An extremely listenable, laughable album, a futuristic freakshow of deep, stirring melodies and innovative beat arrangements.

The exuberant overload of Blueberry Boat will thrill and transport you with the ineluctable force of a great children's story, one whose execution matches its imagination.

The band's sound benefits greatly from DeLaughter's realization that not every instrument always needs to be playing at once.

A batch of songs guaranteed to be huge hits as soon as we're all sucked into a giant time warp and plunked back down in 1974.

Not a bad album, yet contains too many mediocre tracks to be comforting.

The bicoastal milieu of Out of the Shadow is apparent: It reflects both a lush, sunny "California Dreamin'" temperament, and Gotham's grimy, melancholic disposition.

Its majority carelessly regurgitates the painful cliches of "enlightened" hip-hop's critical and commercial darlings, while the band falls back on their organic hip-hop sound as a gimmick and piles on guest appearances to disguise their lack of creativity.

Doesn't extend the sound of the band's debut so much as inflate it.

Invoking Disintegration is ridiculous, but The Cure is remarkably more thrilling a listen than the band's most recent guitar-heavy predecessors.

It's essentially a one-trick sound, but here, they do a better job of adapting it to their post-dated needs than they did on previous albums.

What For Stars lack in originality they overcompensate for in emotionality.

Spacesettings is liquidated, hookless, and entirely flaccid.

The tracks on The Concretes are easily their most accomplished, fluid statement to date.

As another impressive portion of his potent '04 output, Will to Death's immediacy and quality should quiet the critics-- particularly those who pegged his early solo records as the work of a narcotics pain-train washout.

In the end, the ambitious misfires and pre-coffee drowsiness of A Ghost Is Born don't ruin the album entirely-- they only serve as distractions that make it much more difficult to excavate the band's strengths from the surrounding detritus.

Detractors will be sure to note that In a Safe Place can feel numbingly repetitive at moments, but all that expansive diddling contributes equally to the record's allure: Like rolling past the North Pole or through West Texas, this record plays with its own redundancies, building an entire universe from strange, barren pieces.

No doubt, Chilltown consistently delivers solid hip-hop cuts. But in comparison to his 2002 release React, Sermon's well of creativity might be running dry.

One of this year's most interesting records.

The album's ambition is rich musical diversity, but it sounds less adventurously eclectic than simply scattershot, less assertive than merely restless, eager to try anything but not always sure what works and what doesn't.

An exceedingly triumphant psych-pop oddity.... I doubt 2004 will birth a more blissful sonic encounter than Ta Det Lugnt.

Unlike all previous Beastie Boys albums (with the possible exception of Licensed to Ill), To The 5 Boroughs sounds homogenous and singular in purpose-- dark, steel, and dirty like that incomplete Times Square station.

as brittle, volatile and consistently riveting as any band out there, and even though no one could possibly take Smith seriously anymore, it insinuates that there's still enough justification here to warrant following The Fall's devious discography into one more decade.

This Is for Real has its moments, but it's not the sex-punk triumph these Sheffield-based narcissistic debaucherists seem to believe it is.

So, it's plain that The Killers have made a record more concerned with artifice than artistry. If the intent is to place their album's principal teases on the next Now That's What I Call Music compilation, then bravo.

While Sonic Nurse isn't quite as strong as its predecessor, it's equally as imbued with instrumental dexterity and impressively coherent ideas.

Winds Take No Shape seems to be the response to critics who called for more depth and less of the wide-eyed cuteness rampant on their self-titled debut. Their music is still lighter-than-air, but a newfound strain of wistfulness brings it closer to earth.

Too often, the new record substitutes weighty, Biblical language for true heft.

Albums like this, while often appealing to the hardcore Farrar fan (redundant, I know), don't add much to his overall cache.

There's also the fact that you won't hear another record like it this year, possibly ever-- all the comparisons that can be made to Tom Waits, Lambchop, Grandaddy and Vic Chesnutt will only tell a small part of the story.

One of its most charged and inspired records in years.

These are soulful sing-alongs with grit, pop nuggets that hold up to hours of repeat play in humid bumper-to-bumper traffic, and ultimately, the sound of a great songwriter hitting his stride.

If you take it as a whole, Uh Huh Her is deeply engrossing: Harvey has never explored the minimal-verging-on-primitive side of her music so thoroughly, or captured so exactly the sound of a mood swing.

Brother Is to Son is weird, but it's neither incomprehensible nor didactic.

Sometimes erstwhile obsessiveness can lead to revelation, but beyond the fancy engineering, I don't see much of that here.

Love and Distance is fucking cheesy.

So the production is great, the songbook is varied, and the band is tighter and more ambitious than ever-- the only problem with Louden Up Now is the unfortunate paucity of ideas within the songs themselves.

The contrasting styles don't always sit comfortably, but individual tracks sparkle with creativity and the newfound dark side is a surprisingly pleasant fit.

If there's any difference between this album and von Bohlen's lackluster recent output, it's that this collection somehow manages to be even more tepid.

Masta Killa has delivered one the most urgent, straightforward Wu releases since the group's debut over a decade ago.

Now, More Than Ever is both hushed and sprawling, serene and agitated, jumpy and constant.

Unfortunately, some of Kittin's lyrical deficits undercut her production.

Despite its eclecticism and relatively Dadaist leanings, Sung Tongs is a romantic album; romantic in its celebration of innocence and nonsensical shared knowledge, and the sweet, trusted idea that everything will be fine-- as if it hadn't always been.

Felix da Housecat appears to have approached this record in the same manner as other pop craftsmen like Stephen Merritt or Elvis Costello might: as a tireless effort to mine sub-styles and hooks that populate his detail-oriented visions of the perfect song. While that might translate into a record that fails to sit totally comfortably in either the pop or dance section of the CD shop, it's hardly lacking in compositional substance or high-toned flash.

Frankly, it could be much worse.

Whether it's the lack of plot, insight, or collaborators, Achilles Heel also finds Bazan's music stuck in a room with no exits, with one loping distortion-pedal crawler after another.

Coldplaya-hatas will loathe Keane; most others will just be insulted.

Their slickest and most formulaic pop constructions to date.

La Increíble Aventura doesn't quite equal the sheer power and range of the band's best albums (2001's Arde, in particular), but it's a powerful statement nonetheless, capturing one of Spain's greatest exports at their darkest and most ferocious.

Hotel Morgen may be beautifully produced, but despite its expert attention to detail, few of these tracks truly engage in the way they seem meant to.

It's all about finding the friendly turtles at the end of the druggy rainbow, yet, since no one's in a hurry to get there, the songs loop along with space between the beats and guitarists who still seem to be learning their craft.

Whatever excitement this album lends is, for the most part, borrowed by its pre-existing audience, and it's clear the Kadanes aren't going to challenge us.

Ultimately, The Catheters are big on style, and troublingly low on ideas.

Hatfield's finest work in a decade.

Unfortunately, "She Will Only Bring You Happiness" isn't a single, and there a dozen other tracks to account for, none of which live up to that song's pop splendor, and few of which even come close.

Despite some strong ideas and a few memorable songs, Faded Seaside Glamour remains notable mostly for the vocals: the album's ups and downs follow Gilbert's voice almost exactly, best when he's hitting high notes, mundane when he's not.

Unfortunately, few of these tracks wield the same impact as his tried-and-true hip-hop productions, and more often than not, feel like attempts at being everything to everyone.

Elk-Lake is a benign, restful listen, showing a once-unwieldy, always-vibrant creative mind having found a peaceful medium. While it's easy to appreciate the man's development, this blunted songwriting is somewhat less resonant-- and seems somehow less Hayden.

The Secret Machines create songs that are just as spacey and concept-heavy, if not quite as quirky, as those on Yoshimi and The Sophtware Slump.

So Split the Difference is an opportunity missed, with Gomez settling into a safe, well-worn ocean colour scene at a time when an adventurous indie/jamband hybrid might've clicked with Lollapaloozers.

Fuckin A is as stupidly (and gloriously) irreverent as its title, all adolescent three-chord slams and snotty, self-championing chants, a seamless extension of the urgency introduced on More Parts Per Million.

Kesto works, though, because Pan Sonic, through intelligent sequencing and a burst of inspiration, are essentially offering four separate, complete, and internally consistent albums.

That Skinner is able to coax so much from a cliché-heavy, 50-minute examination of solipsism and self-pity is a tribute to his ability to reflect and illuminate life's detail.

The most entertaining and lushly melodic work of Morrissey's solo career.

By combining American punk, British art-rock, and Swedish smarts to beef up their already muscular sound, they've not only developed a distinctive sonic personality on Das Not Compute, but they've developed a pose into a stance.

Granted, the record is far from perfect... Despite all of that, it is a Stephin Merritt record. And SM still maintains his charmingly cynical worldview and almost bottomless well of clever turns of phrase.

By and large, the band works well in this context, but the first two pieces on the album absolutely dominate the last three, making them feel essentially superfluous.

Essentially, Trial is just one semi-interesting idea (retro-tinged, Smiths-influenced, synth-friendly rock) repeated 11 times-- and no matter how able or committed the French Kicks may be to that lone notion, their conviction alone can't make their sophomore record feel any less tedious.

Fulfilled/Complete succeeds on a number of levels-- Mogis' recording is clear as a bell, there are several fine songs, and the string arrangements are impressively detailed-- but doesn't quite live up to either portion of its title, its sequencing too disjointed to make for a truly cohesive statement.

By simply playing by the rock 'n' roll rulebook-- whose article 17, section 4 strictly dictates that ego, excess and publicity stunts are to take complete precedence over, you know, songs-- Penance Soiree is one of the better straight-up records you're bound to hear from the genre all year.

Mirah, it appears, has made the album we've been waiting for.

A record of mixed materials that still sounds natural; a far cry from some of folk music's more hamfisted attempts at acoustic/electronic collusion.

Rejoicing in the Hands establishes Banhart as a major voice in new folk music. Not only does it improve on the promise of his earlier releases; it effortlessly removes the listener from the context of the recording.

Abstract, yet brutally honest, Burma shame the transparent, insecure and phony, reminding us that ideals can be standards.

It's not that Múm have broken a barrier to make their first entirely unpleasant record-- the addition of drums and trumpet do make for some compelling instrumental moments-- but there simply aren't enough exciting or even vaguely interesting moments in each song, and between this scarcity and, Jesus, that voice, Summer Make Good seems an unfortunate addition to 2004's disappointments.

Absent Friends isn't my favorite Divine Comedy record (Fin de Siecle, actually), but it is an excellent record, and one that seems more likely to appeal to non-fans than his more ostentatious outings.

The Beta Band's best moments often came when they worked in extremes-- minimal sampled beats followed by insane, multitracked chipmunk vocals and massive, reverb-soaked drum fills. Here, as with Hot Shots, the band attempts to split the difference, and in doing so, sacrifices the momentum that made their first two albums so thrilling.

Trampin' is Smith at her most deferential: She looks to figures like Gandhi, King, Anderson, and even Bob Dylan on "Stride of the Mind" for spiritual guidance. While this approach may be valid and even occasionally compelling, for the most part it robs the album of most of its urgency and dulls its outrage.

While self-diversifying is a perfectly acceptable (and sometimes glorious) approach to recording a fully realized, internally cohesive album, Holland's scope periodically makes Escondida appear non-committal and/or scattered.

Van Lear Rose is remarkably bold, celebratory and honest. It's a homecoming for a small-town musician gifted with poise, humor and compassion, but at its very heart, it's happy to be just a kick-ass country record.

Music that, while often pleasant, lacks the power of not only his best work, but also most of his successors' stuff.

What we have here is a long-awaited stepchild of IDM and hair metal sensibilities, joined by the omnivorous appetite of hip-hop.

Without a doubt, this is Les Savy Fav's defining album.

Pretty Toney far surpasses 2001's Bulletproof Wallets, finally finding the missing link between street cred and commercial respect.

Earnest without being sentimental, and authentic without sounding contrived, The Hold Steady are one of the most convincing rock bands to emerge in recent years, a can-crushing throwdown of unadulterated aggression and ear-splitting amps.

Faking the Books is a confident stride in the right direction, and proves that, even within the confines of a tired concept, a great hook still goes a long way.

Indeed, there are lessons to be learned from Automato's debut, the foremost being that the golden touch of Mssrs. Murphy and Goldsworthy can't save a band from their own indie-rap dullness, horrible cybernetic-produce bandname, and absolutely atrocious MC.

Despite its maturity, melodic strength, and direct connection to what came before, Runaway Found can't fully distance itself from the suspicion that it might just be "eh" in the long run.

Walking with the Beggar Boys sounds askew, a puzzle whose pieces don't fit properly. This sort of disjointedness can sometimes make for intriguing work, but here it just feels obligatory and slightly stunted.

The resulting clash can be momentarily compelling, but lacks the nuance and character and to really pull it off, which all leaves Seachange huddled on the cusp of something significantly worthwhile, but still a few wild, miscreant swings away.

Like Japanese toys-- The Dream Workshop, and the Furby and Tamagochi before it-- Tortoise obviously spend hours in the lab honing the science, but the finished product comes with a one-time novelty factor.

Again would have made a much more solid album had it exhausted its ideas in half the runtime. As it stands, there's simply not enough development within any track to justify its length, and the loops are too subdued and unengaging to hold its listeners' attention.

While alternating between derivative and rudimentary, On!Air!Library! is nevertheless well executed in its obviousness.

On My Way is a far less goofy effort than 2002's Sha Sha, and suffers remarkably for its comparable lack of inanity-- no longer powered by the youthful glee of his solo debut, Kweller's hooks sag and fade, contrived and loose.

For all its transcendent moments, Good News ultimately fails to hold together all that well as an album.

The same indefatigable hopefulness that sets Sexsmith apart also makes Retriever a bit tiresome.

Satanic Panic in the Attic is idiosyncratic without being hokey, and although the band has been stiffed recognition for the consistency of their previous work, this album should make the group much more difficult to ignore.

The pristine quality of Snow Patrol's music and Garret Lee's production, however, belies the rawness of Lightbody's words, and too often, the songs suffer from the contrast.

Unfortunately, the strings and horns rarely do much more than add a thin layer of dressing to the rather plain lettuce of the songs beneath.