Even if it won't hit you on the first listen, Bazooka Tooth remains a strong outing from one of underground hip-hop's most talented, thanks to its unprecedented wealth of lyrical depth and truly individual production style.

Plays like a big, half-drunken romp through golden-era rock 'n' roll-- airy and thrilling and shifty as hell.

Costello has eschewed all sense of melody and humor in favor of rambling, mock-jazz noodling.

Awkward and poorly realized.

Halstead's knack for stunning arrangements is in top form on Spoon & Rafter, and in this capacity, his music remains compelling, if no more or less than on any of his previous trilogy of Mojave 3 releases.

Big Boi's Speakerboxxx coolly upstages its counterpart: though it, too, provides the world with one earthshaking single, it differs from The Love Below in that it also manages to maintain consistent brilliance and emotional complexity throughout.

Stellastarr's bold, cinematic sprawl demands a certain kind of tolerance, and might require a few listens before you're able to fully adjust to its dramatics, but Christensen is, in the end, an oddly convincing leader, and, if nothing else, you'll at least be stuck to your headphones trying to guess his next move.

Unfortunately, The Fire Theft actually sees the band indulging in ersatz approximations of Yes and Genesis' epic odysseys much more deeply.

Badu keeps the proceedings here buoyant and relaxed with that supple-lipped scat of hers, stretching out scant syllables at her lounging, loopy leisure.

So Team Boo turns out to be a surprisingly respectable junior-year effort-- one that puts Mates of State in the small minority of indie-pop bands that don't fall under the one-album-and-out rule.

What they do well might be best exemplified by "I Believe in a Thing Called Love", which most effectively pairs their sense of theatricality and grandiosity with their penchant for great pop hooks.

This is as close as Bowie has ever come to simply "pretty good" in his storied career.

After forty minutes of two-chord strumming, the band's unique approach becomes exhausting.

They aren't inept, amateurish or even exactly boring, but their parlor music takes a slow and emotionally neutral path that almost fights against engagement.

Stricken by the same backward-looking guitar worship disease that seems to have struck many in the indie community, the relentless string-bending and beer-bottle slides can't help but sound like stale recidivism.

For the most part, the tracks hang together and flow relatively well, orbiting the shimmering dreampop mass that serves as the record's unstated inspiration.

BSP's performance art antics and throwback posturing come with a distinct set of innovations and surprises, and The Decline of British Sea Power proves that BSP have the song-power to back up their bullshit.

Temptation is strong enough to stand with any of Byrne's other solo work, that rare film score that works beautifully as an entirely separate record.

An album by turns beautiful and possessed, by others raucous and fiery.

If you can make it past the album's frustrating layout, Hocus Pocus proves a fine collection of songs by pretty much anyone's standards.

Even in its most inspired moments, Amazing Grace lacks the fiery intensity of any of Pierce's previous outings.

Colin Meloy's songwriting makes them one of the strongest bands working today.

Everything is intricately wrought and calculated, perhaps in an overly accommodating response to fears of linearity. This fashionable awareness lends an almost palpable weight to the sound. It succeeds in adding depth and texture to the album, but sometimes overshoots the mark.

Paling in comparison to the Pixies is expected (and it would be unrealistic to expect otherwise), but Tears isn't even a good Catholics album.

The album exists in that scarcely inhabited rock-and-roll world where technical prowess coexists peacefully with clear and simple songcraft, the former never forgoing the latter.

In trading the adolescent kick of Secaucus for ripened resignation, meticulous refinement for crippling maturation, they have realized their magnum opus.

If you think intelligence in indie lyrics must come at the expense of coherence, take in a couple of these impeccably linear narratives.

Fortunately, there are a handful of transcendent moments to be found, provided you're willing to invest the time it takes to sniff them out-- which you should, since this is one of those records that matures with subsequent spins.