A sprawler is always a dangerous gambit for a band. It can easily trip over the line from cracked genius into failed experiment, as The Evening Descends does.

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

The lightness, even with the same downtrodden lyrics, comes from the upbeat arrangements that find their way through the slosh of feedback--an appropriate sound for lyrics that evoke the same feeling--sloshing through the everyday. Perhaps Merritt realizes that to be comically self-loathing or misanthropic is, perhaps, all a person can ask for.

The about-face may be a turn off for the “neo-soul” crowd, but it also represents a confident stride toward individualism.

When looked at from afar, 8 Diagrams is far more of a success than it is a failure, and years from now, when it is fully removed from the drama and hype, it just may sound even better.

Unfortunately, Sigel has taken a step away from reconciling the truth on his fourth full-length, The Solution. Instead of shedding the one-note dimension of his popular Broad Street Bully persona, he simply cloaks himself in another unconvincing and uninteresting trope: the mack-lover.

Ghostface's beat selection is impeccable.

The results are beautifully solemn.

The remixes that constitute the second disc are less intriguing than the B-sides, but none of them are horrible.

Free at Last is everything that his heads could want.

So are The Hives stuck in a stylistic corner, or is The Black and White Album just a rocky bridge to something new and revelatory from the group? The material seems to drop hints in both directions.

The album complements each situation differently, and new elements become apparent with each listen.

The tunes don’t vary much from the originals, but the band renders them with vigor and style.

The pace of the album (or, more accurately, the "file") is intriguing, and even though it doesn't top the band's best work, any iPod owner should be proud to have 45:33 in the library. [Review of UK release]

The beat selection, personal insight, wit, and overall coherence surpasses that of "Kingdom Come" and fulfills many of the expectations that the latter album failed to meet.

Rarely are stopgaps so magisterial, tender, and wistful. But, again, I hope that’s the point.

Brown is riding on the coattails of artists greater than he is, but he is clearly a talented performer who can deliver high-octane club hits.

This album will sway neither the faithful nor the unbelievers from their positions along the borders of her stalled momentum.

The problem with the album goes past its unmemorable music.

The older songs blend well with the more recent numbers; Helm and his menagerie of backing musicians use bluegrass instrumentation throughout the album and ably blur the lines between traditional pieces and modern songs by the likes of Steve Earle and Paul Kennerley.

The album gains little from the effects heaped upon it, but Teenager is able to escape being totally buried under them.

In the Vines--like Raposa and his self-proclaimed "bad year"--is something rare and curious only if you’re willing to wander through the rough patches here and there and accept a subtle discord along with the harmony.

The reality is that many of these songs could easily be outtakes from "One Word," and by sharing many of the same sounds, Preparations ends up sharing a similar voice, which doesn’t excite as it once did.

15 Again hits more than it misses, and its hits push all the right buttons, musically and emotionally.

After nearly seven years, to churn out an album with three highlights and eight overblown odes (among them, 'Here It Goes,' 'Carry You,' and the forced empowerment of the title track) is disappointing.

What is here, a mixture of jagged dance-punk numbers with pretty sound sketches (of the type Underworld has employed for recent soundtrack work), all succeeds.

It's his overwrought vocal sensibility that really drags Make Sure They See My Face down into Starbucks country.

Fire & Water contains too much artifice to swallow.