It's not that it lacks tension--indeed, almost every song touches on relationship strife--it's just that the squabbles are gentle, the rage subdued.

For the most part, though, Old Growth is exactly what this band has always done.

This mannered, understated virtuosity permeates Collett's music, just like it did the Band's.

On Falling Off the Lavender Bridge, Hynes offers a comfortable (and more interesting) marriage of lush Brit-pop and Omaha-flavored country-rock.

Circular Sounds can feel impersonal, especially in how Stoltz hopscotches from voice to voice, some far stronger than others.

The biggest critique is that as an album, This Gift is perhaps too far in the red too much of the time, but even that complaint is tempered by the fact that the ride is so good

I'm sure defenders of the band will champion Mars Volta as a keeper of the prog-rock flame, but The Bedlam in Goliath renders the term meaningless--the result couldn't be more averse to actual progress in rock music.

Bring any baggage you want to this record, and it still returns nothing but warm, airy, low-gimmick pop, peppy, clever, and yes, unpretentious--four guys who listened to some Afro-pop records, picked up a few nice ideas, and then set about making one of the most refreshing and replayable indie records in recent years.

Xiu Xiu's music is all about discomfort, but Stewart and co. have become quite comfortable in this conceptual space, and are able to inhabit it like painters making wild, broad smears that intuitively cohere into a look that is distinctly theirs.

Obviously, a host of issues--from downtime to headlines--compelled Walla to make this record, and his effort shows. What's missing is a compelling reason to listen.

Even when it fails, Keep Your Eyes Ahead has a refreshing maturity and presence, old enough to admit that folk jamboree and synth-rock can coexist, hopeful enough to think "Joshua Tree," or at least "Ocean Rain," was a really good idea.

The slightly more dynamic Louis XIV only give you testosterone-fueled rock at its least appealing extremes: heedless lust or, arguably even more repulsive, cheesy balladry.

By stripping them down to their bones, Lynne gets the skeleton of these songs right, but in the end you can't help but miss the meat that made Springfield who she was.

Dub Trio are on to something, but they've yet to fully grasp it.

Yoav goes about his expecting some sort of kneejerk praise for rolling dolo, but thanks to a total lack of depth, sonic or otherwise, all I see is the gimmicks, the wack lyrics.

It feels neither like redemption nor realization; rather, it's just a reminder that--for the past 45 minutes--you've been sitting alone in a room with stable gases. Nothing has changed.

It's fair to say the songs lack the epic sweep of the last couple of albums, but there's still little about Hey Venus! to fault beyond the faint whiff of musical conservatism.

Even when their songs pass muster, the performances feel ineffectual, which makes long stretches of Venus on Earth drag semi-miserably.

Future raises the stakes considerably, leaving the band's musical talents to play catchup with their new material's epic-sized dimensions.

A covers album like Jukebox should reveal new facets of a performer in its selection and interpretation of favorite songs. That's how (and why) "The Covers Record" worked. But eight years later, only 'Song for Bobby' tells us anything new about Chan Marshall. The rest of Jukebox doesn't even say much about Cat Power.

What at first blush might sound like unhealthy entrenchment turns out to be a brilliant study in duality, as Cooley and Hood--seemingly in conversation with one another--weigh the respective pulls of decadence and dependability.

Neither here nor there, the funklesss would-be dancefloor fodder of P.D.A. frankly comes off D.O.A.

On 'Electric Feel,' MGMT pull off lithe, falsetto electro-funk surprisingly well. There's not much to the song aside from a Barry Gibb vocal and limber bassline, but within the context of the rest of Spectacular, it makes perfect sense.

Certainly there's more to Costa than a one-man acoustical jam, even if his pleasure zone isn't far from the AM Gold dial.

What really makes this album special is the ways in which the Evangelicals pull off big-stage spectacle on what still sounds like a public-access cable-show budget.

Listening to Matinée straight through is exhausting, like being trapped in the kitchen at a college party while someone with curiously wide eyes Explains It All to you.

Fuzztone guitar and the occasional woodwinds dress up the many slow-paced songs, but repetitive, fragmentary compositions such as 'Paquita Reads by Candlelight,' Vancouver-repping 'Skeleton Aim,' and the typically moribund 'Come Darkness' sound more concerned with melisma than memorable melodies or vibrant production.

Odd instrumental touches crop up throughout the album, and there's a welcome layer of grit and murk to even the prettiest songs here.