Instant 0 finds Stereolab upbeat and sounding more vibrant than it has in years.

It's about as far from daring as a band can get, offering the stale and familiar torpor Top of the Pops traffics in.

That Out of Season leaves an imprint, and a powerfully lasting one at that, is a testament to Gibbons’ carefully sculpted lyrics and her vocal interpretation of same, combined with Webb’s unobtrusive but no less vital studio work.

There's no denying the disc's unbridled energy, and those who pine for a return to the booze-fueled days of '70s rock must find immense pleasure in Get Born's finer moments.

When he strikes the right balance of mischievous charm, rapid-fire wit and genial bravado, Ludacris proves why he's at the top of his game. But Chicken -N- Beer too often flashes us threatening glimpses of a less-likable persona behind that avuncular veneer.

Despite utilizing the same basic indie-pop template utilized to agreeable effect on its previous three albums, Death Cab for Cutie lays an outright goose egg with the bland, tepid Transatlanticism.

Sting's most adventurous disc as a solo artist.

Lacking its predecessor's edgy tone, Life For Rent offers up one bland, polite tune after another.

Where Teaches was brash, Fatherfucker is dim; where Teaches was shocking in its gender-bending, sexually charged language, Fatherfucker is bland, repetitive and obvious in its attempts to turn standard conventions upside down.

Stumble Into Grace's saving grace, naturally, is Harris's voice, possessed of a mature poignancy that transcends pedestrian production; it's far too genuine an instrument for the lackluster arrangements offered here.

Regardless of his less than subtle studio technique, Bravitz remains one of the most resourceful and bracing artists in his field.

North moves with an inevitable constancy, and could have perhaps benefited from one or two more upbeat tracks. But such consistency is certainly a forgivable flaw, especially when it's done as elegantly and earnestly as presented here.

Too many of the tracks on Some Devil simply take longer than needed (five minutes on average) to reach their conclusion, most running out of gas somewhere around the three-and-a-half minute mark.

[Speakerboxxx:] A worthy addition to the impressive OutKast catalogue.... [The Love Below:] Unfortunately, Attention Deficit Disorder just isn't a workable substitute for craft, nor is a preoccupation with sex quite the same as art.

Too little stands out to make Grand Champ more than an uneven contender.

It’s just that combination of sincerity and an ability to emulate the sound of its heroes (and, in most cases, do so with more proficiency than those heroes themselves) that makes Permission to Land a fun, diverting trip through the (admittedly guilty) pleasures of a wildly excessive decade.

While it might not push the experimental envelope as forcefully as some critics or fans would like, it nonetheless sounds as vital and vibrant as any pop-rock record released this year.

The diverse influences are still percolating, and any sense of cohesive absorption of earlier rock outfits' methods and styles never quite congeal into original expression.

Her Majesty rewards repeated listenings, ultimately revealing itself to be a deeper, subtler work than Castaways.

Even by the standards of Black's previous Catholics and solo offerings, Show Me Your Tears is a disappointment.

PGMG is at its strongest when trafficking in one particular base emotion: Anger. It's when the band attempts to emote on a frequency dominated by the likes of Bright Eyes and Dashboard Confessional that the group gets into trouble.

A fascinating, brokenhearted mess of a record.

In streamlining the elements of B.R.M.C., it jettisons the wrong half of the equation, eschewing substance for angular, affected form.

Even at a svelte 33 minutes, Chain Gang wears into a well-defined groove pretty quickly, and its breathy affectations too often congeal into pastiche, note-perfect homages lacking in depth.

1972 has less urgency than Rouse's inconsistent but promising debut, Dressed Up Like Nebraska, and save for the last two tracks doesn't approach the earnest, careworn sublimity exhibited on Under Cold Blue Stars. It is, however, one of his most polished releases.

Incorporating the best moments of the band's previous two releases, Reconstruction Site offers a clear blueprint for future efforts, built on Samson's instinctual mingling of liberal-arts smarts, poignant sketches of perceptive reflection, and a melodic infrastructure of pop and rock gestures.

Dressy Bessy's darkest record yet is also its strongest, if only because there's a little more grit and tears mixed into the familiar, rapidly-approaching-stale sunshine-and-happiness mix.

The end result is a first-class effort that will not disappoint die-hard Zevon fans. But it's not just for the faithful: First-time listeners will certainly pick up The Wind out of curiosity, and there's no doubt that they will discover what they have long been missing.

Monkey House doesn't contain as many excellent songs as Thirteen Tales (which enjoyed more memorable hooks and catchier lyrics), but it is, unquestionably, the group's most thematically grounded and bracing record to date, celebrating and critiquing the messiness of the music world as effectively as any album in recent memory.

Its many high points and its sheer diversity (think of it as the ultimate pre-assembled mix tape) are enough to gloss over any minor transgressions.

The old masters have aged gracefully with the times: no longer following or leading the techno/electronic movement, but rather operating within their own realm of digitally manufactured bliss.

Earthquake Glue nonetheless contains the band's best work since the energized Isolation Drills and edges out last year's Universal Truths And Cycles in the memorable hooks department.

The musical stretches Spearhead makes go a long way toward making Everyone Deserves Music a memorable, even highly recommended affair, but the sanding down of Franti's rougher edges just prevents it from being an essential album. Spearhead fans deserve more consistently inspiring fare than they get here.

Though trite lyrics too often undermine strong instrumentation, Shine a Light is a promising sophomore effort from a group that clearly has the chops to blaze even brighter.

Young's nomadic narrative requires its own Cliffs Notes, and the lack of cohesion or focus (which Young pretty much cops to in the liner notes) give the record less heft than the irate rambling of your neighborhood curmudgeon.

And not unlike the uncertain characters populating their songs, the band members have yet to stake out a distinctive musical identity, borrowing a little too liberally from their Southern Rock roots without adding anything original to the mythology.

As with Carrabba's earlier work, though, the problem with A Mark is the utter lack of personalized context in which his heart-on-your-sleeve songs operate.

Killing Joke doesn't supersede the previous self-titled incarnation so much as it refines the band's legacy and sound without sacrificing an ounce of fury. The result is a real keeper.

True, most albums lag in the second half, but the lag here is so noticeably at odds with the intelligent goofiness it follows as to almost negate it.

Bereft of the force of ideas, the swelling of potential, it largely settles for a pleasant, high-calorie buzz of guitar heroics and sonic familiarity.

There's a newfound depth to the Furries' music, a sense that no matter how hard the band tries to keep things positive, the darkness in the world has managed to encroach on its outlook and musical approach.

The Trouble With Being Myself is solidly produced, if too safely MOR to stand beside Gray's debut, and it doesn't exhibit anything close to The Id's sense of risk.

Droge delivers his melodies with an audible grin that lets us know he accepts these songs for the cheerful foot-tappers they are; nothing more, nothing less.

Its musical adventurousness proves intoxicating.

She doesn't sell out so much as she sells herself short.

Given the four years since the band's previous album (and arguably its defining moment), one can't help wishing it didn't sound quite so effortless. A little more elbow grease would have gone a long way.

One of the most refreshing modern R&B records from a diva-ascendant in a long time.

A promising debut from a band more clever than it is musically accomplished.

May well come to be regarded as Mogwai's graduation from unproven Young Team to mature, veteran rock outfit.

An even stronger collection of songs that builds on it's predecessor's sonic foundations while refusing to get stuck in them.

Not only their crowning achievement to date but also one of the year's finest albums, period.

Feels stuck in a holding pattern.... A misfire from a talented band.

Hail lacks the overriding musical, thematic or experimental coherence of the band's post-Pablo Honey work. But it is a strong collection of discrete tracks, like an unreleased B-sides collection finally seeing the light of day.

The guitars stumble in a monotone of mid-level, processed rattle; the drums don't propel as much as struggle to disguise an all-too-turgid pace; and the rage is both unfocused and leavened with too much narcissistic navel-gazing.

A gifted, natural performer, Rice has had little problem connecting with audiences, filling O's quiet stretches with a likeable persona developed from his previous life busking on the streets of Europe.

What keeps Nastasia from succumbing to grotesque melodrama is the razor-like incisiveness she brings to her lyrics.

The approach Welch and partner David Rawlings bring to the material feels crafted for private enjoyment rather than public consumption, and the end result is not only Welch's most personal work to date but one of her most emotionally satisfying as well.

Too much reflection equals not enough action, and Gahan's halting lyrics beg for an urgency and immediacy that Monsters doesn't deliver.

Largely tosses out the loopy musical excursions and surrealistic pillow fights of past albums for a tighter, sparer approach.

A mixed bag of hit-or-miss pop-oriented tunes.

A vital document of Led Zeppelin's formidable legacy.

The Pernice Brothers' strongest effort yet.

The butter-drenched vocal harmonies can be overwhelming in spots, but each of the principals involved brings enough of his songwriting savvy to the table to make The Thorns a guilty pleasure of pure California dreamin'.

While such diversity isn't necessarily a bad thing, it does tend to break the rhythm of his albums.

Birds of Pray just seems clueless, like a high school kid who doesn't realize that his strident need to seem interesting just makes him a joke, and not a particularly funny one at that.

Too much of... Out of the Vein struggles to scratch its way into your memory banks, hobbled by its own melodic shortcomings.

It would have been nice if Kidwell had stuck to his white-schlep soul man routine throughout, instead of gesturing back to earlier electronic or acoustic-based instrumental work.

Rather than lose control of his programmed loops, Hebden sounds completely in control, the conductor of an invisible digital orchestra, changing gears on a whim.

Nothing here approaches the pop perfection of Romantic's "Letter From An Occupant," but songs like Newman's "The Laws Have Changed" and Bejar's spirited "Testament to Youth in Verse" nonetheless add weight to one of the year's strongest and unabashed pure-pop releases.

At 23 tracks (including two strong bonus cuts at the end), One Word Extinguisher simply tries to say too much, dragging noticeably during the final third, thus weakening the final impact.

Ultimately, Black Cherry lacks the unified flow of Felt Mountain, primarily because the band hasn't divorced itself completely from its past sound.

Gibb’s passionate vocals and direct, literate lyrics work best when he’s confronting issues that concern him (like organized religion, for instance), as opposed to wallowing in less confrontational topics (as when he frolics happily on the beach with “Boys Of Melody”).

Think Tank, then, is neither the best Blur album nor the worst; rather, it's a unique creature, guaranteed to be the oddball in the band's catalogue.

Fever to Tell... shows that this seeming one-trick pony is capable of more varied and interesting material than its members have previously exhibited.

One would like to think there's a subversive statement here about the blandness of much of commercial radio, but it's far more likely that the vocal turns by Dave Matthews and Bush's Gavin Rossdale are as free of intended irony as those songs' lyrics are free of fresh content.

With Up in Flames, the sound of post-electronica has arrived.

Keep on Your Mean Side is a solid debut from a duo with enough moxie to shamelessly retread their myriad influences without coming across as so annoyingly derivative as to negate its brash, anything goes energy.

Coming from a group whose debut offered a glimmer of hope for the expansion of the genre's boundaries, such creative laziness is all the more disappointing.

A full three-fourths of the record feels more like the work of a band that hasn't yet staked out a sonic identity.

It's the band's most vital disc to date, and one of the year's most memorable listening experiences.

It may not be the most exciting work you’re likely to hear this year, but as a lazy-afternoon chill-out record, it should have few peers.

Perhaps the album's most remarkable feat is its utter lack of density: One never gets the sense that anything excessive or unnecessary was utilized in constructing its sonic brickworks.

While the results aren’t exactly groundbreaking, they're undeniably loose, spirited and just plain fun.

Throwing Muses, the 2003 incarnation, sounds as close as it ever has to the pre-House Tornado lineup some sixteen years back.

Kasher's jagged, jarring song cycle suggests an unholy fusion of the Cure's Robert Smith and Sebadoh's Lou Barlow.

Human Conditions suggests that Ashcroft has forgotten how to rock, choosing to indulge what appears to be a messiah complex.

The band's formula for its high-energy, rock-dance mélange is quite simple; take youthful exuberance (average age: 19), add an exceptionally-tight rhythm section, and let the superfluous, over-indulgent jams flow, as they most certainly do over the course of ten songs and just over 55 minutes on this most promising debut.

Red Devil Dawn reveals the ex-Archers Of Loaf leader gaining momentum with his latest incarnation, which bodes quite well for future releases.

While the upbeat message is laudable, the entire exercise could prove overly precious, not to mention repetitive, if not for a few tunes that help add much needed variety.