There are great stand-alone songs here, like the 1960s-at-78-rpm sugar rush of "Eyes", but Apollo Sunshine is best listened to in a full dose and appreciated in all its messy glory.

It's flighty, frustrating, and at times a little frigid, but intelligent and never lacking in momentum.

Coles Corner is unapologetically retro to the max but it works.

Amber Headlights is a step backwards after the lush beats and subdued songs of the Twilight Singers' debut, 2000's Twilight, but it also seems weak following the harrowing Blackberry Belle and even the so-so covers album She Loves You.

The Coral have reverted to a subdued and almost jaded sound-- Invisible Invasion reveals way too many wrinkles and stretch marks for a band barely into their twenties.

In a way, it's comforting to know what you're getting: Four or five songs you'll treasure, four or five you'll tolerate, and a pretty good band sticking to their guns.

Mimicry is one thing, but at least choose wisely. You see, OK Go decide to impersonate post-Pinkerton, post-catchy, fun-by-numbers Weezer, resulting in an Ivy Leaguer Sugar Ray sound.

The sprawling Late Registration is the year's most accomplished rap album, and in turn, he's done something that his heroes-- the Pharcyde and Nas, and father figure Jay-Z-- couldn't do: deliver on a promise the second time around.

After two albums of post-Britpop mediocrity, Manchester trio I Am Kloot kick things up a notch (or think they do), and suffer from bipolarity and an ambition that outstrips their ability.

Cramming together brash rock snottiness with meek country hollers is hardly uncharted territory (not that it matters), but BRMC's particular mash-up still makes for a strangely intriguing party.

If you're striving to restore faith in a world of "prophets, pimps, angels" and "whores," you gotta do better than Sarah McLachlan melodies and a rented Haitian choir.

Menos el Oso ultimately stumbles on its own self-conscious maturity.

With more developed ideas than Mass Romantic and a more cohesive sound than Electric Version, it's their most consistent, confident, and best album to date.

Bright Ideas is more pleasant than kick-ass or inspired. But for an album this deep into his career, at a time when he could start growing aesthetically antsy, McCaughan sticks to a blueprint that works best.

Haas has a problem: Let that cartoon tech-metal ramp up (or camp up) just a step too far, and it turns into something kind of, well, uncool-- crossing the line from lovably brutal Germanic electronics into something sub-Rammstein, a kind of mallrat military-industrial metal that doesn't really square with the guy's skill set.

Where the Rock*A*Teens played an artful, echo-laden take on rockabilly, Tenement Halls takes traditional pop and plays it through a murky wall of sound.

Some might wish this gift for fastidious arrangements would carry over to the lyrics, which feature a bevy of look-it-up references and descriptions that might stymie attempts at easy listening. It doesn't hurt to do a little research or, like, pay attention to lyrics worth a damn.

That's ultimately the sticking point with Infiniheart: VanGaalen's songs tend toward folly, yet it's impossible to discount his commitment to the material.

Veirs is maybe the gazillionth iteration of the quiet voice and plucked guitar, but she serves as a potent reminder how variable and compelling that combination can be.

A mopey bunch of trite sap O.D.-type tales almost as unstomachable as the band's former crapothecary hymns.

A couple of really cool parts, and the rest I don't feel so bad for forgetting.

Inside/Absent is a nice listen, but doesn't hint at anything greater to come-- a frustrating flaw for an album already unexcited with itself.

Songwriting chemistry is a tricky thing, and while having two or three competing voices can push writers to new heights, a group of five here leads to songs that are merely passable.

The album's laissez-faire production fails to anchor its quaint, melody-allergic songs. In turn, Elverum's retiring vocals float to the top, which is a horrible place for them.

May stand as the band's most focused disc to date.

Although there will always be certain comfort in Margo Timmins' voice, her limitations are frustrating.

Hatfield has nothing new to say besides "You don't know what it's like to be perfect," and it might explain her perfect-person tendency toward carelessness-- guitar solos, grating vocals, overdone crabbiness-- all signs that point to thinly veiled midlife crisis rock.

Quit +/or Fight may lack the immediate melodic punch of the band's debut-- it forsakes pristine strums for skewering electric guitar and scrappier arrangements-- but what the record sacrifices in warmth, it makes up for in atmospherics.