[A] disappointing release.

Unfortunately, these high points are surrounded by plenty of semi-coherent nonsense about the wanderings of their fictional protagonist soldier boy.

Arguably their best record yet, a logical and accessible realization of a sound they've been developing for more than six years.

The Dears, by and large, make tracks that would slide without much distinction onto any number of mid-90s albums, neither gumming up the works nor sounding particularly special.

A more immediate, less cerebral album than you'd expect from such a green musician.

Tales Told lacks the charm of the Seeds' most ebullient singles, and it's certainly no Crocodiles, either.

Slim still loves blabbing repetition and dropping yapping vocal samples into the gobs of the dull, and this helps make Palookaville less a reformation than merely his latest and quite bland big beat manifesto.

Its chief problem is that every word, every note, and every instrument sounds dry, sapped of most of their personality.

Mono have wisely restrained from directly replicating their previous sound, but here the band has sacrificed sonic heaviness for intellectual ponderousness, and too often has fallen prey to slow, repetitive, tiresome songwriting patterns and a frustrating lack of variation.

Hidden Vagenda is elegantly constructed and outwardly naive, but it lacks a consistent underlying honesty.

Spooked sounds closer to folk-inspired songs Hitchcock performed very early in his career, his recent forays into Dylaniana, and Welch's prefab Americana. For Hitchcock, it's both a departure and a return to his roots.

It's awkward to witness such a gloriously thuggish monster vainly attempt the rope-a-dope.

It lurches along like a junk-heap jalopy, unsteady and unsafe, bits flying off in every direction, stopping, starting, and bouncing in pain.

For an album I approached ready to shrug off as sheer novelty, its humor and candor give it a fair amount of staying power.

These are summer-blockbuster songs, overdriven and overproduced simply because they can be, with little-to-no actual substance behind the heavy-effects bluescreen.

The Grind Date brings together an unimaginable team of the underground's hottest producers and meshes their idiosyncrasies without dissidence.

Power is, to say the least, hardly the collection of hard rockers that No Kill and Different Damage were. But with its lilt melodies, Davis' downplayed role, and the band's admission that, hey, a bassline here or there couldn't hurt, Power boasts a cohesion and distinct identity missing from Q & Not U's two previous albums.

He contorts both his simplistic pop urges and his more obtuse soundscaping, and makes good on neither.

Burned Mind, better than any recent album I can think of, betrays music's implied purpose of providing an enjoyable aural experience, while at the same time being psychologically compelling and richly imagistic enough to invite repeat listens.

Damage is a far cry from the stripped-down screech that made these guys famous. In its contrast, it calls out everything the Blues Explosion once was and now isn't.

It's the kind of record that will have a profound impact on a small number of people, be ridiculed by many more, and never be heard at all by almost everybody.

Treble and Tremble showcases a full array of old-school remedies, from inventive mic'ing and overdubbing to brutal filters and bullhorn distortion a la Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. If Espinoza sang any better than he does, he'd probably be bored in the studio.

Even if Hate stands as their most visionary statement, Universal Audio has a subtler strength.

Travistan fails so bizarrely that it's hard to guess what Morrison wanted to accomplish in the first place.

Unsurprisingly, Rademaker makes his mark when he forsakes goth-rock and embraces his jangle-pop roots.

Though Interpol couldn't be expected to surpass their previous heights, it's difficult to imagine a savvier or more satisfying second step.

The end result is a great album, albeit one more lighthearted than its myth would suggest.

What frustrates about The Beautiful Struggle is that its flaws are purely musical: Kweli remains the fist-raising visionary who burned "The Manifesto" at the Lyricist Lounge with the same fiery pen that blazed "African Lounge".

Greenspan... manages to fold elements of nearly a quarter-century of forward-looking pop into a distinct sound without sounding either conceptual or trading on contradictions or the smoke-and-mirrors of attention-grabbing eclecticism.

VHS or BETA have moved on, like so many bands this year, to pillaging the dance-friendly template of late-80s Cure.

While no track dips below the quality line, the album lacks thematic fluidity and spark.

Fans of Client will appreciate the more dynamic edge to City... but those without a history with the band may write it off as another limp post-electroclash exercise.

Often, Costello just sounds prissy and uptight in these more relaxed environs.

A challenging debut that sidesteps inflated expectations by staying close to the group's established sound while still demonstrating a flexibility conducive to future musical development.

For all its grandiosity, American Idiot keeps its mood and method deliberately, tenaciously, and angrily on point.

Tracking the spiritual crossroads of hip-hop, reggae, soul, and flamenco, Joyful Rebellion stirs each of those ingredients into an album that, at the very least, deserves acclaim for blending classic and often forgotten Afro-sounds into 04's hip-hop scene.

A quarter-century after its first release, London Calling is still the concentrate essence of The Clash's unparalleled fervor.

Banhart's disinterest in obvious narratives is, for now, his greatest strength.

Their caveman take on 70s nostalgia-- simultaneously misguided and entirely too obvious-- renders them mostly forgettable and entirely ineffectual.

Her voice has matured to a fine saw-toothed rasp, and carries with it the echoes of every hard minute through which she's lived.

Some of the rowdiest Giant Sand music since the near-grunge of 1992's Center of the Universe.

Their forlorn, polished California pop is like the sprawling Valley suburbs: nice enough, if that's your sort of thing.

Ultimately, It'll Be Cool succumbs to the general lack of ambition that has always been Silkworm's Achilles' heel.

Timms has made some perplexing choices in song selection.

Outgunned is a mess of unfocused energy and uncomfortably irrelevant sonics, an odd mix of cartoonish immediacy and tired youth-cult ideas that would be the perfect soundtrack to Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie: The Movie.

The Handler only meagerly amplifies what he was already doing, probably pleasing his no doubt respectable cadre of core followers, but handily turning off the rest of humanity.

The album naturally lacks the shock of the new, the jolt of Boy in Da Corner-- instead, it's a consolidation of his strengths, lyrically and sonically, and a more satisfying listen than its predecessor.

Their songs fuse Ashlee Simpson mall-punk with the retro 80s fetish of former tourmate Ryan Adams' recent high-profile stinker.

So long as we're unable or unwilling to fully recognize the healing aspect of embracing honest emotion in popular music, we will always approach the sincerity of an album like Funeral from a clinical distance. Still, that it's so easy to embrace this album's operatic proclamation of love and redemption speaks to the scope of The Arcade Fire's vision.

Their mistake is in forcing too many ideas into every possible second.

Radio 4 can be commended for at least trying to move past the purposeful lo-fi of Gotham! and into fresher territory, but there's no bell or whistle in the world that could energize the utterly impotent songs at the core of Stealing of a Nation.

About half of it works reasonably well, though the end result is somehow closer to Low-era Bowie or Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain than anything truly contemporary or avant-garde.

There's a disarming simplicity and artlessness... with an increased emphasis on persistent pop melody over crafty wordplay.

It picks up right where Thickfreakness left off-- outside the bar in the gravel parking lot, swinging aggressively with Dan Auerbach's ferocious six-string and Patrick Carney's cymbal-and-snare seizures-- and brings the noise one step further.

Well-paced and cleverly sequenced, it is, in many ways, a throwback to the great records of the 1970s, and fresh enough not to sound like one.

The band's saving grace is its commitment to and execution of its textural aesthetic, owing as much to David Lynch's oneiric odes to Los Angeles as any musical counterpart.

It's brilliant at points, exhibiting the casual, grimy grace that laced Up the Bracket through English countryside benders, sing-alongs, and pub anthems, but evidently, The Libertines are creatures of excess, and even a good thing can be overdone.

It continues Björk's run of releases that sound nothing like their predecessors, yet is, as ever, particular to her.

But while the album is stylistically and sonically brilliant, it still suffers from the primary flaw of the band's four previous albums: Their songwriting hasn't made the same leap as their chops.

Anyone looking for [an] unpretentious, laidback and solid full-length is hereby invited to check out what's made Kilgour one our most consistent performers for 25 years.

To say that the album is over-produced is an understatement; you could bounce a quarter off of most of these songs.

Though reference points like Daft Punk and Prince have rightly been thrown around, Radical Connector is in fact a strange album that doesn't sound like much else.

The results sound just fine-- if somewhat familiar to fans of Tortoise, To Rococo Rot, Pan American, or Radian's previous work.

The mediocre filler that rounds out Half Smiles' lineup is, sadly, par for the band's late-era course.

Via a confluence of experience, ambition and glossy production, Engine Down have arrived at a palatable music that, with a little more refinement and promotional support, could cement their place in the mainstream cultural canon.

One can't shake the feeling that formula is what's really at the heart of the record, and in light of the promise shown by their debut, that lack of fervor and off-the-cuff adventurousness is a difficult shortcoming to ignore.

Business Casual is fierce and competent, and evinces the rippling of powerful musical muscles. But its affectations are so grating that it's tough to make it through it all in a single listen.

She Loves You treats each song differently while still being carefully sequenced so that its tracks cohere into a narrative of love and loss, resulting in a record that manages to sound as if its tracks were the product of one mind.

The Finns' latest is glossy, emotional, and sure to satisfy longtime listeners-- as well as any Stereophonics or Aqualung fans paying their respects.

The album's saving grace is the surrounding music, which almost, but not quite, makes up for Kinsella's constant barrage of tiresome non-sequiturs.

Good as some of these songs are... they're not quite enough to foment a revolution

The Dirty South is more consistent and cohesive song-for-song, its wide scope more public than personal.

Merritt has a long way to go before she runs the risk of being mistaken for A-league stars like Emmylou Harris and Dusty Springfield. But that we can speculate about her one day achieving that status is itself a tremendous compliment.

Green Imagination does awkwardly stumble into some redeeming moments, but never without a slog through the banal first.

Lewis' crisp alto shines on every track... Unfortunately, the songs (and especially the lyrics) don't give Lewis the support she deserves.

Well-played post-rock was always the bedrock of Windsor's sound, but they've added angst, a flayed post-punk edge, and new-wave organ loops to their ambition, creating a sound that should be familiar to Yo La Tengo fans, yet remains distinctly this band's own.

The result is both the best career-spanning snapshot of and single-purchase introduction to Talking Heads-- odd accolades for a live record-- and a treat for longtime fans.

In a way, the album simply highlights many of the reasons why Orbital have been so beloved for the past decade-and-a-half.

Unfortunately, Fire in the Hole fails to invoke any effective nostalgia as it phlegmatically wanders through 12 solid but unexciting tracks.

While the J-Kwons and Juveniles enjoy the fruits of paradise and their Lexus helicopters, Shyne reminds us of the ones who didn't make it: the legions of his fellow Clinton inmates fighting to keep afloat under prison's psychic burden.

The songs are instantly welcoming, flickering with enough hope and tenacity to outlast Kasher's heartbreak.

The seamy din generated by this revolving ensemble provides a well-matched backdrop for the relentless parade of petty violence, drug deals gone sour, and squalid love affairs portrayed in these songs.

Unfortunately, A Long Hot Summer starts slowly. In fact, when you cop this album, do yourself a favor and skip the first five tracks.

The disc feels more like an Insomniac Records sampler featuring Viktor Vaughn than a proper Vaughn release.

Ultimately, The Equatorial Stars is direct, engaging and modestly unsettling.

There's something admirable about a record that proves it's possible to remove grit from adult contemporary pop.

Whiskey Tango Ghosts stays satisfied, to the point of sounding undifferentiated.

But Homesongs is not simply a procession of trembling troubadour tunes. For each turn of boxwood fragility, there's also one of bold and confident songwriting.

With their staid textures, the songs tend to blend into one another, sounding at best like a spiritless hodgepodge of About a Boy's weaker moments.

While the fragments themselves are never short on energy, they are short on substance-- Terrorbird simply doesn't equal the sum of its parts.

Sometimes bludgeoning, always regal, Blue Cathedral is a calcified, hippified holy place.

Marks the first time the band's sound has taken a step backwards.

In its punchy production and eagerness to mix hard rock with boppy little guitar leads and cheeky catchy choruses, Kiss & Tell is a direct throwback to that fertile crossroads between thickheaded 70s AOR and the pop/new-wave nexus of the early 1980s.

Simply put, this album sounds absolutely huge, its relentless attention to detail eclipsed only by the stunning emotional power it conveys.

Kings of Convenience would do well to assimilate more of Øye's electronic leanings into their original sound, rather than merely mining sad troubadours past for inspiration and leaving these tracks as sparse source material for the obligatory remix album.

With one part arched eyebrows and droll wit, and one part melancholia and sharp social observation, the Sisters' debut is bursting with golden moments.

As much as Ladd continually references the past, from Dr. Livingston and Picasso to Minor Threat, Funkadelic, and De La Soul, he moves the air with a beat that's entirely his own, the sum of too many parts to reflect any one too prominently.

It's not innovative, but it's deliberate and economic, with no filler and an inviting dose of Sly Stone-derived soul.