While this is a step forward for Shipp, for APC, it's a side-step from their gleamingly tricked-out, beat-tweaked and freaky Arrhythmia.

The core tension between Tamborello's complex, almost impossibly dense production and Gibbard's cutting voice makes Give Up a pretty damned strong record, and one with enough transcendent moments to forgive it its few substandard tracks and some ungodly lyrical blunders.

Calexico have created their first genuinely masterful full-length, crammed with immediate songcraft, shifting moods and open-ended exploration.

Revelatory, if somehow pompous.

If The Datsuns serve any purpose, it's to remind us that 70s glam/garage-rock was largely accountable for the abomination that was 80s hair-metal.

You Are Free is full of arresting, serene beauty, but as an album-- as that quantifiable object-- it has composite failings. Sans a handful of lesser inclusions and tributes, the imaginary, shorter version of You Are Free is flawless.

It's pure fun-- insanely, immediately likable, and ingenious in how much it achieves.

They have a knack for hitting the melody where some more experimental outfits might opt for a diverse array of craziness.

On the one hand, there's an abundance of energy and some great songwriting; on the other, there's less focus here than on either of their previous two releases.

Despite sagging a bit in the middle, Unrest skillfully skirts the myriad ways this kind of variety project could go wrong.

But with two (admittedly gigantic) exceptions, Nocturama reneges on its promise-- something's still missing from most of these tracks.

Eschewing pretentious unpretentiousness for unguarded passion, strict 77-82 influences for the classic rock stop on the FM dial, calculated instrumental inadequacy for guitar solos that are less technical flaunting (looking at you, Malkmus) than skillful, noisy exorcisms, Ted Leo makes a sound filled with so much authentic abandon, the British mags probably can't handle it.

For all the flaws in 50 Cent's persona, Get Rich or Die Tryin' isn't without its redeeming qualities.

Positively pillaging Oasis and The Stone Roses (whom Oasis pillaged in the first place), Johnny Marr + The Healers' mediocre debut is a defeated regurgitation of danceable Britpop and Madchester traditions that, in its best moments, recalls a second-rate... Soup Dragons.

A mellow, slightly sub-decent album delivered at the wrong time.

Let Go's only plausible use is to forcibly expose us to mid-90s alt-rock in the context of today so that we might come to grips with just how damn crappy it sounds.

Fans of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot will no doubt find Loose Fur an indispensable companion piece, as much of the music found here occupies roughly the same static-frosted moonscape as "Radio Cure".

These lush arrangements seem content to simply drift by, never truly engaging the listener, and making it difficult to fully appreciate the album if you aren't in the mood to be put under.

The problem lies with the songs themselves, which simply lack outstanding or memorable hooks: Most are content to meander behind a curtain of big rock guitars and bigger rock cliches, infinitely repeating themselves or, in some cases, never saying much of anything at all.

This album is as much of a baffling nadir as Metal Machine Music, with nowhere near the stoned bravado.

Master and Everyone is a solid collection of rather thin songs that never quite sound intimate; songs that meant something profound to someone-- but always, it seems, someone else.

An above-average production of reasonable merit.

Unsurprising, and not much of a main course, but a tasty and satisfying side dish nonetheless.

But instead of pushing the electronics and making a funkier, nastier successor to his hit [Nu-Bop], this new disc feels like nothing so much as the Modern Jazz Quartet.

Ultimately, it's the unbearable triteness of the lyrics that does Long Knives Drawn in.

The album's not a step forward so much as a squirm in quicksand.

Overtly aping Mogwai, Jessamine and the entirely mediocre Bardo Pond, Kinski's aimless, ten-minute jams fail to deliver sonically or structurally, content to wallow in self-satisfied discovery, using distortion pedals to mask their junior varsity musicianship.

Holopaw's cover art and Depression-era script logo might be indie-folk standard issue, but the music contained within is a refreshing, effective new use of the boundaries: a wood-paneled Powerbook.