Drone Trailer arrives--after numerous CD-Rs and tapes of cross-cultural, relentlessly unconventional music to stargaze by--bearing principally unthreatening, old-fashioned rock'n'roll.

Not everything here fails in such catastrophic fashion, but because the band noodles its way through Mirror Eye's druggy, sitar-laced exercises without any thought towards coherence (or completion), even its few promising tracks feel slapdash and unfinished.

The collection is a timely, if at times exhaustive, introduction to the Six Organs origin myth.

At its best moments, the debut sounds like an A.V. club president's wet dream, unabashedly nerdy and technically proficient. Sadly though, the record is peppered with aesthetically dubious nu-rave moments, making LOTP sound less like sympathetic revenging nerds and more like party-crazed dude-bros who just happen to own synths.

Apart from those ['Hey Dad!,' 'World/Inferno vs. the End of the Evening,' 'Dead Sailors'] and the relatively slight 'Do We Not Live in Dreams?,' though, Major General hits some massive highs and nary a single crushing low.

In their rush to be the UK's most important band, they seem to have ignored restraint, charisma, and charm--the qualities that made them Next Big Thing candidates in the first place.

Haymaker! is a typically witty, rambunctious album that shuffles up the band members like a deck of cards.

Every synth setting and drum sound and vocal technique on I Think We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat is a pastiche of a sort of thing you've heard before.

The rest of the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack consists of Rahman's evocative score, which meshes pounding technoid percussive-heavy pieces (such as "Riots" or "Mausam And Escape") and slightly less forceful cues (such as "Ringa Ringa"), some of which seem designed to bring to mind specific moments in the film, some to evoke more general emotions.

Anyone who buys this without owning Ironman, Supreme Clientele or Fishscale is going to miss the bigger picture, and anyone who buys it while already owning those albums isn't gaining much at all.

Universal Mind Control is a painful misstep from a talented rapper who's decided to be as nasty as he wants to be--which turns out to be much, much nastier than we'd like.

A Cross the Universe isn't close to anyone's definitive idea of what a document of a live Justice show should be, but it's a diverting, sometimes-bizarre look into the first phase of fame for an aughts-era cult pop phenomenon.

Her own versions aim at some druggily evocative conception of 60s soul, which makes them pale next to the originals.

If Brighten the Corners signaled a turn to the serious, the 32 outtakes and radio-session cuts compiled here give Pavement plenty of room to, as one B-side aptly puts it, "fuck around."

The guests regularly outshine the hosts, but each has a variation on the sort of rugged, gruff flow that doesn't leave Erick or Parrish gasping.

And yet, that Emeritus often seems more righteous than cynical or hopeless (the latter two are a bit soft) is a testament to Scarface strengthening his flow in age.

It's an enjoyable listen in the here and now, which is all an album has to be, even when created by giants.

Forget the technicalities and call it what it is: a messy, glorious, and cohesive artistic document of internet café-era indie life that sounds best when sung by heart.

Electric Arguments holds onto an original Fireman ideal: to make Paul McCartney sound less like Paul McCartney. That it does so within more traditional pop-song presentations-- while steering clear of McCartney's usual preferences for piano-pounded rockers and string-sweetened ballads-- is the ultimate testament to its success.

The album is much larger and brasher than it would first appear--the closer it hews to a mix of sad-sack indie pop and elegant, monied Patrick Bateman commercial 80s sounds, the better it works.

While Theater isn't quite as dire as the above may indicate, like every other Ludacris record, it doesn't grow on you--in fact, it actually contracts.

Just as "Viva" did an admirable job of troubleshooting the band's lazy weaknesses while expanding their sound, Prospekt's March offers a truncated version of their svelte and marginally progressive new formula.

Alone was worth the occasional cringe to show Cuomo's experiments and sonic baby photos through the years, especially after three studiously formulaic records.

This mix might not help the Rapture pass every test of the best club DJs, but when it comes to maybe the most important one--the ability to make clubbers push their way to the booth and breathlessly ask for the title of that amazing cut they just dropped--they've done their studying.

This is the Killers' spitball album, the one where they try everything and see what works while Flowers grasps for a relatable tone.

Black Sea is positively huge while also being much more accessible. You get a sense here of how far Fennesz has come, how far his music reaches, and the unexplored possibilities that still exist.

In the City is proof that you can co-opt the most retarded aspects of 80s corporate rock and still not be any fun.