By the end of the album, Tricky returns to acting on his worst impulses, stumbling through hackneyed sonics and wincing lyrics.

Yes, it's all fairly predictable.

The Stephen Kings of menacing post-rock, it seems that in absence of Young Team's glorious cacophany their tremendous build-up often comes to nothing. And it sounds as though they've come to terms with that.

The further away from the 'Lab and into a more organic sound the band goes, the more satisfying their music is becoming.

There's not too much here to knock the sprinkles off your ice cream cone, but Twice is an impressively consistent and well- crafted collection.

Waiting for the Moon is just what I needed from Tindersticks: an album that doesn't abandon their recent direction, but breathes new life into it by drawing breath from their noisier past.

At best begs to be a fan-club download, since it offers so little to anyone not Eef's bride or offspring.

While its peaks fall just a whit short of those on its predecessor, Decoration Day's inward journeys nicely balance out Southern Rock Opera's bombastic expansiveness, and further confirm the Drive-By Truckers' status as the most poetic and insightful Southern rockers in existence today.

Deja Entendu, while a football field short of groundbreaking, has an air of substance and maturity.

Despite its obviously short shelf-life, Welcome Interstate Managers is delicious power-pop, unpretentious, loose and perfect for teenagers driving down to Ocean City for the weekend.

Sumday is all glorious, throbbing heart.

For its moments of gravity and excellence, Hail to the Thief is an arrow pointing toward the clearly darker, more frenetic territory the band have up to now only poked at curiously.

What an utter mess.

The big, inescapable problem with O is that, aside from being derivative, Rice's songwriting is also unbearably repetitive-- he stubbornly relies upon time-tested singer/songwriter formulas (quiet acoustic strumming and sober, wavering vocals), and repeats them almost exactly the same way, every time.

Like all Luna family projects, L'Avventura has a sneaky way of getting its claws into you-- background music that gets stuck in your forebrain. But also like most Luna product, this little vacation from the less-talked about half of the band starts to bend under its own uniformity of mood somewhere in the second half, and probably would've been slightly better acclimated to EP length.

Leading with a ten-minute single this outrageously creative, informed and exciting, !!! have a lot to prove on their coming full-length.

A solid set of rock songs that hovers somewhere between the professionalism of Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American and your favorite slice of homegrown emotion.

The most striking improvement is her singing. She's a stronger vocalist, her almost-plain tone rising into higher registers, and her usual range has grown more earthily gorgeous. But more than anything, she demonstrates a new expressiveness.

As he tries to return to the ponderous themes of such vague nonsense as love and hate, Acey weighs the pacing of the game considerably.

Soft, warm, but still interestingly distant.

Paper Monsters succeeds in revealing the "new" Dave Gahan, and that's what makes it a faintly embarrassing listen.

They're no Basement Jaxx, and it's easy to hope for someone with more professional skills to come fill in the Audio Bullys' blueprints.

Musically and lyrically, E is spent-- out of ideas, out of innovation, unable to cough up anything but by-the-numbers pop in the fourteen originals he wrote for this disc.

This record explodes with song after song of endlessly replayable, perfect pop.

Juvenile, simpering, weak, preachy, pointless and accidentally snooty, Dying in Stereo is about as empowering as Legally Blonde 2.

This comp makes one thing perfectly clear: for a host of bands so readily compared to the same tiny stable of influences-- "sounding like a modern-day Gang of Four..."-- there sure is a hell of a lot of diversity between them.

One part Busta-lite, and the rest full-on skater bravado: Gold Chains isn't going to tear up the world of hip-hop, but he's not totally empty handed.

Zoo Psychology's refrains are faster, shorter, and more efficient than ever.