In the end, the record is a disjointed listen--there are some really beautiful and even moving stretches but too many missed opportunities to truly bring together Ring's love of pop with his natural gift for beats.

It's an accomplished sound, one that may not immediately dispense with the comparisons that have dogged the band, but one that does suggest a group more than capable of outgrowing the associations.

Ultimately, the trip they're taking us on isn't into America, but into the past, and they show too much reverence for their forebears.

Haven is no parody, nor is it a carelessly made record--it's simply a late entry that tugs the same strings, only to lesser effect.

In both songs, and throughout Paradise, Slow Club display remarkable skill in tugging at heartstrings, but they do it without being particularly manipulative or overly saccharine.

In the place of anthems, though, are carefully constructed gems making up a sequencing run so solid it takes a few listens to pick out the exact drop-off point.

While they've made great use of deconstructive syntax, repetition, gibberish, and in-jokes in the past, too much of Relax simply feels like dead air.

Megafaun may be their most immediately ingratiating, rewarding LP yet, as well-suited for a night strapped into headphones as it is a lazy Sunday morning, dancing around the bedroom, munching casually on a pasta breakfast.

The Night is a record uncomfortable with all the trappings of the corporeal world--time, words, its own skin--and occasionally, improbably, it actually breaks free of them all.

The disappointment is in how it sounds like their years apart have needlessly chastened them into fast-forwarding through the idiosyncratic streak they showed on Some Loud Thunder instead of embracing it, coming out of the wilderness only to end up smack dab in the middle of the road.

This is a far more serious record than its predecessor, but Palomo isn't always as assured in rendering the darker material.

For all the ideological intent fuelling the Wild Flag mission, the band rarely sacrifices the rock'n'roll fun-- they no doubt deliver that elusive black-and-blue, but it's a hit that feels like a kiss.

Gravity the Seducer is a transitional album bearing the growing pains and separation anxiety that we usually associate with bands that are in between periods of true inspiration.

Marling may spend the majority of these songs and several others struggling to find wisdom and peace in the face of trials brought on by lust, money, and death, but she almost always sounds like she already has all the answers.

The result is disarmingly tender, adding a few heartfelt minutes of warmth and personal connection, something lacking in the rest of Dreams' gloss.

Here, Clark's role-playing is grounded in emotions that are as cryptic as they are genuine and affecting. And when her voice can't bear it, her guitar does the screaming.

This lyrical simplicity shouldn't obscure the fact that these are sharply constructed songs that take unusual turns. One of Girls' specialities is their willingness to go completely over the top but somehow keep us right there with them.

Mountaintops is the first of their records to grapple with the everyday tribulations and banality of spending your entire adult life in a band-- with your Mate, nonetheless.

It's business as usual: spastic pounding, warp-speed scalar runs, and various math-rock feats of strength.

The songs on Hollow are modest--there's no closing epic, and the choruses are catchy but don't aim to be anthems--but the band seems to have found its true strength here in a sound that's pretty far removed from the implied violence of its name.

Often when an artist gets stronger, the music becomes more universal, and reference points become easier to hear. It may sound paradoxical, but these evocations help make Glacial Glow distinct.

Their experiments don't always yield useful results-- the downcast, acoustic-guitar-powered "Partners in Crime" comes awkwardly decorated with free-form piano rolls that trip up rather than propel the song's momentum. But there are moments when CSS find a way to successfully evolve without alienating their base.

While Why There Are Mountains reminded me of what those records [Perfect From Now On or The Moon and Antarctica] sounded like, Lenses Alien does something more difficult by reminding what it felt like once they were over and you were left to wonder if you just stumbled upon a cosmic, philosophical treatise disguised as an indie rock record.

The confidence in their new record is clear, if only because their vocals sound more boisterous than ever, but for the most part, the experimentation is the problem.

The band's personal choices--to abandon rock iconography for smaller, more fulfilling family units--will be Grace's fate as well: a record without broader narratives, meant for those who grew up with the Rapture, or want to.

Really, though, its the earlier track "Lost in Time" that best sums up the record's appeal--on one level, it's about the dancefloor as an escape, while on another, it winks at the group's time travels.

More than anything, Glazin's sneer'n'strut is just too much of a pretty good thing: One or two at a time, these songs work wonders, but over half an hour, the Boys' retrograde sneer and strut proves a bit too safe and samey.

Like his fusion heroes, Bruner wants it all: the future shock of electronics, the tightly edited pleasures of pop, the love-sick opulence of quiet-storm soul, and the show-stopper instrumental breaks of jazz. The fact that he's mostly pulled it off, with a record that's serious in intent while playful in execution, is pretty astounding.