Wild Young Hearts shows a young band still unsure of what to do with itself (Brit-pop, Motown, electroclash, something else?) but sure that its lead singer is pretty great. And for now, that’s working well enough.

The most impressive part of this album is that, throughout its entire tuneless, dissonant thirty-three-minute duration, Human Animal is rarely boring; it's filled with cool sounds.

Not quite poppy and not quite moody, there's just not enough feeling in any direction to really make it stick.

Charmed and Strange, however, is a collection of interesting guitar playing with a few lyrics thrown in for pop legitimacy.

A polite, undemanding excursion--frustratingly stuck to its own sonic landscape.

Everything Now doesn’t stretch out so much as it spreads itself thin, which is why it won’t ripple out like other Arcade Fire records. In the end, the band that made neighborhoods sound endless makes Everything into a cul-de-sac.

Champ might have its fair share of weak spots (basically the back third), yet it's another proficient album from one of the more (still) promising young bands around.

If that presentation doesn't always hit the mark, the sentiment behind it often does, and the album never completely derails.

The Back Room has the feeling of an album cobbled together too quickly.

The perfectly pleasant Traffic and Weather is inarguably diminished returns.

Most of Death by Sexy plays like the hard-rock equivalent to Ying Yang Twins or a stripped-down version of anything in Motley Crue's catalog.

Backed by Archer's stark soundtrack, Bohm remains as cool as the proverbial cucumber; her pretty-yet-monotone voice never betraying her stoic front.

The sing-alongs abound and the keyboard definitely calls for some attention from the dance floor, but the redundancy of these twelve songs is bound to induce a few headaches.

The Lemonheads is a harmless, melodic album that brings familiar material to longtime fans and new audiences alike.

On their third full-length album, Alive As You Are, the members of Darker My Love drop the whole neo-shoegaze, Jesus And Mary Chain worship of their first two albums and instead engage in a sampling of different '60s sounds.

On the whole, the jams and spaced-out scuzz rock of circa-Sweet Sixteen Royal Trux might most closely represent the vibe of Black Bananas' debut.

This is a solid set of songs that’s mannered and restrained to a fault.

On My Way to Absence could have been such a moving album, had Jurado employed some quality control.

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

It's almost as if Fantastic Playroom is trying to do too much. With so many agendas, it's a miracle that New Young Pony Club ended up all on the same page at all. Such ambition makes Fantastic Playroom a disjointed experience, but its triumphs are worth delighting in.

Imagine Manu Chao, Serge Gainsbourg and the Cars all caramelized together.

Vessel States' uncanny familiarity is its central disappointment.

When It Hugs Back do get loud, like on album highlight 'Back Down,' they show flashes of talent and vitality that they never let show between the purposefully considered and quiet haze that dominates way too much of Inside Your Guitar.

Into the Blue Again is not essential, but its beauty is familiar and intimate.

Oasis has given us another album chock-full of jangley Brit-pop numbers and stadium-rockers, and the result is a formulaic rock record.

Where many electronica artists choose to mine vintage soul and hip-hop, very few have looked to 1960s folk-rock and guitar-driven anthems for inspiration. The results are quite astounding - if unexpected - and the change is definitely welcome.

Other posses succeeded because all members contributed to a central sensibility and ethos that made the whole greater that the sum of its parts. G.O.O.D. Music just obscures the greatness already there.

In the end, 4:13 Dream is nothing but a solid to shaky late period album from a band that’s due can’t really be understated.