Folk-ambient doesn't get any better than this.

An album adhering so strictly to a simple formula can't help but become redundant.

An album full of majestic pop tunes in their absolute truest form.

There are few compelling reasons to listen to The Exchange Session Vol. 2 more than once.

A blistering triumph of a record.

Mojave 3's new material isn't an abandonment of any strengths; it's an embrace of the simple pleasures of the classic '60s garage-pop style of songwriting.

Another collection of songs that can be stamped with the compliment of being incomparable.

Gone is most of the musical adventurousness that redeemed the most seemingly cliché moments of the debut.

These original songs have been influenced in many ways by what's come before (what isn't?), but they're inventive, catchy, and kick-ass enough to stand on their own.

What Portastatic is able to achieve on Who Loves the Sun? without using vocal melodies is impressive.

Sure, 2004's God Bless Your Black Heart may be the Paper Chase's best album in terms of accessibility, but the band has taken its usual dark angle and bent it another hundred or so degrees toward further obtuseness.

One of the year's best guitar-rock albums.

Let it wash over you, let it slowly but surely catch your attention, and steadily let the music build its case for how engrossing it can be.

A lean, focused record, Scale is Herbert's best record to date, and a must-buy for any dance-music fan.

Peeping Tom's almost exclusively synth-oriented songs (save the occasional bass and guitar) are ostensibly intended to highlight Patton's voice. This only accentuates his overwrought yet indifferent performances, however.

The most elaborately impenetrable album we're likely to hear this decade.

A concise killer of an album.

A Hundred Miles Off needs a single or a hook to balance its trebly extremes, and Leithauser's good-ol'-boy tenor has lost some of its edge, tripping too easily into the whiny nether regions.

It's never anything less than gorgeous.

So Amazin' may not be the huge leap in artistic achievement she may have hoped for, but it is a step in the right direction.

The songwriting is bland and the production is overdone.

With Powder Burns he has surpassed all expectations brought on from his previous releases.

Whirlwind Heat does nothing to disprove the argument that this recent flock of slinky, neo-post-punk bands aren't doing anything Gang of Four did much better a quarter century ago.

The members of Art Brut manage to infuse humor without pushing it too far. Or maybe they do push it too far, and that's why it feels more important.

A disappointing missed opportunity.

Although it's similar in style to the band's first three, numerically named releases, The Spell transcends more-of-the-sameness with the strategic addition of some elements culled from Amore and a further honing of the band's unmistakable sound.

Earlier efforts may suffer from a bit of kindergarten syndrome, in both the styles of singing and instrumentation, but Ships seems to see Danielson maturing at a faster rate.

Just Like the Fambly Cat sounds like a Grandaddy album, but only in that it rehashes everything the band has already done.