The Fratellis won't change your life or any of your top-five lists. What the band will do, however, is give you a few good tunes to throw onto a Saturday night playlist while you wait for the real thing to come along.

The fact that this debut hews closer to the Noel we know certainly shouldn't be a disappointment.

More often than not, they miss, retreating back instead of charging forward.

Better Luck Next Life, their second full-length, does lapse out of recalcitrance, but its immersion makes for a worthy distraction.

Thistled Spring, more nuanced and poised than its much-lauded predecessor, signals the ongoing work of a band far from finished, far from plumbing the depths of which it is capable.

Naturally there some moments where having too producers and visions hurts them, but for the most part, the band sticks to the formula that's worked in the past.

The songs on Goodnight Unknown are well crafted and it’s clear that Barlow still has quite a bit of passion for making music, but the spark of genuine creativity is not there.

Some of the better songs on Dreams and Nightmares--"In God We Trust" and "Believe It" being prominent examples--are the ones that let Meek hit the track hard and tear it apart.... But ultimately songs like these are in the minority on Dreams and Nightmares. There are many notable stylistic missteps.

It's airy, synth-heavy and loud, and it moves like a glacier.

While Seasons on Earth turns out not to be the sort of stoner's delight diehard psych-folkers might be looking for, neither is it looking in any direction other than straight ahead, evocations of another era notwithstanding.

All over Let's Build a Fire, +/- fails to capitalize on the moments of beauty and originality by either doing too much or doing too little.

The fact that Warm Slime doesn't quite measure up to the band's lofty previous releases is hardly the point. Thee Oh Sees are already careening down another road at 100 miles per hour, and you best keep up.

The album's true stumbling block lies in the Friedbergers' inability to follow many of their ideas to any sort of logical conclusion.

Koster's songwriting and arranging is growing by leaps and bounds, and Mary's Voice is his most assured batch of songs to date, it's just too bad that the production can't catch up or exude the same kind of progress and confidence.

This is an unambitious album in the best way.

Music for Men is a relatively safe album for Gossip's first major release.

The real problem with Stars is that the most poignant, affecting songs sound like natural, and somewhat neutral, follow-ups to his other songs.

Slappers is a much more unified, low-key whole [than its predecessor], and it's both stronger and weaker for it.

In the case of Super Animal Brothers III, you can either sit down and dismiss Ear Pwr for daring to play a game with the music, or you can see the state of the board for what it is and roll the dice.

The high points of Break It Up scratch the itch the in a way only a Be Your Own Pet album could, which is more or less the best compliment you could pay Break It Up.

Unfortunately, the dichotomy between the chaotic glee of Akron/Family’s set and Gira’s more traditional leanings diminishes the album’s luster.

Takes could have used a few more experiments of this nature, because while his versions of the Breeders’ 'Invisible Man' and Yo La Tengo’s 'Tears Are in Your Eyes' are tasteful enough, there’s no real sense of adventure, no real feeling that these songs needed to be covered in this way, no real attempt at making this anything other than a stopgap between records.

Esben and the Witch sure can make a racket, but parsing out the minimal substance is the real challenge. Better than Salem? Definitely. A perfect debut? Not quite.

Sonically, the lean disc is more in line with Weezer’s recent work and the overall mood is playful--with plenty of lyrical references to a radder era.

By coloring within the lines of dream pop Quever has recorded a pleasant release but not necessarily one that goes beyond the normality of his band's moniker.

The results are hit or miss going forward.

So Amazin' may not be the huge leap in artistic achievement she may have hoped for, but it is a step in the right direction.

So eager are Klaxons to prove they're not one-trick "new ravers" that they fall into contemporary dance-rock conventions.