Sorry, this is decent pub-rock, but there are 1,000 albums released every day. Buy another one.

The formula of acoustic arpeggios, light drumming, tender pianos, and the occasional subtle horn or string section makes for an album that's as slight and gentle as Saltines and mineral water. The boys never deviate from this, and thus Quiet is the New Loud, inane title and all, never reaches higher than saccharine easy listening.

Diminutive, but mom-tough, Hersh casually cusses her way through a baker's dozen songs that are as personal as ever, and far less cryptic than in the past. Her voice remains creaky and pregnant with emotion, matched against her signature bright-toned Collings guitars.

Group Sounds is nonstop, straight-ahead rock for the most part, more reminiscent of Scream, Dracula, Scream!, but with enough flourishes to keep things from sounding too monochromatic.... Right through to the end, every song on Group Sounds is solid, pure, high-octane Rocket fuel.

Slipping dissonant, screeching bleeps into a placid, space-age bachelor pad schema seems oddly passive-aggressive, though not enough of either to pass as legitimately interesting.

On these eight Apples originals and one Beach Boys cover, Schneider and the band sound like they're having a blast, and the energy is instantly detectable.... Live in Chicago has the charm of a well-recorded audience bootleg sanctioned by the group on one of their best nights.

And while, at times, Momus constructs a bitingly clever post-modern take on folk music, Folktronic has an unfortunate tendency to choke on its own concept, rendering the album a bit hard to swallow.

Sleepwalking doesn't have a startling track like Northern Sulphuric's "Spellbound" to lift it out from the polite sludge of trip-hop mush.

The music offers few surprises this go around, relying instead of the tried-and-true guitar arpeggios, atmospheric noises and orchestral, rainy-day crescendos.

Though Cydonia is far from being a dull, sequencer-heavy Namlook ambient release, it regrettably sounds irrelevant in today's climate.

Run-DMC wind up overwhelmed by the guest stars and the schizophrenic nature of the production.

Girls Can Tell is more mature and accomplished, but at the expense of the spark of spontaneity.

If ever an album rewarded repeated listening, it's this one.

Anyone following Half Japanese's albums over their long stay in the rock arena has to enjoy the project's increasing comfortableness with complexity and craft. Hello demonstrates this sophistication to terrific effect, letting Jad's charming quirks take flight with more complex backgrounds.

Not only is it the most acoustically enthralling album they've released, it's also without a doubt the most playful, dynamic, and anthemic post-rock album that has been released to date.

If there's one positive remark to be made about What's Next to the Moon, it's that it sheds revelatory light on the subjective nature of lyrics. Yet, that might be the only truly positive remark this album deserves. Sure, Kozelek's voice is still smooth and sad, and his guitarwork is still deft, yet modest. But these are standard factory settings.

Sounding like a profane camp counselor telling stories by the fireside, Rollins' naturally animated raspy voice is the perfect chaperone through eleven tracks of commentary.

While it is by no means a good album, The Sleepy Strange is a small step up from its brain atrophy-inducing predecessor. On the album's closer, "Vinyl Fever," the band almost attains a tight, Tortoise-esque instrumental groove. But after over 40 minutes of boredom and frustration, odds are the album will most likely be occupying a precious spot in your septic tank before you get there.

There are two immediately apparent differences between Stephen Malkmus and Pavement's catalog: first and least surprisingly, there's less of a group dynamic here than on Pavement albums. It definitely has the sonic hallmarks of a "solo" album-- the songs are less jammy and spontaneous, more rigidly structured. Second, it's a lot more fun-sounding than Pavement was near the end of its shelf life.

It goes without saying that the Pixies' b-sides don't make for an average, run-of-the-mill outtakes compilation, as many of the songs are almost or equally as radiant as the more fortunate tracks that made it to the five classics between 1987 and 1991.

Ladytron's musical interests stretch back before MTV, to '70s Bowie, Roxy Music, Kraftwerk and Cluster. They're like an unabridged Encyclopedia of musical Eurotrash with a sharp pop sensibility. And with 604, they've made a fine debut full-length.

I've listened to this EP twice; that's once more than I would have ever liked to have heard it, give or take one listen.

Things We Lost in the Fire's high points are, without question, the best they've done.

Sadly, the album is a few years too late in coming. As an example, the guys, while opening for Lou Reed sometime back in 1996, pulled off an amazing rendition of the Velvets' "Ride into the Sun" with Reed and Wareham handling the vocals together. Where were all the tape recorders back then?

Mostly, From the Desk of Mr. Lady comes off like sub-standard material that didn't make it on to last year's full-length.

By this time, though, even Frank may be chafing at the limitations of their bar-band sound, staunch as he is in refusing to do overdubs or even edits in the recording process. Fortunately, there are just enough tweaks to that process this time out to enliven the resulting album, making it his most diverse and listenable since Teenager of the Year.

Every song drips with bawdy attempts at sexually shocking the listener. But just as Vince Neil screaming "girls, girls, girls" and name-checking strip bars is unlikely to whip a woman into a frenzy of amour, the Donnas attempt to titillate and fail miserably.

Minekawa reveals herself as yet another artist helping to forge the path for interesting and exciting musical landscapes.

Aaltopiiri feels much more like a soundtrack, with creeping drones sliding in and out of the mix, and more subtlety overall.

Acetone manage to take enough twists and turns on their dusty trail to stave off outright boredom, and they certainly have a talent for doing as much as they can with a fairly limited formula. However, as York Blvd progresses, the album's dreamy torpor becomes stifling, and the songs, while never anything other than pleasant, fail to distinguish themselves from one another.

Mixing downtempo with trip-hop and some samples from a funky-ass toolbox (where you keep your funky-ass tools, of course), Pepé Deluxe seem to have struck upon a recipe for success.

In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country runs like updated material from their majestic 1998 offering, Music has the Right to Children. And like that album's namesake, these five elegantly mournful melodies creep and explore like adored but unruly children, full of wide-eyed astonishment and naïveté.

Their peppy, gleeful, headstrong guitar pop sounds a hell of a lot like yesteryear's Britpop.

Instead of crashing rock and roll and electronica head-on, his integration is a more subtle mix. He's not a pioneer by any means, but Volume Two is testament to his more nuanced approach. On this, his third album, Warren allows the guitars and "real" instruments an equal say, and ends up with music that sounds incredibly intelligent in light of many other clumsy cross-breeding musicians.

It would be extremely easy to dismiss this album as Billy simply taking out the accumulated garbage of the past couple years. It would be easy, that is, if it didn't almost redeem the Pumpkins.... This album features an abundance of tracks that throw the deficiencies of their previous record into even sharper relief.

When Delerium forego the listless Gregorics and stale beats employed by their more renowned contemporaries, they truly shine. The beat-heavy "Aria," for instance, and the salsa-esque "Fallen Icons" are arguably Poem's strongest tracks. But these moments occur only now and then, and are often sandwiched between songs that, while helping you survive the subway's rush-hour crunch, won't meet your needs at any other time-- unless you're about to have a mid-life crisis.

The mix here is guitars to 11, everything else to 6, as the slurring, inebriated Liam is buried under mountains of riffs for better and worse.... Familiar to Millions reheats leftovers of better songs written six years ago and force-feeds them as reminders that Oasis could once write an uplifting song. As for those looking for a compact, two-disc set of Oasis' best, it's called What's the Story Morning Glory? and Definitely Maybe-- available for the low price of $8 at your local used record shop.

The Best of Blur serves as a document for an astonishingly consistent career full of hits over in Britain.... As with any retrospective, the track listing isn't going to please anyone.... Still, it's hard to argue with the material that made it to this record. The disc, though not sequenced in chronological order, covers all facets of Blur's career.

Fifth follows the same Bacharach/Gainbourg/Motown thread as its superior predecessor, 1999's Playboy and Playgirl. But nothing new happens here, not even within the duo's derivative sphere. The beats are still bouncy as hell, and the string-laden melodies are still layered ear candy. However, this fullness is less Wall of Sound and more Vegas showroom.... What makes Fifth most unremarkable is the fact that it's nearly bereft of the great, catchy songwriting we've seen from Pizzicato Five in the past.

Nothing on this EP is particularly awful-- Yo La Tengo certainly can't be blamed for their efforts-- but sometimes things are better left unremixed. The sequencing's overwhelmingly tacky, and really, how often do you think you'll find yourself in the mood for Takemura's epic reworking of a vaulted Yo La Tengo instrumental? The record has its moments of beauty, but in the end, it fails to add up to a satisfying whole.

It's a soundtrack to a '70s made-for-TV movie, but a damn fine one.... But ultimately, Pelo is a triumph of average-- a zero-sum game. The few noteworthy tracks are negated by the bombs. For every standout, rare as they are, there are embarrassing nadirs like "Tom of Finland (An Homage)."

This is such pretentious toss that I can't help but adore it.

Pretty, lovely, fine, fair, comely, pleasant, agreeable, acceptable, adequate, satisfactory, nice, benign, harmless, innocuous, innocent, largely unobjectionable, safe, forgettable.

The Sophtware Slump manages to sound reasonably fresh, yields its share of unshakable melodies, and excels in production. This is quite possibly the last great entry in the atmospheric pop canon.

Sadly, I Guess Sometimes... too often falls into the typical pitfalls of edge-of-millennium electronic music. Over the course of its seemingly infinite 65-minute runtime, Magnétophone's formula rarely varies, and many of the songs blur together.

Subtle breakbeat drumming and glistening guitar be damned, Bono will ruin a song. And so the story goes for the entire album-- one of the band's finest, if not for the tweeting and hooting of The Fly and his grating lyrics.

The kind of music that Tinky-Winky, Dipsy, La-La and Po might enjoy kicking back to after a hard day's romping with bunny rabbits.

Buoyed by the lethargy embodied in his laconic vocal delivery and tossed-off solos-- the qualities that distinguished Mascis as the godfather of slacker rock-- this album sounds nothing short of triumphant. Which is funny, because aside from sounding the most excited and invigorated he has in years, J Mascis does little different on More Light.

On her fifth solo release, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, she may be maturing, or more vulnerable, or more vulnerable to her maturity. But regardless, the sheen gets slicker and her music gets duller as the time passes.

Plays Music offers up breezy, instrumental jazz-rock that seems to be little more than the reheated leftovers of Tortoise's TNT, The Sea and Cake's The Fawn, Dave Pajo's Aerial M debut, and occasionally, Gastr del Sol's Camofleur.

While some critics take issue with Rubin's underproduction, none of the songs on American III require ornate instrumentation. Whether they've been fluffed up or stripped raw, at the core of each is a compelling statement from one of our greatest humanists.

The loose, scatterbrain album operates much like the early solo endeavors of Paul McCartney, with 80% developed gems flowing effortlessly from the damp, rustic English countryside.... Piano, strings, harps, and wurlitzer attach insect wings to the lovely songs. They'll swarm and pester your head for days.

The track "Our Nearest Neighbors" best exhibits Red Stars Theory's unique strengths: to harness the emotion of emocore without indulging in the maudlin lyrics; and to exercise the artistic grandeur and complexity of post-rock, but without the cold detachment and pretension.

Comparing this to other albums is like comparing an aquarium to blue construction paper.... It's the sound of a band, and its leader, losing faith in themselves, destroying themselves, and subsequently rebuilding a perfect entity. In other words, Radiohead hated being Radiohead, but ended up with the most ideal, natural Radiohead record yet.

Oui is stunning easy listening in recession, but up close, it's genius. The production, the arrangements, the instrumentation, the electronics would sound cumbersome in the hands of the unexperienced, but the Sea and Cake fuse these elements with economy and care. If Oui doesn't erupt like an outright revolution, it's only because the band makes it look it too easy.

A lackluster, continuously-mixed double-disc look back at Maas' remixing talents. Or rather, a look back at his ability to appropriate hooks from often far superior sources.

But without the name recognition and expectations that go with the first new Meat Puppets album in five years, Golden Lies likely wouldn't even see release. And I can't say that I'd consider that such a bad thing, having heard it.... It's representative of the sad state of affairs that the best moments on Golden Lies transparently recall highlights from later albums already past the Meat Puppets' prime.

Even the dubious choice to make an official live album out of a lo-fi audience recording proves a good one. A little added echo goes a long way for Morphine's spare sound, and fills in the blanks far better than a crystal clear soundboard recording ever could.

Suitcase is crammed with classic Pollard moments-- those unique occasions where poorly-recorded, sloppily-delivered songs somehow become transcendent pop genius.... But perhaps the greatest problem with Suitcase is simply its size. At 100 songs, it's practically impossible to comprehend in one sitting.

For a band returning from a decade-long sabbatical, these guys are surprisingly spry. Their consistency is also, to some degree, their downfall, since they still sound uncannily mid-'80s.... But even past their prime, the Go-Betweens are still better than anything on present alternative radio playlists.

Selmasongs breaks no new ground whatsoever for the Icelandic composer, instead dwelling in more comfortable regions already mapped by Homogenic.... the record definitely has its great moments. The problem is, there are only two of them.

Solaris is an anthem for Eurotrash everywhere. Its sins are ultimately sloth and indifference. Eschewing the brilliantly cold futurism of earlier efforts, Photek has crafted a dull excursion into the sunnier latitudes of electronic music: a tropical cocktail of salt-rimmed drum n' bass, faux-sexual bedroom ambient and lifeless house.

Do I really wish to describe the pallid piano ballad that is "Judy, Don't You Worry," or the Euro-dance dreck that Cracknell calls "Taking Off for France?" Nico's Liquid Steel remix of "Anymore" adds a modicum of drum-n-bass excitement to the original but not enough to excuse the Vengaboys-for-Uptown-Soirees statement of vacuity, "Penthouse Girl, Basement Boy." How about if I skip the would-be anthemic were-it-not-so-Michael Bolton "How Far?"

Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven is a massive, achingly beautiful work, alternately elegiac and ferocious. However, Lift plays like an oddly transitional album: much of the first disc presents a refinement of the sound that crystallized on the Slow Riot EP, while the second disc flirts with moments of vertiginous shoegazing, looser rock drumming and reckless crescendos of unalloyed noise. Succinctly, the first disc is easily continuous with their earlier work; the second disc might just be the future.

Though Everything, Everything is unquestionably a swan song for the Emerson years, it's far from a mopey affair. In fact, it tackles early tracks like "Rez" and "Cowgirl," and pumps them up with megawatt power.

While Relationship of Command doesn't quite compare to seeing this group live, you'll surely want to mosh-dance in your bedroom when you listen to this recording.

Secret South is a characteristically strong showing, but ultimately, it pales in comparison to its predecessors. The self-produced album retains the band's unique sound, but fails to measure up to the perfect match they found in guitarist John Parish for Low Estate's crisply rustic atmosphere. Even without any of the droning squeezebox ballads that accounted for Low Estate's few weak spots, it somehow lacks the momentum and fury that made that album such an engaging listen.

Though the band still sticks faithfully to their trademark sci-fi surf gimmick, they've omitted the annoying science film samples, and actually show, for the first time in years, traces of creativity.

Private Suit shows the band taking some risks. They continue to write catchy and cute guitar rock songs, but also experiment with backing vocals and strings, a noble ambition that raises the bar higher than "the little band that could" is able to reach.

The biggest difference between the two 6ths records is obvious: Wasps' Nest allowed some of indie rock's finest vocalists to lend their talents to a grade-a batch of Merritt tunes; Hyacinths and Thistles pairs remarkably average Merritt songs with largely substandard vocalists.

One of Excuses for Travelers' greatest weaknesses is that the album is too uniformly boring to be affecting in the least.

One would think that, coming off of last year's rich Snuffbox Immanence, the psych-folk collective would add profound depth and originality to Damon and Naomi's dreamy folk.... But, regardless of who's to blame, Ghost's role isn't large enough to alter Damon and Naomi's sound.

Infuriatingly sub-standard...

This album, barely over half an hour in length, bears the hallmarks of a barrel- scraping reissue program.

Sure, it's just acid jazz with disco and bossanova inflections; naturally, the arrangements are less than surprising; of course the beat could use some variation. But this is about transference, not transcendence. The Mirror Conspiracy provides the soundtrack your mediated soul requires, and that's all that's important.

If anything, Disappeared reestablishes Spring Heel Jack as drum-n-bass experts, gifted at layered percussion, and erudite at unsettling listeners with an uneasy ambience.

Fragments of Freedom is a consistent and predictable stylistic overhaul into hyphenated hipster pop for people who actually liked Cibo Matto's last album. It fits the form to a T, right down to the brief, pointless Biz Markie cameo.

Future Bible Heroes frontman Chris Ewen just isn't a Merritt-caliber composer, and this EP suffers in comparison to the Magnetic Fields.

On their third full-length, Weekends of Sound, the band showcases their strengths and improves upon their weaknesses, making it their most accomplished work to date.

This 1998 set, recorded in its entirety with minimal interaction with the audience, melds the finer points of their best work into a potent display.... this succinct live recording stands as their most direct and effective release to date.

Overly orchestrated mid-tempo ballads with inane lyrics.

A charming batch of stripped-down rock songs that isn't as fully realized or inventive as last year's Guerrilla, but still makes a damned enjoyable listen.

So, essentially, this is the pop record '70s prog bands would make in the '80s-- Big Generator and Power Windows for a new generation. Aside from two major blunders nothing is overtly offensive, but simply lachrymose and lactose.

Try listening to Brian Eno's Music for Airports in choppy RealAudio. Hear that? Digital clicks, random bursts of static, and underwater compression swim over icy electronic drones, numbing your mind into a state of paralysis. Now imagine spending $12 for it. That's the Oval experience in a nutshell.... As always, Ovalprocess isn't bad for what it is, but it's certainly not clever anymore.

While many adolescents go through mixed-up times, most have the sense not to let Wyclef Jean remix their accounts of first love into a four-minute bowl of mush called "Dancing Lessons."

For the first time, Modest Mouse craft an album, not a collection of songs. That they manage to go beyond any other rock band out there is staggering.... OK Computer must be mentioned, for Modest Mouse just got invited to the same club.

The songs flow effortlessly along, and even the instrumental tracks are fully developed-- none suffer from the half-finished feel that made Places to Visit so dissatisfying.... As with past Saint Etienne albums, Sound of Water is ear-candy all the way through. Still, they've managed to add a layer of subtlety and novelty beneath the glossiness...

What sets the Jurassic 5 apart from the dead sea of generic hip-hop crews is their sheer charisma.... Quality Control serves as a fine follow-up to the Jurassic 5's self-titled 1999 EP, with more than its fair share of top-shelf tracks.

Arab Strap's music is still fractured, Smog-like, and woefully beautiful. The group's pitted, narky ambience fuses Irvine Welsh with Brian Eno's Another Green World-- Elephant Shoe is ambient for the Tamazipan massive.... Arab Strap's depression is as addictive as their expression of it is alluring.

Brian Transeau is a trance artist-- not hip-hop, big beat, breakbeat, or any other beat for that matter. And he is certainly no rock and roll artist! Yet, I listen to Movement in Still Life, and what do I hear? All those things!

Blonde Redhead's biggest detractors focus on the group's uncanny resemblance to Sonic Youth. But while Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons won't exactly silence such suggestions, it does seem to move conscientiously away from the influences that have marred the group's previous work.

Earle's music doesn't simply mirror the transcendence of its creator; it lends transcendence to the listener as well, as all excellent music will. But what truly makes this one of Earle's best records is that he refuses to be pulled down by musical decisions. It's as if he never faced a problem of whether or not to add this or that instrument, or to veer off in this or that direction. He simply had the idea and went with it.

There are some good songs on here, I guess, but they're not as good as anything from If You're Feeling Sinister, or even The Boy with the Arab Strap. It's weird, because the songs definitely sound better, but the album is still kind of disappointing.

Volume II is like an unnecessary b-sides compilation.... Nonetheless, the album has its high points.

Sasha and Digweed appear to be suggesting that, along with setting an NYC club aflame, they can also bore you to tears in your living room.

It's a great bunch of songs, and it solidifies the notion that XTC are back from the wilderness and ready to rock the show.

Stereolab engage in the funkiest, heaviest music of their career. While monotony still remains a passion, subtle psychedelic flourishes and thick percussion pumps add much needed verve.