Jacksonville City Nights is a well-lit snapshot of a talented mythmaker modeling his best honky-tonk garb-- and this time, holy shtick, the tailoring is almost impeccable.

In Space would be a decent Posies album, and there's enough for a passable Chilton solo joint, but as a Big Star release, it's inescapably disappointing.

Fans of the group's previous work-- and of Solesides/Quannum-related material in general-- will find treats within The Craft's many folds, but its irregular terrain will likely prevent consensus about which tracks represent the peaks and which the troughs.

A goofy, sloppy mini-album, cramming familiar Weezer fuzz, stoned piano ballads, playful analogue synths, and misguided Bad Company references into a little more than half an hour.

Bianchi's not much for such subtleties, emotional or rhetorical, which may suggest he'll have as much lovelorn electro-symphonic melodrama to recount on future albums as on those past and present.

Try as you might, searching for vestiges of the ol' Morcheeba is futile.

Unfortunately, Supergrass doesn't really ever harness any of the momentum they create on individual songs to make a truly great LP.

On paper this all could sound average, but Wolf Parade's true talent is transforming the everyday into the unprecedented.

Young's music is so rooted in the past, specifically the spirit of the 60s, that his stabs at contemporary relevance sound awkward and even curmudgeonly.

In its best moments, Collisions has an edge that's grittier and more emphatic than its predecessor.

The Naked Truth may be better than 80% of the other rap albums to be released in 2005, but that don't make it another Ready to Die.

With a Cape and a Cane sounds merely like a solid indie rock record on a passing listen; give it a few more spins and you will be rewarded.

It's among the most fascinating music I've heard and deserves a listen by anyone with even the remotest interest in the possibilities of sound.

Set Free is ultimately just another American Analog Set album-- and probably the least essential at that.

What you have with Tender Buttons is a Broadcast album that listeners might need to spend more time with than expected. That said, this is still a Broadcast album, meaning it's one of the better things you'll put in your ear this year.

If nothing else, Siberia proves McCulloch and Sergeant still have their songwriting craft in good working order, but it's hard to recommend an album on strength of craft alone-- it has to have a little verve, and unfortunately it's lacking.

Even where Certified doesn't entirely congeal, Banner gets by on personality and an ever-sharpening focus.

By culling from early releases and rescuing tracks from last year's tepid Drag It Up, the band showcases a surprisingly deep and ridiculously rich canon of loser anthems ("Wish the Worst"), dark ballads ("Salome"), odes to romantic doubt and suspicion ("The Other Shoe"), cowboy calls ("West Texas Teardrops"), and frenzied barnstormers ("Doreen")-- all written and played with generous humor and genuine exhilaration.

Not to malign their previous catalog, which certainly trumps most of today's post-punk regurgitates, but Family Myth proves fewer studio tricks lead to tighter songwriting.

Cripple Crow is undoubtedly impressive, vastly singular but entirely accessible, and an inspired listening experience where Banhart again proves himself one of the more talented and charismatic forces in modern folk.

Give Blood falls squarely in the "pleasant surprise" camp; a gift to short attention spans everywhere.

One of the most annoying records you're liable to remember.

Only the truly earless would mistake this assortment of bloated in-jokes and interminable, sub-song drones for some kind of masterpiece.

Whether or not Iron & Wine and Calexico ever choose to follow this up with another collaboration (fingers crossed), it's clear that both acts are stronger for having worked with the other.

The tendency to descend into new age goo is still present, and Takk, like all of Sigur Rós' discography, is not for the viscerally-minded. Regardless, the record is more than just meaningless wisps.

Harmonies for the Haunted seems as familiar as Stellastarr*'s 2003 debut, and that's at once its chief cincher and problem.

A utopian epic, a sweeping musical argument for love in the time of Fallujah.

These periodic lapses of over-constraint are especially disappointing given the group's obvious talent for making spontaneous mid-air adjustments to their sound; but there's enough evidence here to be optimistic that one day soon the group will gain the swagger necessary to more consistently abandon themselves to their wilder sonic impulses.