Considering that Fillmore isn’t drawn from a single show, it’s baffling as to why the slower numbers are bunched together and the more exhilarating songs pushed nearly an hour into the listening experience. As a result, the album falls somewhere between Thin Lizzy and Zeppelin on the double live barometer.

Knuckle Down holds together quite well, revealing an artist still developing a powerful and engaging self-analytical aesthetic.

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

I Com thus presents a new model for electroclash artists: it still exhibits some hallmarks of impersonal club music, but it also offers a (presumably genuine) glimpse inside the private diary of Miss Kittin.

The Invisible Invasion is far from a masterpiece... but it encouragingly signals a definite progression in the Coral’s thematic and arrangement skills.

This stylistic-tryout grab-bag exposes a quartet that has yet to find a voice solely its own.

What sounded fresh and spontaneous a decade back now seems labored and wearying.

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.

True to form, there's a fair amount of unexploded duds mixed in with the direct hits.

An immaculately crafted, every-note-in-place recording that is as confidently executed as it is formulaically inoffensive.

Back to Me is a solid successor to Failer, though at some point Edwards is going to have to toss aside the sour-relationship crutch if she truly wants to distinguish herself from the rest of the country-rock crowd.

This is mature, considered, powerfully expressed stuff, anti-hipster in its refusal to draw explicit attention to itself, commercially questionable in its lack of instant-gratification melodies and structures. What a breath of fresh air that is.

Sleep/Holiday finds Gorky's sticking to its idiosyncratic pop guns.

Fall Back Open builds its Brian Eno-esque architecture into a warm, vulnerable document of searching and fear of connection, resulting in a pleasantly engaging and subtly memorable offering.

Stylistically, In Case We Die is like a Jackson Pollock drip painting, chaotic and bustling.

Another excellent offering.

Easy Living simply lacks the scope and gritty, lived-in detail that made Skinner’s first two efforts so appealing.

Musically, this is as solid a hard-rock offering as fans of Motorhead and obscure Swedish crunch fans could ask for. Lyrically, however, Probot is a different story.

Space-rock aficionados will dig the zero-G atmosphere, but it meanders through excessive pockets better left unexplored.

Pixel Revolt doesn’t reconcile the political and personal, and that may be the point. But it nonetheless makes for a frustratingly uneven listening experience.

There aren’t as many memorable cuts as on Adams' stellar solo debut, Heartbreaker, but Jacksonville City Nights reveals an older, more seasoned performer.

A compellingly listenable record whose thematic signal points add up to one of the very, very few viable theme/concept albums composed solely of cover tunes.

Despite taking few chances thematically or musically, the reincarnated Son Volt delivers a tight, nothing-wasted set.

Gentle harmonies and twinkling keys dot most every track, and Conor Deasy's relaxed vocals never get in the way of the band's engaging melodies.

Taking the Long Way wraps its still-raw emotions in sweet satin sheets of breezy, middle-of-the-road pop. While there are still some country elements, the album mostly exists in that top-down netherworld of Sheryl Crow albums and Tom Petty's "Learning to Fly."

For the most part, the album's money shots -- the singsong guitar of "The Hardest Part," the eerie U2 evocations in the assured chorus of "White Shadows" -- are fleeting, strung together by unremarkable verses and remarkably generic lyrical sentiments.

The most frustrating aspect of Idlewild is its lack of energy.

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