Longtime fans might lament the loss of a second guitar and the balls-out thrashing that sometimes came with it, but on certain levels it may be a blessing in disguise. A leaner Deerhoof allows other facets of the band to shine, most notably Greg Saunier's drum work.

If nothing else, The Good, the Bad & the Queen is a clear demonstration of Albarn's maturation.

Wincing the Night Away suffers from a fair deal of uncharacteristic filler.

Barnes's most personal and emotional album to date.

Menomena now has to be regarded as one of today's more intriguing rock outfits.

It comes as no surprise that Fujiya & Miyagi's sound recalls other neo-futurists.... But Fujiya & Miyagi is undeniably its own band, with peppy melodicism and upfront sense of humor.

Difficult. All very difficult. But cheap dates get old quick, don't they?

The album is full of Hersh's characteristically strong songwriting and the emotional uppercuts that make her best work so gutsy.

After repeated listens, the fact that the end of the album doesn't live up to the beginning really starts to stick out.

The project finds strength in synergy, working off each member's best qualities; they balance a dry vocal tone here with a melodramatic keyboard sigh there.

Quite possibly the worst record by a great emcee in recent memory.

Hip-Hop Is Dead... brings out the best in the emcee, who might have produced his strongest lyrical performance since Illmatic.

If More Fish isn't as good as Fishscale -- and there's just as good a chance that it is as good -- it's the tapestry method that doesn't make for a cohesive listen.

Spottily effective gangster posturing.

Few mainstream artists can hope to produce an album as wonderfully weird as The Sweet Escape.

The Evolution delivers what Ciara is known for: hot beats, killer hooks and club bangers.

The members of the crew surrounding Eminem still need to distinguish themselves individually, but in the tradition of G-Unit/Shady's best stuff, few songs on The Re-Up have to be skipped.

It's impossible to guess what kind of album would've turned out had this seen the light of day two years ago, when it was originally expected. Chances are, though, we wouldn't be talking about intensity or hunger or survival with the same emotion in our voices.

At its best, Kingdom Come is about possibility. At its worst, it pales in comparison to past albums.

Swan Lake has the literariness of the Decemberist's Colin Meloy, but its members are the kids with the intentional nerd glasses in the poetry workshop -- not the fiction one.

Orphans is something akin to taking a journey through a familiar yet entirely foreign dream-place.

Snoop sounds exceptionally comfortable, perhaps even reinvigorated.

From the lavish orchestration courtesy of Van Dyke Parks to the richness and sheer abundance of language at Newsom's disposal, Ys is a supreme achievement.

Despite the impressive stylistic voices and rich production, there's ultimately something hollow around the project.

If anyone questioned whether or not Jayceon Taylor had what it took to stand on his own post-G-Unit, Game answers all of his critics with a resounding yes on Doctor's Advocate.

While the Evens' debut was a little rough around the edges at times, those imperfections have been buffed away for Get Evens.

This selection method lacks the cohesion of a proper album, but the uniformity of the raw emotion throughout offers some thrilling highpoints.

Even if Sov doesn't live up to the hype, there is enough quality material on Public Warning to warrant more music from the self-proclaimed "biggest midget in the game."