for now we're stuck with Dig Out Your Soul, which like every Oasis album from 1997's "Be Here Now" onward, makes cursory gestures toward making the band's mod-rock more modernist, before reverting back to the same ol', same ol'.

There's no getting around the fact that June 2009 acquires most of its value, if not all of it, in context with Causers of This and Underneath the Pine.

There are flashes of coherence and grace in all the furious noodling, but overall, you probably had to be there, bathed in the glory of mortal combat.

Joy is an album to be combed through and prodded. It’s a testament to their shorthand with each other, which somehow ties all the fraying, crusty, silken, wiener dog, kitty cat threads so seamlessly together.

Historical importance aside, they're a band built on unreliability and inconsistency, and This Is PiL maintains that reputation.

[Come of Age] is even more of a dystopian nightmare than Kid A or an El-P record: The Vaccines draw us into a universe that revolves entirely around Young, and if he's got nothing to say, his only possible conclusion is that nobody does.

Tillman's intimate, close-miced voice, does lend Year in the Kingdom a lonesome, somber tone, one Tillman-- a funny, amicable dude, if you've ever heard him clowning on himself at a Fleet Foxes gig-- would do well to shake on occasion. Next time, maybe; for now, the stout, supine Year in the Kingdom, Tillman's second fine record of the year, will certainly do.

The album does have its charms. Cosentino is still in fine voice, and she continues to have a warm and agreeable persona... [Yet linear] thinking permeates The Only Place, a grinding sense of marks being hit while inspiration is in short order.

The album's production and Vermue's economical, buttoned-down songwriting offer plenty of tonal and genre variation, but everything still feels like it's hitting the same mark.

Fortunately, one song on the album is unhindered by Artaud’s ramblings: the only track that Smith wrote, “Ivry.” ... It is a moment of clarity on an otherwise foggy and disappointing record, and it leaves you feeling full of light and ease, at least for a moment.

Build With Erosion is the kind of enjoyably sound-damaged effort where stylistic intrusions feel like just that, and not much more.

It's more focused than he's been in awhile, and while you couldn't call an album featuring 2Chainz, Rick Ross, Meek Mill, Lil Wayne (twice), Future, Young Jeezy, Chris Brown, Common, Pusha T, Jamie Foxx, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar and more "lean," Jesus Piece is less all-over-the-place than The R.E.D. Album.

After forty minutes of two-chord strumming, the band's unique approach becomes exhausting.

Pole has some worrying problems, starting with the tracks featuring Fat Jon.

Fulfilled/Complete succeeds on a number of levels-- Mogis' recording is clear as a bell, there are several fine songs, and the string arrangements are impressively detailed-- but doesn't quite live up to either portion of its title, its sequencing too disjointed to make for a truly cohesive statement.

An unfathomable album which will be heard in the squash courts and open mic nights of deepest hell.

It's essentially a one-trick sound, but here, they do a better job of adapting it to their post-dated needs than they did on previous albums.

The album's ambition is rich musical diversity, but it sounds less adventurously eclectic than simply scattershot, less assertive than merely restless, eager to try anything but not always sure what works and what doesn't.

White Pepper lacks the cohesiveness of earlier works, but it also demonstrates how a band can undergo some serious genre-bending, while still retaining a sound that is uniquely theirs.

Billy Corgan needs someone on his shoulder to whisper "no."

At just over 33 minutes, Earth Junk is a short recording, but even at that length, the limited sonic range and repetitive tricks are ultimately draining.

Such persistent tonal shifts theoretically suit the lyrics well, but they lack oomph and often set the duo's songs to meandering when sharper contrasts might've been genuinely thrilling.

I Want You to Destroy Me is solid as far as debuts go, though it offers the all-too-common letdown of hearing music that’s superficially loud and aggressive, yet feels like it’s doing so little to actually stand out.

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.

The Naked Truth may be better than 80% of the other rap albums to be released in 2005, but that don't make it another Ready to Die.

Wash the Sins is not a logical, concrete progression from Violet Cries and the Hexagons EP, but a competent if ultimately unmemorable reiteration of a message that wasn't particularly strong in the first place.

Weird to say about a hippie, but it's humanity that's missing in Sharpe's mild but mannered and certainly unmemorable music, which feels focus-grouped, stone-washed, and artificial.

Kindly Bent to Free Us works as a sort of retroactive insult: It resurrects many of the misgivings people have always had about Cynic--the overindulgent vocals, for instance, or the ponderous new-age musings--and runs wild with them.