He is, to put it bluntly, one of those people who gets it right far more often and in more different ways than your ordinary person really should. Uproot is another one of those instances.

The result is a collection of songs so taut and concisely resonant as to be psalms.

The debut's boring, not awful, but until the band stops sounding like they have a hundred cooler things to do than be in a studio, it's hard to imagine them as anything more than surf muzak.

Though the concept of "growth" can border on illusory, the shady, gnarled Black Forest comes on less strong than Pale Young Gentlemen, but is ultimately a lot harder to shake than its charming, if slightly hammy predecessor.

Catfish Haven and Devastator are so counter "post-modern," counter "indie," deliberately and confidently well-worn, that when the sketches of American rock history lose their way, the band and its songs sounds like supporting players to gorgeous voice and a shared passion for what was.

The quality of the beats easily overcomes the somewhat odd novelty of hearing backpackers in close quarters with hardcore rappers, and with each listen it starts feeling more and more natural to have an all-star CD where M.O.P. and Little Brother both have hot tracks.

Awkward, youthful moments exist, but Women tire of them almost before you do. What's left are the best of post-punk ingredients: curiosity, noise, and sly artifice.

British producer and Transglobal Underground vet Nick Page, aka Dub Colossus, got the ball bouncing with A Town Called Addis, an intriguing conflation of reggae and dub sensibilities with Ethiopian pop. It's an ingenious idea made more interesting by its roundabout mode of composition.

He issues his grievances with a smart-ass certainty, rarely showing empathy or compassion for his characters or admitting that maybe it's his perspective that's skewed.

What ultimately saves Snowflake Midnight from following The Secret Migration up the band's collective keister is the song positioned to serve as its climax, 'Dream of a Young Girl as a Flower.'

Even though 4 has a greater emphasis on instrumental compositions that don't suffer much from the absence of Ejstes' vocals, it's a bit of a disappointment that they only show up in half the songs.

Paper Trail more often succeeds when the positivity sounds more earned than court-ordered.

Murs for President is such a weird album to listen to in a strictly critical sense, where it stands as a more-or-less average release.

Without risking pastiche, the band gets plenty of mileage from its sonic references.

WLIB AM has a better hit-to-miss ratio than just about any radio station you can name anyways.

The end result is a delectable pop record, with Koushik's heavy ambiance and amorphous production combining to nudge his songs to their tingling crescendos.

While 'Bruises' proves that a well-done song that sounds like other songs can make people take brief notice, Inspire mostly proves that recycling isn't the only answer.

With its handsome hard-cover packaging, clear-plastic paper-stock photo galleries, candid liner-note interviews (conducted in early 2007), and ridiculously detailed Pete Frame-drawn family tree poster, the set provides a handy opportunity for newbies to play catch-up on the band's history-- and for anyone who first came into contact with the Mary Chain via the closing credits to "Lost in Translation," only to be scared off by "Psychocandy's" torrential noise.

Geist's contributions to electronica have always seemed fringe--label head, remix specialist, in-demand crate digger--and it's once again nice for him to have something to put his own name on. But after years of waiting, Double Night Time confirms that Geist is most valuable behind the curtain.

Twilight of the Thunder God merely refines these elements, but the tune-up is noticeable. In a discography filled with catchy songs, these are some of Amon Amarth's catchiest.

Luna is enjoyable enough to listen to, and a lot of Beta Band followers will find plenty to enjoy here, but it's ultimately an album I didn't like as much as I wanted to, and one that doesn't really find its footing until it's almost over.

Feed the Animals helps to solidify Gillis' role as the supreme 80s-baby pop synthesizer.

Friendly Fires is teeming with ideas, and although the record's consistent sound can be exhausting--there is no release, no relaxation in tempo--it's encouraging to locate a new band with too much passion, so much that it can hardly execute its ideas on one page.

Hawk makes marginal stylistic advances that it could stand to omit, and it lightly retreads stuff that needs no recapitulation.

Surely, we can do better for the platonic ideal of a rock band than four guys gunning for a spot rightfully inhabited by My Morning Jacket but instead coming up with the best songs 3 Doors Down never wrote.

Yes, this is shit-hot thrilling music. But it's also brainy and ambivalent, and more engaging for it.

But ultimately, Loyalty to Loyalty leaves a weird aftertaste, and it's not just because the penultimate 'Relief' tries to prop itself up on Willett's falsetto harangues and stuttering slap-bass, before 'Cryptomnesia' ends the record collapsing into a rumpled heap.

The problem then is one of staying power--Lewis does such a good job of nailing choice sounds and styles from pop's past that you can't help getting reeled in right away; only upon later reflection do you realize that much of her success lies in evoking something else great rather than achieving a greatness more uniquely her own.