This isn’t a record you crank in traffic en route to an across-town meeting; it’s a record to unwind with later that night on your second glass of Syrah--a sturdy shrug to cap off the day

In aggregate, none of this feels like a departure--it’s somehow a step backward and forward at the same time, mining roots as a way to age gracefully.

These songs are obscured like frosted glass, as meticulously pretty and faintly unnerving as a porcelain doll. Though the album ends almost as quietly as it began, Obel’s whispery ambient fog lingers far longer.

With a sense of organizational purpose and of local music history, the first disc depicts Cash an artist hungry for success and willing to sell venetian blinds to get there....The portrait of Cash on this second disc is, unfortunately, fuzzy and poorly defined. It showcases everything we know about him and very little we don't know.

Nothing on the album sounds exactly like Oasis—it’s all too controlled and studio-sculpted—but not a song here would’ve been imaginable without the Gallaghers’ enthusiastic embrace of classic rock tropes.

Producer Gareth Parton (the Go! Team, Foals) wisely handles Little Death with a light touch, engineering some fantastic vocal interplay (like less dramaturgical versions of the Futureheads), and otherwise leaving things the hell alone.

A project conceived in noble intentions but hobbled by confused, muddled execution.

Taken for what it is--a fluffy, animated unicorn flying joyfully to college-rock Pleasure Town--Out of View is a nice 40-minute respite from reality.

Unfortunately, at least in the narrative that Top of the Pops spins, everything that followed Bang Bang Rock & Roll did so with increasingly unbecoming shades of bitterness. They'd have been better off reissuing Bang Bang for a second time than opting to tell this glum take on events.

What's Between provides some compelling glimpses at Kelly's cimmerian headspace, but knowing that he possesses the ability and the vision to flesh out his own ideas, it's hard not to be left wanting more.

Shaken-Up Versions doesn’t threaten replace anything in the Knife’s catalog, but it does highlight the levity that’s always been present in their music.

And yet, however thematically mired in misery, Cold Dark Place plays out as a triumphant march into the darkness: one man’s pain, collectively conjured and conquered.

The arrangements on PERSONA are busy and convoluted, and many lyrical highlights are buried in meta, self-referential schlock rock. ... PERSONA is not a failure, but it’s tough to call it a triumph.

Frontloading Power to the People with the One To One performances—the two sets are here, along with a hybrid highlights disc—illustrates how Lennon spent the early ’70s wallowing in the pleasures of old-time rock’n’roll. .... These "Studio Jam" passages are loose, maybe even to a fault, but they’re charming, capturing one of the greatest rock vocalists singing unencumbered by an audience. These two discs of informal jams are the ideal coda to Power to the People, which chronicles the era when Lennon was keenly aware that he was performing at all times.

Boarding House Reach is a long, bewildering slog studded with these moments, which seem to be directly antagonizing you.

Planet of Ice is better than its predecessor, "Menos el Oso," but only slightly so.

While Deacon’s instrumental command has demonstrably strengthened in the past few years, his lyrics have only gotten more pat, as evidenced by two songs near album’s end.

Home works as a sensual mood-setting exercise, but less so as a distinct creative statement.

Like an untethered spouse suddenly separated from a longtime love, Elliott seems a bit lost somewhere between her intimidating past and her newfound independence.

This is a band whose effortlessness can misguide you into thinking they’re not trying. Don’t be fooled.

It's Broder's careful balancing act between the traditional and the abnormal that makes his music so interesting.

Could easily have been the dullest, nicely produced thing in the world, if not for the fact that the songs are remarkably good.

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

In some ways, Ultravisitor is the only Squarepusher album you need to know about. It contains instances of every idea, texture or beat he's presented until now, and unlike recent releases Do You Know Squarepusher or Go Plastic, little of it sounds stale.

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.

Make no mistake, Spend the Night defies any post-liberation role reversal debate: The album, both musically and lyrically, is so one-dimensional, it would be equally vapid at the hands of either sex.

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.

Without sufficient songwriting versatility, things can get pretty mediocre and, well, boring by the end of a ten-song album.