Foreign Landscapes enters a deadly boring lull before its second half and never recovers. The result has the energy of a cup of tea slowly going tepid in the Sunday afternoon sun.

To Dreamers is one of Stoltz's most satisfying efforts to date, sounding bolder and more invigorated than nearly anything before it. Yet, when Stoltz sneers "Do you want to rock'n'roll with me?", exactly who's doing the asking gets a little lost in the tune's glammy shuffle.

Mostly a failure, but with enough glimmers of a true comeback to tease fans into checking out the next one.

Nevertheless, as much as Bubblegum evidences a lot of thought and effort on the part of the band, it still has the sound of musicians going through the motions and sticking too close to their formulae.

This album's strengths-- its intimacy, its containment, its subtlety-- are not the qualities that made Sleater-Kinney great, but it would be ungenerous to dismiss this because it's not as thrilling, confrontational, or exuberant.

There's plenty here for musicians to analyze and dissect with envy, but first and foremost, this is an album for the body and the soul.

Performing as Nudedragons, the group took the stage at the Showbox in Seattle this past April and played a set that showed as much love to Louder Than Love and Ultramega OK as any other album in their catalog, giving each portion of their career equal respect without resorting to simply playing just the hits. Succeeding at this sort of task is easier said than done, but it would've been nice if Telephantasm at least tried.

As with most of Kasher's work, the main draws of Monogamy aren't really musical--words always get prominence over melody. Simply put, if you get a spark out of idealizing your romantic failures by doing things like drunkenly Googling ex-girlfriends (as he does in great detail on "There Must Be Something I've Lost"), listening to Monogamy as a whole is like dousing yourself in gasoline.

Even if those tracks ["Repeating Angel" and"We Have to Mask"] aren't great on their own, they don't nearly break the spell of Crush, whose combination of hard-charging energy and world-weary moods is less an unexpected curveball than a well-earned step forward.

Less ferocious, more deliberate but in many ways more compelling, Everything in Between finds No Age matching a new, nuanced approach to their expansive noise.

Young may be famous for his maelstrom guitar, but in this case the apocalypse sneaks up on us with a whisper, Young's voice steeped in decades of watching the world go to hell.

While that title may suggest a navel-gazing bedroom-auteur beatshop, Record Collection proves a surprisingly gregarious album, varying up the sounds and styles and making better use of cameos by his famous friends.

We'll never be able to parse every lyric or tease out every technical intricacy - though somebody will probably try - but that is what Halcyon Digest is all about: nostalgia not for an era, not for antiquated technology, but for a feeling of excitement, of connection, of that dumb obsession that makes life worth living no matter how horrible it gets.

So even if I Am the West is little more than another reminder of what Cube's day job was before becoming a Hollywood supermogul, if it does result in someone's hearing AmeriKKKA's Most Wanted or Death Certificate for the first time in 2010, it's done its job.

At first listen, Public Strain is impenetrably cold. But deep down, beneath the blizzard of noise and hiss, something's burning.

King Night, accordingly, finds Salem pushing their sound far enough to create artistic distance from the rest of the pack.

Ring is electic, beat-heavy, and easy to like. A sneakily confident debut that should please listeners at almost every turn.

Even with the apparent shifts and changes, all four of Swedish's songs would have fit snugly on Heartland. But Pallett is hardly running in place, either. In fact, he's created such a comparison-resistant framework for his unique sensibilities that no matter where he takes his sound, he'll sound like no one other than himself.

The songs may be catchy, but their intricacy and thoughtful storytelling makes them stick. And for its impressive sonic sheen, the album's skillful restraint makes it sound better with every spin.

As it stands, Good Things feels like hopping into a time machine, dialing it to 40 years ago, then forgetting to bring a stack of recent 12" singles with you to completely blow 1970's mind.

It's easy to hear the decades of dance music this guy's absorbed and appreciate how he's able to spin that into sounds that are at once reverential and future-forward. This doesn't happen on every track, but when it does, it's something special.

My Father is less about the Eno-esque sonic tapestries and more about Gira's love for apocalyptic country blues.

While I wouldn't say that Postcards From a Young Man is quite the late-career masterstroke Journal For Plague Lovers was, it is still a product of a re-energized band. Whether or not it actually garners them the hits and mass audience they're aiming for (and at least in Britain, it seems inconceivable that it won't), they've managed to make an inviting, populist album that deserves the attention.

If your interest in Jamaican music is limited, then Duppy Writer will probably be of even less concern to you than the usual Roots Manuva album. But you also shouldn't dismiss an album this end-to-end pleasurable as some dry retro curio.

This record is the SoHo-boutique equivalent of a Thanksgiving dinner: it tastes all right, but good luck staying awake 'til dessert.

The Trip feels like an expansion into new territory. Without Gane and his spacey-cool affectations, Sadier is free to revel in warm, rich balladry.

Pattern + Grid World sounds fully formed and precisely assembled. That shouldn't be surprising, considering Ellison's growing reputation as an album artist.

For a record this simple and, even at its punchiest, seductively serene, it might seem far-fetched to compliment it for being daring. But considering its own orbit--and her eschewing lo-fi recording techniques--Rose cuts right to the chase, making lean, elegant music that practically glows in the face of exceptional fuss.