But with only two weak tracks and some deletable skits outweighed by a dozen good-to-great cuts, Everywhere at Once is one of the best albums to come from a Solesides alumnus in a long time.

Mr. Love & Justice isn't exactly the musical equivalent of dropping flowers down the barrels of rifles, but there is a certain passivity to the disc, a characteristic magnified by the rootsy approach of Bragg's trusty band the Blokes, who channel the bucolic bent of the Band rather than the edge of the Clash.

After nailing the rapid-fire EP format with tracks that constantly threatened to disintegrate themselves from the inside-out, TPC psyche themselves out on their first full-length, over-cooking songs made from otherwise spectacular ingredients.

In other words: Sure they're funny, but are these songs supposed to be any good? Surprisingly, yes.

More energy and less uniformly drab scenery might have kept these well-intentioned stories from blurring into each other.

H.N.I.C. Pt. 2 makes for a much more complete and visceral portrait of an incarcerated man than the most precise and technically sound record could possibly manage.

If the herky-jerky new-waver 'Total Bloodbath,' and the 'Ticket to Ride'-styled charmer 'Partner in Crime' find Reis comfortably adapting to the pop approach, the mix can also leave Reis hanging out to dry, particularly on the smooth '70s-Stones strut 'You've Got Nerve,' where the droning qualities of his rasp are overemphasized by a chorus that simply repeats the title ad infinitum.

From the Valley to the Stars has hills that rise close to "El Perro del Mar's" peaks, and its cohesive vision is a pleasure to behold. At the same time, though, it harps on its themes with an overzealous single-mindedness, occasionally letting flimsy stuff support an overarching conceit that requires foundations of marble.

Sure, they're a very raw talent, but a formidable talent nonetheless, and this record's peaks hint at even greater musical epiphanies to come.

Liars and Prayers' success is owed as much to the band as its leader, but in the end, there's still no doubt about who's working on whose watch.

A great deal of Death Set's charm lies in how their toothsome double-guitar attack is deliberately undermined by their tinkertoy beats and new-waved keys; when the band try to overcompensate with the aggro.

Saturdays=Youth meaningfully diversifies M83's catalog while retaining Gonzalez's indelible fingerprint.

Konk feels like a mere cowardly act, a TPS report from a band that strives to be nothing more than British pop's ultimate company men.

So this record's creative and artistic value is pretty much nil--in fact it only just hits competent.

More so than the album's overall malaise and inconsistency, it's this ridiculous (and in some cases, offensive) attempt at "edginess" that's most off-putting.

It highlights their strengths (that voice, those beats, that authentic giving-it-their-all vibe) and hides their weaknesses (lack of songwriting breadth and dynamic diversity) making it sound like there's no place more fun than a Gossip concert, and no better host than Beth Ditto.

So Embarrassing is a bold change in direction for Capillary Action, but one that pays off as well as one could hope.

The Bad Seeds sound even edgier and more sophisticated on Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, providing a fitting pulpit for their bandleader's ravings.

Even if every one of these tracks stands as a formal experiment unto itself, after an hour or two these half-formed ideas begin to bleed indistinctly into each other, evolving into puddles of vaguely ominous aural mush.

If "Title TK" was a tentative first step back into the public eye, Mountain Battles finds Kim and Kelley proudly venerating the Breeders' battle-scarred history and bull-headed perseverance.

These moments of misplaced weight make Antidotes hard to recommend, but there are good ideas and moments all over the record.

Walk It Off attempts "The Loon's" indie patchwork using fewer and larger pieces, causing less-than-stellar ideas and riffs to suddenly become load-bearing pillars for painfully linear three-minute pop songs.

Clinic play with a renewed sense of the same eerie raucousness that drew people to them in the first place; this would be an easy second-album recommendation for a new fan after they've initially discovered and absorbed "Internal Wrangler."

Habits has little to apologize for, no serious blemishes or ill-advised shifts in direction.

It's as if a bunch of people have gotten together to try and create a communal experience they don't quite believe in. It's a little depressing here, but elsewhere, the sense of irony serves the album well.

Regardless of what kind of audience it ultimately finds, though, In Ghost Colours earns its smiles with a combination of ingenuity and easiness that you don't often come by, and for that, even in April, it already feels like a triumph.

The Spirit still play hard-to-get, which helps to avoid any ridiculous moments on this polished sophomore effort, but they're often too stand-offish to even challenge the listener, let alone push the envelope that their influences have so neatly prepared for them.

Likability has got Kylie Minogue this far, and it pulls her through again--even the weak tracks on X have a sparky enthusiasm that makes their magpie modernism sound less cynical.