Let Me Come Home is still too overworked, but, as that final song proves, it represents a welcome shift toward (relative) musical simplicity and lyrical honestly that shows that the band is heading in the right direction.

These are not all indelible tunes--probably half of them will fade from your memory shortly after a listen--but they are pleasant enough while they last, and with half the tracks clocking in under the three-minute mark (and the others barely breaking it), nothing on um, uh oh overstays its welcome.

Kraus' arrangements used to be a tad predictable, putting the tools of Appalachian and British folk toward familiar ends; here, in serpentine guitar figures and rich textures, she finds her own forms.

Given Ruppert's past predilection for dramatic singing, one would think his vocals would be a perfect match for these backing tracks. Unfortunately, he often doesn't rise to the challenge.

DeVotchKa cycle through and marry varying strains of world music with great aplomb. It's very rare that you'll find a seam.

Chasny has distilled all of his impulses and obsessions-- slow drones and brisk picking, solemn mumbles and cheery riffs, ponderous lyrics, and ruminative instrumentals-- into 43 muted, marvelous minutes.

The most immediately striking moments on Collapse Into Now are those that sound like explicit retreads of previous R.E.M. songs.

The band's third LP, Gramahawk, is pretty much a do-over in every conceivable way.

While there are a few selection missteps overall, the first disc in particular makes for a great initiation to the Radio Dept.'s previous work. And that there is the opportunity to re-introduce this long undervalued band is something to cheer in itself.

Playing for the first time with Higgs--who's spent the last seven years on spoken word, jew's harp improvisations, and other unclassifiables--they've delivered their strongest work so far.

Constant Future doesn't much build on previous albums, stylistically or qualitatively, but it displays a group of now-veteran dudes who know their strengths and who never stop playing to them.

Martinez may not be able to right the wrongs of the past, but he does Palacio's legacy proud on Laru Beya. And by bringing this music to a world stage, he may also help secure his people's cultural future.

Whether he's channeling the energies of John Fahey or Tom Petty or even Bob Seger, Smoke Ring makes clear that the end result is his alone.

Discodeine settles too comfortably into a consistent four-on-the-floor groove that ends up sounding an awful lot like a rut.

Quever has extended his transition into dreamy territory really well.

Anderson's baffling work rate seems to have adorned his songs with a wide variety of skins. From a curatorial standpoint, what's been arranged and sequenced here goes deep in the name of diversity.

While the taste level occasionally falters, this is a fine and detail-oriented album that should be taken with a grain of salt by fans for whom music must always, at some level, be a site of iconoclasm.

Thematically it's as strong an instrumental record as I've heard in a while, this weird glimpse at a stranger's photo album that in the end is surprisingly quite touching.

Like Joss Whedon's show, Wounded Rhymes is an album of stark, scintillating contrasts: between fantasy and reality, between the powerful and the vulnerable, between the brash and the quiet, between the rhythmic and the melodic.

Throughout the album, Fuchs' playing is exemplary, but not in a showy or needlessly florid manner; he simply gets to work and gets the job done, content with being just one part of a greater whole.

Replicants' problems extend beyond vocal limitations; the real issue is that, at 13 tracks and 40 minutes, this record plays like a shiftlessly uninteresting, self-parodic slab of warm-in-2010 pastiche.

Port Entropy is charming and pretty and brilliantly assembled, but utterly two-dimensional, and listening to it even one time completely through yields strikingly diminished returns.

The relatively sparse and chilly tone of Departing ultimately feels less like a slump than a conscious decision to present itself as the wintertime counterpart to Hometowns' prairie summer.

That sudden stop is the only moment on Something Dirty that could be called a gimmick, but it feels oddly right. A fade-out would be too easy--better to bluntly suggest that there's more music beyond that final frame, and encourage the rumor that this version of Faust is far from finished.

Nothing Fits is the band's first release to be recorded in an actual studio, and the result is a shorter, more focused record, but hardly a cleaner one.

What makes Sun Bronzed Greek Gods work is the band's innate understanding of the power of a killer hook, and their ability to turn them out effortlessly on each of the EP's seven tracks. Sincere, sharp, catchy, funny--maybe these songs are all you need to know about Dom after all.

Calvi's outstanding vocal tone and arrangements carry the emotional punches, while her lyrics can occasionally take a backseat role.

As wild as a Danielson record can get, his compositions are always meticulously recorded and arranged, and his work ethic is palpable on every track--it's not that these songs feel over-labored, exactly (although they certainly don't seem spontaneous), it's that it's easy to hear all the ways in which Smith is consumed by his work.