Even if Hate stands as their most visionary statement, Universal Audio has a subtler strength.

Travistan fails so bizarrely that it's hard to guess what Morrison wanted to accomplish in the first place.

Unsurprisingly, Rademaker makes his mark when he forsakes goth-rock and embraces his jangle-pop roots.

Though Interpol couldn't be expected to surpass their previous heights, it's difficult to imagine a savvier or more satisfying second step.

The end result is a great album, albeit one more lighthearted than its myth would suggest.

What frustrates about The Beautiful Struggle is that its flaws are purely musical: Kweli remains the fist-raising visionary who burned "The Manifesto" at the Lyricist Lounge with the same fiery pen that blazed "African Lounge".

Greenspan... manages to fold elements of nearly a quarter-century of forward-looking pop into a distinct sound without sounding either conceptual or trading on contradictions or the smoke-and-mirrors of attention-grabbing eclecticism.

VHS or BETA have moved on, like so many bands this year, to pillaging the dance-friendly template of late-80s Cure.

While no track dips below the quality line, the album lacks thematic fluidity and spark.

Fans of Client will appreciate the more dynamic edge to City... but those without a history with the band may write it off as another limp post-electroclash exercise.

Often, Costello just sounds prissy and uptight in these more relaxed environs.

A challenging debut that sidesteps inflated expectations by staying close to the group's established sound while still demonstrating a flexibility conducive to future musical development.

For all its grandiosity, American Idiot keeps its mood and method deliberately, tenaciously, and angrily on point.

Tracking the spiritual crossroads of hip-hop, reggae, soul, and flamenco, Joyful Rebellion stirs each of those ingredients into an album that, at the very least, deserves acclaim for blending classic and often forgotten Afro-sounds into 04's hip-hop scene.

A quarter-century after its first release, London Calling is still the concentrate essence of The Clash's unparalleled fervor.

Banhart's disinterest in obvious narratives is, for now, his greatest strength.

Their caveman take on 70s nostalgia-- simultaneously misguided and entirely too obvious-- renders them mostly forgettable and entirely ineffectual.

Her voice has matured to a fine saw-toothed rasp, and carries with it the echoes of every hard minute through which she's lived.

Some of the rowdiest Giant Sand music since the near-grunge of 1992's Center of the Universe.

Their forlorn, polished California pop is like the sprawling Valley suburbs: nice enough, if that's your sort of thing.

Ultimately, It'll Be Cool succumbs to the general lack of ambition that has always been Silkworm's Achilles' heel.

Timms has made some perplexing choices in song selection.

Outgunned is a mess of unfocused energy and uncomfortably irrelevant sonics, an odd mix of cartoonish immediacy and tired youth-cult ideas that would be the perfect soundtrack to Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie: The Movie.

The Handler only meagerly amplifies what he was already doing, probably pleasing his no doubt respectable cadre of core followers, but handily turning off the rest of humanity.

The album naturally lacks the shock of the new, the jolt of Boy in Da Corner-- instead, it's a consolidation of his strengths, lyrically and sonically, and a more satisfying listen than its predecessor.

Their songs fuse Ashlee Simpson mall-punk with the retro 80s fetish of former tourmate Ryan Adams' recent high-profile stinker.

So long as we're unable or unwilling to fully recognize the healing aspect of embracing honest emotion in popular music, we will always approach the sincerity of an album like Funeral from a clinical distance. Still, that it's so easy to embrace this album's operatic proclamation of love and redemption speaks to the scope of The Arcade Fire's vision.

Their mistake is in forcing too many ideas into every possible second.