As opposed to the didactic nature of the booklet, the audio portion of No Business tends more toward arch satire of the ongoing debate over fair use in digital media, creating a précis of its contradictions and ideological schisms rather than advancing a particular thesis.

With The Secret Migration, the band completely deserts the peculiarities that distinguished them from both peers and progeny in favor of a dull collection of pastoral fantasias that frequently wander dangerously close to adult contemporary.

Mezmerize's strongest moments are when the band drops the eccentricities and just rocks out.

The taught 12 tracks mark the producer's most diverse and song-based work yet.

The vaguely Brian Wilson-esque harmonies manage to keep the listener grounded as the entertaining gobbledygook passes by.

Hardly melodic and not adventurous or invigorating enough to pull off the scuzzy brassiness of its yelping forefathers, the Nein get all anguished and pissed as it alternates between grubby grunge slow jams and lo-fi oom-pah on Wrath of Circuits.

Drama in music works perfectly fine in mediated, tactical doses, but for Tourist, the stakes are unrealistically high.

The results might be a little thin on actual "essential" moments, but they're working in the right direction.

Even the most direct songs here have a precision craftsmanship rarely heard in something that is still, at heart, a rock album.

Sometimes an album is just awful. Make Believe is one of those albums.

The transition from happy teenage taunts to cursing and sex talk was probably inevitable, and quality-wise, it's a wash. It's with the sound-- as provided by producers Matt Goias and Fancy-- that you get your payoff.

Full of serious songs with sunny, heavily polished arrangements.

After the bland misfire that was last year's Achilles Heel, Headphones' debut offers some hope for lapsed Pedro-philes.

Her vocals, even on talking-blues songs like "Sweet Side" and "Righteously", reveal a woman living through all the messy frustration and unalleviated desire she's singing about.

The highs on Kidnapped are incredibly high, the lows very low, and there's not much in between.

In theory, Boredoms furthering their psychedelic side should be fantastic, and I have to admit that for sheer orgasmic sprawl, few bands have much on them. However, at a point, sprawl becomes tedious and indulgent-- and I never thought I'd say that about Boredoms.

Carousel Waltz drives a pretty flat road, without the peaks and valleys of their previous work, but that suits the grounded emotions and realizations they're addressing, skirting the line between the unaffected and mundane.

A creeper, an album of broad gestures that reveal vivid, flickering details over time, its pleasures unfolding as what it actually is gradually erases speculative notions of what it might be.

Overstuffed and vaguely monotonous, the album could be easily whittled down to a single sequence of impressive songs; Instead, it's a meandering, occasionally moving series of mid-tempo laments, some more memorable than others.

Another thrilling, excellent record.

Yet as awkward as they sometimes sound, the Go-Betweens are still writing consistently gorgeous pop songs, and Oceans Apart proves they aren't content simply pleasing their most die-hard fans; they're back to making albums that, in a better world, appeal to everyone.

This stuff would sound great behind just about any garage-rock hack, but it turns Finn's dirtbag chronicles into something epic and huge and molten and beautiful.

Here's yet another exemplary Aimee Mann album to add to the pile.

With Teeth manages to flip the script on Reznor's recent M.O. Instead of fronting like a more feminine Al Jourgensen-- hard, coarse, yet not totally abrasive-- Reznor comes across as the masculine yin to Shirley Manson's alluring yang: playful, coy, and with a flair for the dramatic.

Playfully scatterbrained.

A diverted and shapeless album that only hints at what they're capable of accomplishing.

Doughty is better off when laid bare or with a group of musicians that push him in new directions, rather than ones who simply back him.

The Ponys' playing here is taut and immaculately cohesive, and appropriately the album sports an engaging live-in-the-studio production.