This record doesn't intend to blow your hair back; it wants to get under your skin, and with its twinkling arpeggios, morbidly graceful lyrics, and barely there electronics, slowly, it does.

U.S.A. is a good-not-great Southern rap album, overlong and weighted down by too many inept slow tracks but boasting enough furious, kinetic dance tracks to make it worth your money.

When the recycled smoke clears, Little Barrie could use more songwriting help from their patrons (Moz, [Edwyn] Collins) and less hu-huh inspiration from Ocean Colour Scene's lobotomy-trad bong.

The band still wants to rub shoulders with the its moody English influences, but dabbling in styles you're ill-equipped for, weaving unnecessarily recurring themes into the songs, or piling on incidental effects-pedal sounds for atmosphere aren't going to inherently elevate your music.

So it's not the jaw-dropping affirmation of the Posies' non-break-up that we might have hoped for, but Every Kind of Light is ultimately a decent record spiked with a few classic moments of patent posies pop ecstasy.

Kano doesn't just defy the sonic tradition of grime on Home Sweet Home, he defies the tidy boxes MCs are usually plopped in upon their arrival.

Like its predecessors, it's full of sweetly sung melodies and deceptively simple arrangements of originals and lovingly chosen covers.

So, forgive Corgan his infinite lyrical badness, but know that infinity's a lot to forgive.

Their gentle approach is justified by the fact that their songs are quite memorable, written with a sense of grandeur and astral beauty.

Electrified's rife with cardboard power chord progressions that should've been buried with all the other Nirvana aftermath opportunists.

Another Day on Earth is produced to within an inch of its life, with layers of intricate detail and the most ethereal synth washes imaginable.

In Your Honor, like most Foo Fighters records, is sterile and controlled; there is never any threat of dissolution.

For a genre that wants to evoke mysterious, uncharted territories, it's beginning to show signs of predictability, and while Odd Nosdam hews admirable results from it, it's just about time for an increasingly defined border to be pushed outward, into more nebulous territory, again.

Discover a Lovelier you isn't really even a bad album, only unremarkably OK.

The Oranges Band's playing is impressive but never flashy, and the melodies are inviting without being cloying.

Never have they turned in an effort as pretty or economical as Out of Nothing.

This all-star team of Northern European electro-house producers infuses the record with often low, rumbling bass, twitchy synths, and an oddly high-altitude light-headedness-- like floating, high on oxygen, just above a dancefloor.

Like Coldplay's two previous albums, only more so, X&Y is bland but never offensive, listenable but not memorable.

Man-Made ultimately sounds exactly like you'd expect a Teenage Fanclub album to sound, but with just enough extra to make it feel new again.

Even with a generous handful of tracks that easily rank alongside the White Stripes' best work, Get Behind Me Satan remains a confounding record, one that wears its "transitional album" tag like a heavy peppermint-striped crown.

As a career overview Minimum-Maximum far surpasses The Mix. This record's "importance" in the Kraftwerk story is up for debate, but there's no question it's a hell of a lot of fun.

In a sense Turin Brakes do little wrong on Jackinabox aside from the occasional gooey outbursts of gaiety.

She's onto some good shit here, but there's too much learning on the job.

There's nothing as great as "New Generation", "She's Not Dead", or "The 2 of Us" but there doesn't have to be, either, because the Tears have enough natural dynamism of their own to stand alone.

We Are Monster has the depth if you have the time. Yep, here's a fun record that's a work-for-it, in-the-details record, too.

Although not as compelling as his more subversive material, this softening of his sound doesn't carry the negative connotation of an artist losing steam later in his career; Callahan's distinctive baritone and cutting inflection are unchanging and iconic, and show that this sensitive appearance is just one more spin of the kaleidoscope.

There are a lot of reasons this album doesn't gel, not least that Liam Gallagher now sounds like a singing anti-smoking campaign, and the brash, snotty arrogance that once sold "Cigarettes and Alcohol" and "Champagne Supernova" is crushed out by his gruffness.

Everything Ecstatic marks his first slight step backward as a solo artist but it's hardly a failure.