Out of all the depressing aspects of Recovery, the worst is the realization that for listeners the album takes the opposite arc-- the more he motors on about having reclaimed his passion for hip-hop and finally figured out who he is, the more draining the album becomes.

They know bombast and melodrama, which makes a decent amount of their latest effort, The Five Ghosts, all the more off-putting.

In both its lyrical candour and soft-rock accessibility, Boys Outside sees Mason ready to meet the public again, and in some cases, actually cater to it.

Had Fol Chen made good on those early impulses to really boost The New December's kinky eccentricities, it wouldn't have been much of a surprise to find it making serious inroads with new listeners. Though it ultimately only warrants selective revisiting.

At every turn, Total Life Forever is inviting. Much more alive than earlier efforts, it's an album with a complexion that constantly changes with time....[But] the album's second half doesn't fare so well, drowning at times in aqueous atmospherics.

Immaculately produced, fantastically sung, and loaded with memorable choruses, this eight-song effort has plenty to please everyone from post-dubstep crate diggers to teen tweeters-- often at the same time.

Even if many of the album's lyrics find Fallon looking back in anger, American Slang ultimately proves The Gaslight Anthem are not afraid to move forward.

Thank Me Later presents its star as a bottle-serviced hip-hop headcase tirelessly searching for love and good times while caught up in his own thoughts.

In the end, Barbara could've been made by a computer with a specific coding procedure: bass riffs align themselves into right angles, sharp synth lines blare, hi-hats sizzle, hooks dissolve on contact, and 2004 never ends.

When it isn't a high school poetry recital, Lustre often feels like a disappearing act-- an attempt to put on a few musical disguises to see if anyone likes them better than the musician beneath.

As strictly a listening experience, though, it's a decent document of a bunch of relatively unexceptional guys who willed themselves to greatness for a couple of years there but couldn't stop being relatively unexceptional.

As rewarding as this new album is, it's even more impressive when you consider its context: Crystal Castles may have come on at the tail-end of the blog-house/nu-rave/French-touch mini-rage, but they've now transcended it, moving from scene linchpin to indie stars.

Eyes & Nines could've come out at any point in at least the past 15 years, so if you're looking for innovation, look elsewhere. But for those of us who had formative, life-changing experiences screaming in our friends' faces in wood-paneled basements or tiled VFW Halls while bands like bands like Pageninetynine or Milhouse played, it's a real treat.

On Man Made, Teenage Fanclub seemed to be suffering a sort of rock'n'roll midlife crisis. Five years later, Shadows finds them at ease once again.

With an opener as strong as Destroyer of the Void, you could be forgiven for being disappointed that it is the collection's sole foray into spacey prog-pop territory and not the tip of the iceberg in a likeminded collection.

The new album is hardly a huge leap from Elephant Shell in most senses, but it does find TPC reaching out, growing more comfortable, and letting loose.

For those who've been following along for a few years, this is a groundbreaking record that condenses and amplifies Ariel Pink's most accessible tendencies. But the brilliant thing about Before Today is that no prior knowledge of his catalog is required.

It's too bad that the majority of The Black Dirt Sessions is so familiar, as the band dutifully strides through the same well-worn territory, perhaps even less palatable in their stubborn sameness.

Pigeons feels less divorced from the bedroom freak-folk of the project's self-titled debut (recorded by Temple all by his lonesome, with the assistance of a looping pedal or two) than it seems the logical extension of that aesthetic. Somewhat surprisingly, especially given the debut's minor faults, the woodshedded feel of Pigeons is a good look for the band.

Ratatat always aimed for the flashy yet mass-produced flavor of sub-luxe fashion and lifestyle accessories--and for at least two albums, they hit their mark. But at this point, their sound is wearing increasingly thin and producing diminished results.

[O'Brien's] portentous lyrics, falsetto-prone quaver, and Simon & Garfunkel tunefulness are essential to the album's appeal.

Nearly the entirety of Apparitions feels covered by some haze that's equal parts car exhaust and glitter.

Wild Smile is wild indeed, the band's aesthetic and feel summed up perfectly by the cover art.

There's a range of hooks and ideas at play in Splazsh that few others have approached, much less made coherent.

That's just about a half-hour shorter than 22 Dreams, but the disc in turn is twice the fun.

The combination of the music's essentials-- jackhammer riffs clipped from punk and metal, mid-tempo beats from hip-hop and electro, and supremely catchy sing-song melodies-- is striking on its own, sounding remarkably fresh and unlike anything else right now. But an even greater source of the record's appeal is how it doesn't sound especially referential.

But if The Chaos marks the point where the Futureheads admit to themselves that the past ain't so bad, closing track "Jupiter"-- clocking in at a career-topping four minutes-- points to an intriguing new direction where the Futureheads apply their eccentricities to lengthier, more conceptual pieces.

The Bride Screamed Murder is the sort of album one might expect from a long-in-the-tooth group trying to rediscover its purpose and rejuvenate itself.