Just as she was becoming irrelevant, Lil’ Kim returns with her hardest, bravest and most exciting album to date.

The members of Tha Alkaholiks may not have wrapped up their stellar career with the bang many had hoped for, but I'll still drink to this.

This mature Ryan Adams gives us 11 songs on Ashes and Fire that are perfectly fine, a few bumps but most of it is solid with a few that really stand out.

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.

It's the schizophrenic sound of a band starting over a decade later.

Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian is supposed to sound like a DJ set from an extra-terrestrial, but it often comes off as a random smattering of thoughts from an over-stimulated producer.

He clearly yearns to evoke the mixture of fun and grit that made "Get Rich or Die Tryin’" such a remarkable effort, but he’s misguided in his approach.

Both Lights, for all its faults and successes, remains a worthy exploration.

Throughout the album, Crow's vocal melodies are her most ambitious and memorable to date.

Don't let Miller's presence detract you from buying an otherwise perfectly adequate album. Let the rest of the stuff that's wrong with it do that.

Those who enjoy the smooth sounds of inoffensive MOR will find little fault in Keane.

Fate exposes the larger problem with Dr. Dog’s catalog -- namely, that the band have become so comfortable where they are that they are content to merely play to type.

The Magic Position feel[s] more like a missed opportunity than a legitimate breakthrough album.

We're approaching the dead of winter and are in the middle of a recession, and Universal Mind Control isn't helping.

Cinder keeps things reserved, letting the sad-eyed melodies teeter around the room at a drunkard's pace.

On an album where even the guest stars feel like samples worn out from repeated play--the back cover announces the song 'Flashlight Fight (Featuring Chuck D)'--the few innovative tracks offer hope that the Go! Team won't stagnate by its third outing.

A pleasant and inoffensive endeavor, it'll do well to keep any Foxes fan satisfied for the remainder of the season. But don't be surprised if boredom sets in by fall.

With Luppi's influence, the band holds its ground in more sophisticated territory on Grand Animals than it has in the past.

The Dears really do sound a lot like late-'90s Blur.

Unfortunately, Made in Brooklyn doesn't have the same urgency as its predecessor and will likely fall into the middle of the solo-record pack.

It seems they have forgotten that no matter how appealing this concept is to them, nothing is more appealing for the listener than experiencing the artists as they really are, not as they want to be.

Other than on "Answers to Your Questions," it's not real pretty when O'Rourke steps to the microphone. Most of his songs stab at a Tom Waits-style balladry but end up sounding more like schmaltzy Steely Dan castoffs.

The thinness of the sound, the lack of any edge, and the fact that most of these songs start off terribly prove too much to overcome, but Razorlight is not nearly the disaster that it could've been.

Ropechain is sometimes frustrating bordering on indulgent, but it also depicts, without censorship, Adamson’s unique process and point of view.

White Lunar showcases both what can and can't be accomplished by separating musical scores from the visuals that inspired them. Cave and Ellis seem more at home in smaller films. Music that is part of the historic and epic film needs that film in order to makes sense.

What you read is what you get here: an album full of small Scott-Heron samples bolstered by production from a member of the xx. Nothing more, nothing less.

The band does achieve some small strides forward here, and gives us a few great tracks, but mostly Cogleton and crew leave me wondering exactly what it is I should be afraid of.

They are still too tied to their musical ancestors for any serious maturation to take place.