While Sonic Nurse isn't quite as strong as its predecessor, it's equally as imbued with instrumental dexterity and impressively coherent ideas.

Winds Take No Shape seems to be the response to critics who called for more depth and less of the wide-eyed cuteness rampant on their self-titled debut. Their music is still lighter-than-air, but a newfound strain of wistfulness brings it closer to earth.

Too often, the new record substitutes weighty, Biblical language for true heft.

Albums like this, while often appealing to the hardcore Farrar fan (redundant, I know), don't add much to his overall cache.

There's also the fact that you won't hear another record like it this year, possibly ever-- all the comparisons that can be made to Tom Waits, Lambchop, Grandaddy and Vic Chesnutt will only tell a small part of the story.

One of its most charged and inspired records in years.

These are soulful sing-alongs with grit, pop nuggets that hold up to hours of repeat play in humid bumper-to-bumper traffic, and ultimately, the sound of a great songwriter hitting his stride.

If you take it as a whole, Uh Huh Her is deeply engrossing: Harvey has never explored the minimal-verging-on-primitive side of her music so thoroughly, or captured so exactly the sound of a mood swing.

Brother Is to Son is weird, but it's neither incomprehensible nor didactic.

Sometimes erstwhile obsessiveness can lead to revelation, but beyond the fancy engineering, I don't see much of that here.

Love and Distance is fucking cheesy.

So the production is great, the songbook is varied, and the band is tighter and more ambitious than ever-- the only problem with Louden Up Now is the unfortunate paucity of ideas within the songs themselves.

The contrasting styles don't always sit comfortably, but individual tracks sparkle with creativity and the newfound dark side is a surprisingly pleasant fit.

If there's any difference between this album and von Bohlen's lackluster recent output, it's that this collection somehow manages to be even more tepid.

Masta Killa has delivered one the most urgent, straightforward Wu releases since the group's debut over a decade ago.

Now, More Than Ever is both hushed and sprawling, serene and agitated, jumpy and constant.

Unfortunately, some of Kittin's lyrical deficits undercut her production.

Despite its eclecticism and relatively Dadaist leanings, Sung Tongs is a romantic album; romantic in its celebration of innocence and nonsensical shared knowledge, and the sweet, trusted idea that everything will be fine-- as if it hadn't always been.

Felix da Housecat appears to have approached this record in the same manner as other pop craftsmen like Stephen Merritt or Elvis Costello might: as a tireless effort to mine sub-styles and hooks that populate his detail-oriented visions of the perfect song. While that might translate into a record that fails to sit totally comfortably in either the pop or dance section of the CD shop, it's hardly lacking in compositional substance or high-toned flash.

Frankly, it could be much worse.

Whether it's the lack of plot, insight, or collaborators, Achilles Heel also finds Bazan's music stuck in a room with no exits, with one loping distortion-pedal crawler after another.

Coldplaya-hatas will loathe Keane; most others will just be insulted.

Their slickest and most formulaic pop constructions to date.

La Increíble Aventura doesn't quite equal the sheer power and range of the band's best albums (2001's Arde, in particular), but it's a powerful statement nonetheless, capturing one of Spain's greatest exports at their darkest and most ferocious.

Hotel Morgen may be beautifully produced, but despite its expert attention to detail, few of these tracks truly engage in the way they seem meant to.

It's all about finding the friendly turtles at the end of the druggy rainbow, yet, since no one's in a hurry to get there, the songs loop along with space between the beats and guitarists who still seem to be learning their craft.

Whatever excitement this album lends is, for the most part, borrowed by its pre-existing audience, and it's clear the Kadanes aren't going to challenge us.

Ultimately, The Catheters are big on style, and troublingly low on ideas.