Twenty seconds into Necessary Evil and I'm cringing, and it's only amplified by the fact that this very same voice once performed 'Heart of Glass' and 'Rapture.'

It is a better album than its predecessor in almost every regard, but it hardly shows Condon taking risks.

Widow City is a fascinating album. Unfortunately, sometimes it's more fascinating than it is listenable.

Crafting a decidedly more difficult record was likely something Krug intended, considering these songs seamlessly segue in and out of each other. That means some parts sound almost superfluous, as if they were written expressly to maintain this continuity. Still, the effect succeeds far more often than it fails.

My central beef with Cease to Begin is not really its lack of variety, but the fact that if it just took a few more chances it could've been great.

I think we should all be thanking our respective Higher Power right now that [Lekman's] hiatus was brief, because the album he would eventually make, the stunning Night Falls over Kortedala, is among the best of the year.

However, like so many singular artists, Wyatt's presence spans the record and ultimately gives it its necessary gel. His multi-octave voice booms, croons, and cracks across the album with stunning clarity and consistency.

It's hard to say that the group took the safe route with Grass Geysers, because it's such an exhilarating listen. Perhaps it's an unfair standard, but as past albums prove, this band still has some muscles that it's not flexing here.

The record comes off as hokey.

Loud, brash, but never cocksure, Mantaray swaggers like a cat in heat.

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.

This album isn't on par with the Sadies' searing early material or recent similar country-rock albums from the likes of Oakley Hall or Okkervil River.

The musicians have crafted a lucid soul record (barely longer than a half hour) centered on humility, devotion, and other mature sentiments that are blissfully out-of-sync with pop/youth-centric music.

This album will still take away the breath you aren't holding: It's at once bleak, aching, and insidiously beautiful.

I think The Shepherd's Dog is probably Iron & Wine's best record to date (Beam has never once even made a mediocre album, so this says a lot).

Smokey Rolls down Thunder Canyon may be his best so far.

Mired in the generic neo-new-wave and self-consciously emotive yawn of contemporary fashion indie rock, Athlete's unimaginative music matches up nicely with the shallow lyrics.

What we get is a self-indulgent and silly album that never makes any lasting impression.

War unfolds less like a cohesive concept album (though a rock-opera would be a likely future addition to the group's discography) as much as a series of telenovela vignettes.

It's true that most of the attention Gonzalez received in the beginning was from songs other artists' wrote. The difference with Gonzalez is that he picks songs that fit his minimalist and whimsical approach--and he often makes them better than the originals.

Although Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy has the dizzy invigoration and winning enthusiasm of an excellent first album, it also suffers from a kind of first-disc immaturity, an urge to pack everything in at once and as early as possible, rendering it top-heavy and inconsistent.

Two Gallants, the band's second for Saddle Creek and third overall, shows significant artistic growth.

Sampson's penmanship here is the most minute and observant among a recent batch of great songwriting

Last Light contains fine songwriting and production and collaborations, but it offers little new.

If Hartford, Connecticut's Magik Markers has built its reputation as a feverish live act, Boss wrangles all that frantic upheaval into a surprisingly tuneful and, yes, utterly ragged set of songs.

Invitation Songs is as compelling and likeable as their combined past projects were hard and edgy, as if they've been doing Nick Drake covers all along. That's no small feat.

Without question, part of Shocking Pinks' charm is the intimacy of its unpolished production values, but, with a little more patience and rigorous revision, it's easy to see Harte's best songs being even better.

Ultimately, Trees Outside the Academy will most likely be remembered as Moore's most personal solo album, not because he sang with anymore emotion than anything he did with Sonic Youth, but because within its twelve songs he tackled many facets of music that interest him.