The Terror of Cosmic Loneliness may attempt to forge a common ground between two trans-Atlantic artists, but even when working from the same instrumental base, the sensibilities at play here are still oddly segregated.

That's How We Burn's sonic normalcy would all but consign the record for the used record bins if this band didn't sound so damn good when they break out of the mold.

Here, they shuffle through one stylistic experiment after another. The fingerprint on the album's cover art seems a little ironic, since for the first time, the Magic Numbers seem hard to identify.

Ross knows his lane and stays in it on Teflon Don.

For Grizzly Bear fans and Department of Eagles devotees alike, Archives 2003-2006 is a document rich with revelatory moments and educatory touchstones--but as an album, it functions even better.

The tempos remain rigorously uniform across these 13 tracks, as though quickening the pace might change the genre or break the spell. It makes for a warmly moody, albeit strangely static album.

Infra works as an enveloping and moving work even absent any knowledge of its beginnings. Others may glean different feelings from it than I do, but that is part of the point.

As down-to-earth as Secret Cities can be, at points you wish they'd be more direct: "Vamos a La Playa" and "The End" play so loosely, they border on disintegration, rounding out Pink Graffiti in overly cloudy manner, both sonically and lyrically.

As disjointed as that sounds on paper, The Long Shadow is the band's most focused and cohesive work. That's partly because it maintains a consistent mood, and partly because it maintains a danceable, frenetic pulse.

Dark Night is a well-sequenced and unique album that ingeniously balances its contributors' strengths with the overall theme of the work--self-examination, often under stark circumstances, in the interest of understanding one's own existence.

Where those newcomers privilege the nostalgic, indefinite, and noncommittal, the vets in SVIIB make a confident gesture towards the future.

The record is a shambling mess, devoid of the bangers that characterized Arular and Kala, two of the stronger pop albums of the past decade.

Despite some lyrical cliches and careless redundancies ("Come out from the burning flame" being the most glaring example), Kozelek's songs change mood fluidly, and the contrast between the serene settings and his own tumultuous thoughts raises even the most languid instrumental passages above mere aural wallpaper, lending it the gravity of his best work while giving it a character all its own.

Flaws is well-produced, many of its songs nicely augmented by fleet drumming and intricate guitar figures, but Steadman's lack of having anything interesting to say and inability to say it distinctively ultimately sinks the endeavor.

Luckily, you don't have to write genius lyrics to make reliable, stadium-ready rock. The tics of weirdness that made this band so initially affable may be gone, but they're now a cut-rate pop act instead. Nothing wrong with that.

About half the songs drift by without choruses, and the other half only barely have anything you could call a chorus. The whole thing is over in about 45 minutes. It all adds up to a woozy waft of a record--a perfect listen for mid-summer, when breathing in the humid air is almost enough to get you high.

As such, it's perhaps a little less satisfying and immediate than IV, which is still the band's finest album, but it seems to set them up to do anything they want on their next record. And it's also likely to help build their audience outward a bit.

Tellingly, the best songs on Blue Giant are also the simplest, pointing to what this record could and perhaps should have been.

That the results are as modest as Butterfly House is a disappointment, though all the skillful pieces remain in place.

It's not Reznor's best or boldest work, but it's a promising first step down a new path.

Whatever her bad luck might be down to, Kelis can take some small comfort in having made her best album since Kaleidoscope.

On Sir Lucious Left Foot, Big Boi does something even more difficult: He gives us a great album that sounds nothing like any of the great albums he's already given us. From where I'm sitting, that's an even greater achievement.

A light but pervasive dusting of flanger effects and wavy-tuned synths makes the melodies sound cloudy and unfocused. Even the singles don't especially stand out.

It's just that it feels so characterless and anonymous.

Though it starts off with a set of songs that wouldn't sound out of place on the two previous albums, Night Work quickly slips into hyper-sexualized gay club mode and sticks with that vibe until the end.

Expo 86, if nothing else, feels like the realization of a Wolf Parade sound; the exquisite Apologies carried the long shadow of its producer Isaac Brock, and Mount Zoomer felt too often like two personalities careening off each other rather than finding some common ground.

While Maps & Atlases are milder and less daring than either of those bands, Perch Patchwork is eclectic and consistent enough that each detour offers its own small reward.

What makes How I Got Over work is its sense of purpose. After the jaw-clenching stress rap of their last two excellent Def Jam releases, Game Theory and Rising Down, this record operates as a slow-build mission statement on how to overcome.