more interesting, leaving emotionally aerodynamic compositions free of atonal snags or polyrhythmic left-turns.

Demon... is a near doppelganger of [Architecture in Helsinki's In Case We Die], down to its multitude of vocalists, its adorable accents ("It Is the Law", coming out something like Hopelandic), its short attention span, its 50s-style romanticism, and its infectious giddiness.

They've developed an impressive sense of craft, and it seems they can only go up from here.

Never quite knowing which Feelies riff or Malkmus vocal turn or, hell, CYHSY organ sound these guys will strike with next is precisely what makes The Loon such a rich, participatory, and eminently repeatable experience.

What makes Rahim unique isn't their overall style; it's the tiny yet indispensable songwriting flourishes that lodge obdurately in the memory.