There are a lot of reasons this album doesn't gel, not least that Liam Gallagher now sounds like a singing anti-smoking campaign, and the brash, snotty arrogance that once sold "Cigarettes and Alcohol" and "Champagne Supernova" is crushed out by his gruffness.

Everything Ecstatic marks his first slight step backward as a solo artist but it's hardly a failure.

The band's lack of swagger is refreshing amid the hot fussed-over convicts and misogynistic sun kings of the New Wave sphere, but it also hampers the less convincing tracks.

J.A.C. is ultimately a simple record covering well-worn territory that is no less engaging for its familiarity.

Like the Gorillaz's self-titled debut, Demon Days goes the way of most auteur projects, its oversize idea load making for a trip equal parts peak and valley. But also like the debut, Demon Days is better than it has any right to be, featuring singles stronger than anything released under the Blur banner since, you know, that "Woo-hoo" song.

Despite the new song structures, guitar solos, and drum fills, Brownstein's guitar still roars wildly, Weiss's drums still thunder, and Tucker still wails with a primal urgency that is one of the most compelling sounds in rock music today.

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Behind this happy clash of stylistic preferences is a subtly but surely revivified Malkmus, confident to experiment more deliberately than ever.

The lack of instant-gratification couplets may disappoint at first, but each verse's rewarding intricacies become more evident with multiple listens.

It's a perfect way into the world of Belle and Sebastian, even if the band spends the second half of the disc trying to redecorate that space.

As opposed to the didactic nature of the booklet, the audio portion of No Business tends more toward arch satire of the ongoing debate over fair use in digital media, creating a précis of its contradictions and ideological schisms rather than advancing a particular thesis.

With The Secret Migration, the band completely deserts the peculiarities that distinguished them from both peers and progeny in favor of a dull collection of pastoral fantasias that frequently wander dangerously close to adult contemporary.

Mezmerize's strongest moments are when the band drops the eccentricities and just rocks out.

The taught 12 tracks mark the producer's most diverse and song-based work yet.

The vaguely Brian Wilson-esque harmonies manage to keep the listener grounded as the entertaining gobbledygook passes by.

Hardly melodic and not adventurous or invigorating enough to pull off the scuzzy brassiness of its yelping forefathers, the Nein get all anguished and pissed as it alternates between grubby grunge slow jams and lo-fi oom-pah on Wrath of Circuits.

Drama in music works perfectly fine in mediated, tactical doses, but for Tourist, the stakes are unrealistically high.

The results might be a little thin on actual "essential" moments, but they're working in the right direction.

Even the most direct songs here have a precision craftsmanship rarely heard in something that is still, at heart, a rock album.

Sometimes an album is just awful. Make Believe is one of those albums.

The transition from happy teenage taunts to cursing and sex talk was probably inevitable, and quality-wise, it's a wash. It's with the sound-- as provided by producers Matt Goias and Fancy-- that you get your payoff.

Full of serious songs with sunny, heavily polished arrangements.

After the bland misfire that was last year's Achilles Heel, Headphones' debut offers some hope for lapsed Pedro-philes.

Her vocals, even on talking-blues songs like "Sweet Side" and "Righteously", reveal a woman living through all the messy frustration and unalleviated desire she's singing about.

The highs on Kidnapped are incredibly high, the lows very low, and there's not much in between.

In theory, Boredoms furthering their psychedelic side should be fantastic, and I have to admit that for sheer orgasmic sprawl, few bands have much on them. However, at a point, sprawl becomes tedious and indulgent-- and I never thought I'd say that about Boredoms.

Carousel Waltz drives a pretty flat road, without the peaks and valleys of their previous work, but that suits the grounded emotions and realizations they're addressing, skirting the line between the unaffected and mundane.