Diminutive, but mom-tough, Hersh casually cusses her way through a baker's dozen songs that are as personal as ever, and far less cryptic than in the past. Her voice remains creaky and pregnant with emotion, matched against her signature bright-toned Collings guitars.

Group Sounds is nonstop, straight-ahead rock for the most part, more reminiscent of Scream, Dracula, Scream!, but with enough flourishes to keep things from sounding too monochromatic.... Right through to the end, every song on Group Sounds is solid, pure, high-octane Rocket fuel.

Slipping dissonant, screeching bleeps into a placid, space-age bachelor pad schema seems oddly passive-aggressive, though not enough of either to pass as legitimately interesting.

On these eight Apples originals and one Beach Boys cover, Schneider and the band sound like they're having a blast, and the energy is instantly detectable.... Live in Chicago has the charm of a well-recorded audience bootleg sanctioned by the group on one of their best nights.

And while, at times, Momus constructs a bitingly clever post-modern take on folk music, Folktronic has an unfortunate tendency to choke on its own concept, rendering the album a bit hard to swallow.

Sleepwalking doesn't have a startling track like Northern Sulphuric's "Spellbound" to lift it out from the polite sludge of trip-hop mush.

The music offers few surprises this go around, relying instead of the tried-and-true guitar arpeggios, atmospheric noises and orchestral, rainy-day crescendos.

Though Cydonia is far from being a dull, sequencer-heavy Namlook ambient release, it regrettably sounds irrelevant in today's climate.

Run-DMC wind up overwhelmed by the guest stars and the schizophrenic nature of the production.

Girls Can Tell is more mature and accomplished, but at the expense of the spark of spontaneity.

If ever an album rewarded repeated listening, it's this one.

Anyone following Half Japanese's albums over their long stay in the rock arena has to enjoy the project's increasing comfortableness with complexity and craft. Hello demonstrates this sophistication to terrific effect, letting Jad's charming quirks take flight with more complex backgrounds.

Not only is it the most acoustically enthralling album they've released, it's also without a doubt the most playful, dynamic, and anthemic post-rock album that has been released to date.

If there's one positive remark to be made about What's Next to the Moon, it's that it sheds revelatory light on the subjective nature of lyrics. Yet, that might be the only truly positive remark this album deserves. Sure, Kozelek's voice is still smooth and sad, and his guitarwork is still deft, yet modest. But these are standard factory settings.

Sounding like a profane camp counselor telling stories by the fireside, Rollins' naturally animated raspy voice is the perfect chaperone through eleven tracks of commentary.

While it is by no means a good album, The Sleepy Strange is a small step up from its brain atrophy-inducing predecessor. On the album's closer, "Vinyl Fever," the band almost attains a tight, Tortoise-esque instrumental groove. But after over 40 minutes of boredom and frustration, odds are the album will most likely be occupying a precious spot in your septic tank before you get there.

There are two immediately apparent differences between Stephen Malkmus and Pavement's catalog: first and least surprisingly, there's less of a group dynamic here than on Pavement albums. It definitely has the sonic hallmarks of a "solo" album-- the songs are less jammy and spontaneous, more rigidly structured. Second, it's a lot more fun-sounding than Pavement was near the end of its shelf life.

It goes without saying that the Pixies' b-sides don't make for an average, run-of-the-mill outtakes compilation, as many of the songs are almost or equally as radiant as the more fortunate tracks that made it to the five classics between 1987 and 1991.

Ladytron's musical interests stretch back before MTV, to '70s Bowie, Roxy Music, Kraftwerk and Cluster. They're like an unabridged Encyclopedia of musical Eurotrash with a sharp pop sensibility. And with 604, they've made a fine debut full-length.

I've listened to this EP twice; that's once more than I would have ever liked to have heard it, give or take one listen.

Things We Lost in the Fire's high points are, without question, the best they've done.

Sadly, the album is a few years too late in coming. As an example, the guys, while opening for Lou Reed sometime back in 1996, pulled off an amazing rendition of the Velvets' "Ride into the Sun" with Reed and Wareham handling the vocals together. Where were all the tape recorders back then?

Mostly, From the Desk of Mr. Lady comes off like sub-standard material that didn't make it on to last year's full-length.

By this time, though, even Frank may be chafing at the limitations of their bar-band sound, staunch as he is in refusing to do overdubs or even edits in the recording process. Fortunately, there are just enough tweaks to that process this time out to enliven the resulting album, making it his most diverse and listenable since Teenager of the Year.

Every song drips with bawdy attempts at sexually shocking the listener. But just as Vince Neil screaming "girls, girls, girls" and name-checking strip bars is unlikely to whip a woman into a frenzy of amour, the Donnas attempt to titillate and fail miserably.

Minekawa reveals herself as yet another artist helping to forge the path for interesting and exciting musical landscapes.

Aaltopiiri feels much more like a soundtrack, with creeping drones sliding in and out of the mix, and more subtlety overall.

Acetone manage to take enough twists and turns on their dusty trail to stave off outright boredom, and they certainly have a talent for doing as much as they can with a fairly limited formula. However, as York Blvd progresses, the album's dreamy torpor becomes stifling, and the songs, while never anything other than pleasant, fail to distinguish themselves from one another.