A valiant attempt to combine varying disciplines of Eastern music with neo-psychedelia, Aufheben is a pleasant listen.

If anyone questioned whether or not Jayceon Taylor had what it took to stand on his own post-G-Unit, Game answers all of his critics with a resounding yes on Doctor's Advocate.

Dismania makes for an altogether appropriate title for an album this interested in gathering the common ingredients of despair, anger and disaffection.

With 1968, Pajo... may have finally found a style he feels comfortable putting his name on.

More carnival claustrophobia than world tour.

What Uhlhorn has done on Fin Eaves is reconcile those influences into something unique to him; this is homage or pastiche, rather than imitation. Rather than playing different influences to different effect, Fin Eaves is a whole work, the first of the band's career.

There's too many synths, too many hooks, and just too much happening for us to enjoy it. The charm is gone, and we're left with a mess too muddy to understand.

Volume Two feels better than it could be, but it's still missing that something that would make it great.

While the rawk portion of Meek Warrior... is a bit of a letdown, Akron/Family hasn't lost its knack for making pretty with the acoustics.

Infectious, progressive, immediate dance music.

Although it's similar in style to the band's first three, numerically named releases, The Spell transcends more-of-the-sameness with the strategic addition of some elements culled from Amore and a further honing of the band's unmistakable sound.

It's simply a case of the repetition and lack of attention to detail exposing that, as pretty as Beach Fossils is, it could be better.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra has produced the rare indie pop record that seizes you on the first listen but also rewards repeated playing.

Highway Companion contains the most clear-eyed and hopeful songs that Petty has written in memory.

The lyrics are especially vapid here in the Stadium Arcadium.

Once you get past the initial, pleasing familiarity, though, In the Clear becomes a decidedly middling listening experience.

Truly, the heavy strings and pasteurization O'Brien has effected on the last few Springsteen albums--"The Rising," "Devil's & Dust," and now Magic, the Boss's reported return to form with the amorphous E-Street Band--has robbed Springsteen of his still-youthful energy and blue-collar credentials, something that has always been key to the believability of his sometimes overly corny manner.

The best parts are worthy contributions to their catalog, and worth the price of admission here. But as a whole, Weather Diaries isn’t the brilliant Ride return fans might hope for. Though there’s enough here to suggest it could be a start, the preamble to the next great Ride record.

On Invitation Dominant Legs have all of the parts of a "sound," there's just a little more assembly required.

There's a theatricality that's akin to the Decemberists, but the sweet disco-bobs of "I Understand What You Want But I Just Don't Agree" and "Play a Little Bit for Love" suggest a more outwardly grandness, a notion supported by the Baz Luhrmann-aping album cover.

You'd be forgiven to not have the hooks of these songs stuck in your head, or worse, confusing them for some other band.... Ignoring this, you have another quality catalog entry from one of modern indie rock's somewhat more surprising career bands.

Although the venue doesn’t spark an unqualified masterpiece for the grand dame of alt.country, a musky reverence seems to seep into the record, and the best moments here are among the best she’s committed to tape.

It's unfortunate that Tan Bajo is so over produced by trying to be so under produced, but this is a document of a band experimenting with the hurdle of translating their famous live shows into a studio setting and over-calculating their sound in the process.

The first half of this album serves up to be a dynamite, nearly EP-of-the-year standard, if it was an EP. But, the whole album seems less focused and ideally not so much of an album but more a collection of tracks.

Part of what makes it so distinctive is also what ultimately frustrates. The songs bleed into one another until the reverb-drenched vocals and phantasmic spirals of sound become heavy-handed, almost overwhelming.

Attack Decay Sustain Release sets a dance-friendly party mood and sustains it over the course of forty minutes, but it does not explore new territory.

Everything’s a little less condensed here than previous entries into the Newman catalogue, and the compositions even get to hang loose at times. That does lead to some delayed gratification, but it’s still exciting to see Newman let his hair down a bit--in an understated manner, of course.

They've got the hooks, they've got the personality, and (at their best) they've got the songs. Their low fidelity is a choice for the album, not a way to plug into a movement. And while Past Time might not realize their sound as well as it could, when its working this is a sound that has no expiration date.