What makes this whole thing work in an album context is that all the thematic and sonic pieces fit together-- these weird, morning-after tales of lust, hurt, and over-indulgence ("Bring the drugs, baby, I can bring my pain," goes one refrain) are matched by this incredibly lush, downcast music.

Call it mood music for the mindless.

The untangled pop of In and Out of Control has been reconfigured and dipped in black eyeliner as the Raveonettes veer toward 1980s goth.

More than many of Snoop's recent efforts, Doggumentary has something of a sonic identity.

As slippery and elusive as this album's thrills can be, they'll eventually fall into place, one track at a time.

Twenty-odd years ago, when Poly-Rythmo last made a studio album, they were at their lowest ebb. Cotonou Club finds them at another high.

It's a strange combination-- big, lush beats and stories about small victories-- but it turns songs that are celebratory of simple things (a girl sending sexy cell-phone pictures, visiting Paris for the first time) or full of thoughtful sentiments (supporting family, helping community) into something epic.

The new album feels at once a return to the Kills' beatbox-blues origins as well an attempt to broaden their palette with more sensitive, intimate turns.

The lyrics are wrung out with the same shaved-down discipline as the music, where nothing ever topples over into over-wrought emoting. Despite this rigid adherence to restraint, much of this material proves to be emotionally affecting.

There's nothing truly transgressive or illuminating or innovative about Last of the Country Gentlemen.

Matched to this sophisticated, admirably restrained music, Turner's Submarine songs have a backwards-looking quality, a guy who's been through it calmly reexamining the scars and renavigating the pitfalls.

Most of the songs are solid, with the possible exception of the slackened "Keep Still", but none after the first has much capacity to surprise us or deepen the palette.

Even when not stated explicitly, most of Michel Poiccard feels like a love letter to Velasco from remaining founder Johnny Siera; there's a sadness and longing tucked into even songs that aren't ostensibly about Velasco.

If you can resist getting totally stranded in its opiate-friendly atmospheres, the joys of 936 are easy to pin down.

Reserved and mechanical as it is, Horizontal Structures is a very warm record. Von Oswald and his regulars soak the music in reverb and atmosphere.

Lesser Known, then, is about self-exploration in unexplored territory, and how to lose yourself in that void. Boeldt's escaped, and it sounds like he's all the better for it.

This is ultimately mediocre music that sometimes recalls the sound and feeling of excellent music, and the only thing that Heidecker brings to the table is a smirking irony that is not particularly appealing when separated from hilarious comedy.

Cherish has the feel of a breakthrough, and Wes Eisold comes across as an artist with a vision that will resonate with a larger audience.

From here on out, Screws Get Loose starts sounding like the work of a retro-pop outfit, treading the same ground covered by the Raveonettes, the Donnas, and recent revivalist indie heroes Dum Dum Girls and Vivian Girls.

Though these solo works are not as fleshed out nor quite as transporting as the highlights of Red Hash, they provide a fascinating document of a young songwriter finding his voice, and leave behind lingering questions about what might have been.

There is enjoyable music here, and I've no doubt that the Bibio project has plenty of life on it.

Belong is a bigger, bolder, and brighter follow-up that adds new dimensions to the Pains' sound while nearly equaling the songwriting of their debut.

The album as a whole isn't quite able to leverage that into a recognizable aesthetic, but it comes tantalizingly close.

The problem is that this was, at best, a 1997 cash-grab that probably would've worked in that economic climate, and now you just get to debate whether it's a cynical move on Soundgarden's part or, more likely, something they had absolutely nothing to do with at all.

While Obits may have ditched the buzz and scrape of their roots, that music's sweaty abandon, or the pursuit thereof, is still deeply embedded in Obits' sound. And that never goes out of fashion.

Gucci, who was rap's most exciting figure a year and a half ago, is on a profound losing streak, and it's easy to hear The Return of Mr. Zone 6, his new street album, as an attempt to reverse that slide.

Sure, Alexander is an unsteady and uncertain release, but it's also a trial run by someone who has already made it.

The 10 songs on Too Young to Be in Love are exuberant snapshots of rock music's earliest years, bursting with teenage romance and allusions to oral sex, but they are also very faithful ones.