There's an undercurrent of darkness on this record-- particularly in Olsen's on-the-verge voice and lyrics-- that ultimately prevents the band from ever wheeling too far out of reach.

A career low.

We sound like everyone's favorite old rock bands, we have insipid lyrics, we say 'Come On!' and 'Oh Yeah!' every five seconds, we have no discernable identity, and we're from Australia. What could people possibly dislike about us?

Transatlanticism dulls the edges of their usually acute divinations.

The Young Machines will rank among your favorite albums if you're someone's mortifyingly jaded ex, but if you come to it craving electronic vocal-pop keeping pace with anything north of Jimmy Tamborello's shoulders, you'll end up frustrated by the simple and repetitive violin bits that drive the big retro beats.

As a technical achievement and as a piece of pure sound, The Civil War is inarguably Matmos' best record.... [but] there's less of an emotional core here than on previous offerings.

Since LFO hardly need to be innovators to produce a good record, I don't have much problem recommending Sheath, with the caveat that when pleasant, easy-going atmospheres set in, sometimes amiable disinterest on listeners' parts follow shortly.

Though it's no masterpiece, With the Tides is certainly a good record. At the very least it should ease your Britpop jones better than Menswe@r.

A top-heavy album, with his best material-- the more operatic and unconstrained works-- all unfolded within the album's first half hour.

The subject matter here is repetitive, pseudo-intellectual pandering runs rampant, pointless skits and mid-song dialogue sessions interrupt the flow, and most importantly, wasted beats fall at the hands of Slug's newfound penchant for verse-long tracks and poorly realized singsong bridges.

The beats on Fatherfucker are not only frustratingly simplistic, but the energy and surprising rhythmic complexity of the vocals on her debut are noticeably absent, too.

Even if it won't hit you on the first listen, Bazooka Tooth remains a strong outing from one of underground hip-hop's most talented, thanks to its unprecedented wealth of lyrical depth and truly individual production style.

Plays like a big, half-drunken romp through golden-era rock 'n' roll-- airy and thrilling and shifty as hell.

Costello has eschewed all sense of melody and humor in favor of rambling, mock-jazz noodling.

Awkward and poorly realized.

Halstead's knack for stunning arrangements is in top form on Spoon & Rafter, and in this capacity, his music remains compelling, if no more or less than on any of his previous trilogy of Mojave 3 releases.

Big Boi's Speakerboxxx coolly upstages its counterpart: though it, too, provides the world with one earthshaking single, it differs from The Love Below in that it also manages to maintain consistent brilliance and emotional complexity throughout.

Stellastarr's bold, cinematic sprawl demands a certain kind of tolerance, and might require a few listens before you're able to fully adjust to its dramatics, but Christensen is, in the end, an oddly convincing leader, and, if nothing else, you'll at least be stuck to your headphones trying to guess his next move.

Unfortunately, The Fire Theft actually sees the band indulging in ersatz approximations of Yes and Genesis' epic odysseys much more deeply.

Badu keeps the proceedings here buoyant and relaxed with that supple-lipped scat of hers, stretching out scant syllables at her lounging, loopy leisure.

So Team Boo turns out to be a surprisingly respectable junior-year effort-- one that puts Mates of State in the small minority of indie-pop bands that don't fall under the one-album-and-out rule.

What they do well might be best exemplified by "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", which most effectively pairs their sense of theatricality and grandiosity with their penchant for great pop hooks.

This is as close as Bowie has ever come to simply "pretty good" in his storied career.

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

They aren't inept, amateurish or even exactly boring, but their parlor music takes a slow and emotionally neutral path that almost fights against engagement.

Stricken by the same backward-looking guitar worship disease that seems to have struck many in the indie community, the relentless string-bending and beer-bottle slides can't help but sound like stale recidivism.

For the most part, the tracks hang together and flow relatively well, orbiting the shimmering dreampop mass that serves as the record's unstated inspiration.

BSP's performance art antics and throwback posturing come with a distinct set of innovations and surprises, and The Decline of British Sea Power proves that BSP have the song-power to back up their bullshit.