Real Estate have such a knack for classic-sounding melody that every song quickly engages on a musical gut level.

Keeping listeners on their toes while also mimicking the way this music was often heard by fans-- it's an odd but effective approach, especially considering the usual keep-the-party-going Fabriclive style.

Where Living With Yourself found McGuire sticking to moody, simple melodies, Get Lost inches up the volume a little.

It is a bit ephemeral, but not quite as music to relax to--more like music to be bewildered by.

Above all else, it's the best M83 record yet.

The Great Escape Artist's intricate, heavily lacquered production--courtesy of Muse-man Rich Costey--has the effect of making Jane's Addiction sound like an anonymous assemblage of oversaturated recording tracks.

h parties click together because they're willing to let genre be an afterthought, yet they still avoid succumbing to a rootless, stylistically overreaching identity crisis.

It's not quite hype enough to be pure party music and lacks the cohesive point of view that fosters a more personal connection with a record.

On his eponymous debut, Mikal Cronin proves he can hold his own.

Red finds the band operating in a much cleaner, dreamier mode and mostly pulling it off.

"Hey Ray" is a sore-thumb irritant on an EP that otherwise carefully mediates between Cale's populist and deviant tendencies.

For a group who traded so well in whimsy, who got off to such a kaleidoscopic start, Original Colors can feel unusually drab.

As an innovator, she's as vibrant as ever, but as a songwriter, she sounds tired.

Breakers effectively conjures a space unto itself, but it's one that lacks an easy entry point.

Here, with one exception, they sound as though they're in soundtrack mode.

While the songs are wildly improved, I still can't say there's much of a discernible identity.

Breaks' lyrical thumbnails of lost opportunities and forgotten friends can seem a touch too pathos-addled on paper, but drawn through Bachmann's lungs, they leave their mark.

That sense of connectedness lends these songs a reassuring familiarity, as though they were new corners of a strange world whose boundaries grow larger and whose scenery grows more inviting with every Oldham release.

Despite its reduced scope, Life Sux is actually pretty versatile depending on where you stand with Wavves--take it as further confirmation of his permanent immaturity, or a sign that rattling off rudimentary but undeniably hooky punk-pop comes fairly easy to him.

Blake is fighting the respectable fight on Enough Thunder, though the EP's totally bass-less tracks show that he needs dubstep as much as dubstep needs him.

Adams evokes the goodwill of his masterpiece as a singer, anyway, even if the songwriting doesn't come close.

Though treading familiar sonic and thematic waters at the start, On the Water really comes alive midway through.

A far greater number of these remixes flatten out the complexity of TKOL's grooves in favor of commonplace arrangements.

Ultimately, the album's song-oriented material is the most memorable.

Re: ECM stands out not just for its depth but for its variety, for the sheer number of musics it incorporates.

A project conceived in noble intentions but hobbled by confused, muddled execution.

Its only commitment is to a subtle antagonism, and it ignores pretty much any worthwhile development in pop, rock, electronic, or hip-hop music since the turn of the century.

For all the sonic strides Svanangen takes on Hall Music, he sometimes seems stuck singing the same sad song.