Why, pray tell, did Elbow decide to start sounding less like Radiohead rip-offs and more like midlife-crisis Travis?

At times charming, oddly affecting, and certainly promising but understandably something less than life changing.

Coldcut acquit themselves well, in the sense that they pull off all of their various generic sleights of hand. But, as per usual, whatever off-hand virtuosity Sound Mirrors displays, there's no center here.

At times Davies matures backward, trading the Kinks' tergiversating sophistication for rash generalization.

Encapsulating and elevating the best of Destroyer's back catalog, Destroyer's Rubies serves as a potent reminder that the intelligence of Bejar's songs has never obfuscated their emotional weight.

Everything Wrong Is Imaginary never quite feels like the career-culminating record it should be.

This time out, Man Man's less sloppy but just as ramshackle, as if the snaps and crackles are the band's diversion from actually writing the record.

The quixotic charm wears thin as "Some Slender Rest" dips into lugubrious emo-folk, and the remainder of the album's murdered wives, enraged sheriffs, and luckless roustabouts pile up cartoonishly.

While the sounds of these bands will certainly be familiar to fans of Konono, there is a remarkable amount of variety on the disc.

It's a dense, ambitious record that finally has the confidence needed to pull of the swagger they've been approximating.

So go ahead and grant the Eels an exemption for going the orchestra tour route; the additional personnel justifies their paychecks by saving this live album from being a rote greatest-hits-with-crowd-noise exercise.

When they settle down domestically, many rock artists seem to lose some of their spark, their hard-won happiness diluting the angst that made them so compelling in the first place. But on Bitter Honey, Barzelay thrives on the secret fears that lie beneath the surface of even the most secure relationships.

Sure, the time-tested formula delivers as expected, but ultimately the rote freakout leaves you wishing the band could bring the hammer down like it used to.

In parts, Albion's shambolism is stunning, but that's no excuse for moments of total sloppiness.

Too often the rawk they bring feels terribly labored.

Like much of X&Y, Magnet is exceptionally unobtrusive, music to ignore.

Though omissions are certain to be an issue for cratedigging obsessives, this collection is as flawless a primer as has ever been made available on a single disc.

The band's latest extends their newfound confidence to content as well as delivery, and stands as the finest full-length by Stuart Murdoch and his shifting collaborators since [If You're Feeling Sinister].

This album drops four consecutive hard rock stinkbombs to kick things off... Senor Smoke's saddest aspect, however, is its yearning for another dance-floor single.

Far from perfect-- at times even dull-- these songs balance their heavy despair with genuine, if hesitant, hope.

Gun finds songwriter's songwriter McCaughey slightly stuck in his own unique, nuanced niche.

There isn't much in here that could be considered hip, or that shows technical skill. But there's a total gut-level joy, as if these were tracks made by an ecstatic, well-meaning kid who hadn't yet encountered the complicated concerns of the places people might actually dance to them.

Security Screenings is a marked improvement over last year's directionless Surrounded by Silence.

If this is your first exposure to Clogs, you've picked a fantastic time to become acquainted.

Magnificent City is lazy and inept, devoid of force and inspiration and chemistry.

Idols of Exile is consistently solid; the songs are fully realized and, ultimately, memorable.

The end result is akin to Norman Smith and DJ Shadow sitting in on a RZA-produced session-- spry, voiceless prog-hop by any other name.

It seems particularly odd that for all the time and sweat Stoltz has put into this music, there's no sense of a real person behind these songs, just a tightly wound bundle of ideas borrowed from likely pop sources.