Instead of coming from noise and chaos, they're rooted in pastiche and show business-- especially on their one midtempo song, the 50s pop knockoff "Find Another Girl." Your parents might dig this album as much as you do.

If anemic blues guitar riffs and half-assed attempts at white-boy soul were the only problems with In Our Gun, it might almost be passable.

Every card Gough plays is painfully transparent from the first time you play the disc. It's elementary stuff. It sounds manufactured, refined, cosmetic and sterile; in a word, silicone, like a pair of Badly Sculpted Breast Implants.

An immediately engrossing and challenging collection of moody, evocative songs-- an entire album of "I Want You" and "Watching the Detectives" for those so inclined.

A charming enough document that fans will almost certainly find worthwhile.

What separates the album from previous Luna product is not so much instrumental alterations as the newly unabashed sentimentality of Wareham's lyrics.

Mono and Stereo would be fine records from any musician-- that Westerberg himself is the source makes it all the sweeter.

Complex and dangerously catchy, lyrically sophisticated and provocative, noisy and somehow serene, Wilco's aging new album is simply a masterpiece; it is equally magnificent in headphones, cars and parties.... No one is too good for this album; it is better than all of us.

Feels more like failed market research than soul searching.

An exhilarating but disorienting ride.

While Millions of Brazilians is easily the most potent and concentrated effort Dianogah has yet to produce, it still lacks tonal variation.

All of Denali consists solely of minor-key electric angst, with languid orchestration and predictable compositions. No crescendos, barely discernable choruses, a dearth of interesting dynamics. The result is stagnancy, kids, and it kills the album.

Where [Winners Never Quit] moved with confidence and conviction of purpose, Control wallows in an amoral netherworld of overamped midtempo ballads and incomplete thoughts.

Though some might say that Armstrong's music is powerfully evocative and serene, such people hate music and all its subtle possibilities and intricacies.

Many tracks come off as retreads or ideas freeze-dried for consumption at the trio's famous exhaustingly intense live shows.

Sure, it's nowhere near his incredible run of the seventies, but it is probably his best album since 1992's Harvest Moon.

On succeeds not in spite of its simplicity, but because of it.

An infectious collection of grooves that proudly utilizes the traditional vocabulary of rock and roll.

Perhaps the Blues Explosion is aware of the garage revival, and looking to claim some kind of Neil Young-esque patriarchal crown. If so, the dozen tracks of Plastic Fang fail miserably, giving off the appearance of a 35 year-old accountant hanging around the old frat house on Homecoming weekend.

An album that emerges as a solid, infectious effort, but eventually collapses under its own weight, unable to keep all its stylistic efforts coherent.

Without sufficient songwriting versatility, things can get pretty mediocre and, well, boring by the end of a ten-song album.

A pleasant, atmospheric diversion.

So then, what is the excuse for a typically elitist music nerd to bow to Andrew WK's blistering tard-rock? That's right, folks: there isn't one.

Now, this is a pretty straightforward album, so the possibilities do exhaust themselves somewhat by the end; there's only so much that can be done with this sort of visceral, no-frills rock.

By co-opting and debasing punk-disco's vitality and sincerity and thereby rendering the style accessible to the botox-and-bulimia set, Jackson betrays the visions of those whose ecstatically powerful music he lavishly degrades.

Their best album to date-- a bold claim to the upper echelon of rock.

There's invention and heart in these tunes, and the range is impressive.

The beats are just fine, but they lack the risk or innovation that could potentially make them truly engaging.