I can't deny Church is a solid craftsman capable of cranking out extremely inviting pop-rock hooks, but this ground is so well-trod that it's hard to find anything to get even a little bit excited about here unless you're relatively new to indie-rock patronage.

It's rarely boring, and often full of promise, but it's a direction that calls for further tweaks, experiments, and exploration to get the balance just right.

He sounds damn good over trashy, flashy electro that manages to keep pace with cadences as hyperactive as his own, and, above all, he's way more fun than he's often given credit for.

Virtually the whole record settles into the same formula the band's been dutifully churning out since the dawn of the millennium.

Despite the band name, the album is a guitar-driven record, relying primarily on Stillman's dexterous fretwork to lead the quintet in and out of geometric jams that sound vaguely prog-metal in origin.

Even if it were the desperate or cynical move some people have claimed it is, there's no denying that purging Edwards' old lyric folder has helped the band create its best album in a decade.

It becomes clear that for a distressingly large chunk of Temporary Pleasures, the duo has forgotten to do much of interest with the backing tracks in favor of roping in a rolodex's worth of singers and rappers and hoping the songs write themselves.

Time to Die bests it as far as consistency goes.

'Relator' aside, there's little about this duo's chemistry that lives up to Matt and Kim, let alone Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra.

For the wary or outright dismissive, however, The Resistance is also a very smartly sequenced album.

Cudi too often assumes some sort of higher ground even though his self-pity is flaunted no differently than any other tacky rapper accessory.

These four discs ultimately do what any good box set should do: In tracing the band's trajectory from power-pop progenitors to post-pop tinkerers, Keep an Eye on the Sky presents a history of the band that could not be gleaned from the albums themselves, using finished studio tracks along with demos and rarities to give a fuller picture of the musicians, their dynamic, and their songs.

Central Market is a big album for an age that has acquainted itself with thinking small about the album both as a vessel for sound and as a standard-bearer for new aesthetic vision.

Sylvian is front-and-center on every song, which is good because he provides the only rhythmic and melodic stability, as the instrumentals dart and scratch and feedback around him.

They sound more inspired here than they have since... well, since they played these songs the first time. New album please.

Ashes Grammar draws you in by offering outstanding moments in strange contexts; you'll re-listen to hear specific pieces even though you're unable to remember exactly when and how they occur.

GusGus's seventh album isn't quite a hangover, and there's still a party going on--but the party is somewhere far away.

To catch a glimpse of these guys' past glories in 2009, your best option is still to go see them live; this is just a souvenir.

Kamaal the Abstract is not a great record by any means. But it is an interesting one, a unique effort by an artist struggling to mesh two disparate musical systems, gambling that inherent internal friction could spark some excitement.

It's experimental music, to be sure, but it doesn't conflate experimentation with alienation.

To those without the stomach for Joakim's waywardness, Milky Ways will often sound as much during the course of a listen. For those who are feeling adventurous but forgiving of the same, Joakim is a worthy companion.

Out Into the Snow is another solid entry in a long career for Joyner, and it seems his place as the dark observer on the indie world's fringe is pretty well set.

Wild Beasts certainly aren't the first rock band to stand up society's dregs and outcasts, but few others immortalize them on such a wondrous, mythic scale.

Experience can be a crutch, an excuse to tread water in comfortable waters. But Popular Songs wears its age well, a calm but firm reminder of an indie rock perennial it's all too easy to take for granted.

That's Signal Morning's greatest strength: It's a supremely busy record that at the same time doesn't sound fussed over.

Blueprint 3 is the kind of stuck-on-stupid, event-driven money pit that proves while Jay-Z's at a point where he's got no one to answer to but himself, he's still capable of an entire hour of failing to take his own advice.

All in all though, it's good to hear a new Os Mutantes record that carries forward the ideals and exploratory spirit that made us all love the band in the first place, even if it won't ever supplant those classic early albums.

It's weirdly kind of a grower. There's nothing that immediately jumps out and announces itself as the 'Where Do You Run' of Everything Goes Wrong.