Nothing sounds new, and yet it has no parallel in the old Alice catalog, because they were just so much weirder than we remember.

The group embraces its status as a classic-rock band, and make no mistake, this is a classic-rock album--one that evokes the sort of denim-clad '70s-rock vibe that Guns N' Roses and Foo Fighters tapped into.

Matt and Kim (their real names) come on like a punked-up Mates of State--a couple so cute that you'd walk away from their frantic live shows feeling mushy, if someone hadn't just mushed you. But the love songs on their second album are for their home borough of Brooklyn as much as for each other.

Sounds of the Universe comes on a bit softer, with less industrial guitar clang and more of chief songwriter Martin Gore's dreamy atmospherics.

Their first full-length collaboration since 1991's stellar "Mavericks" is a beautiful set of grown-up pop, meshing Holsapple's emotional directness with Stamey's headier approach.

The earnest but tepid Clear Heart Full Eyes, which as a solo album makes an excellent argument for sticking with your apostles.

The wordless howl of delight on the exuberant gospel stomper "Looking Up" is Everett's most compelling statement yet.

Let Us Pray offers a familiar Scarface tableau, but Pusha and cast (including a demonic Tyler, the Creator on "Trouble on My Mind") paint his fantasies with requisite fervor.

They remain fascinated by heartland mythos, but by becoming more comfortable with their glitzy roots, they've actually found the pulse of something more authentic.

Less of an anthemic, balls-to-the-wall affair than Elements of Freedom (still her strongest album overall), this one does have its own liberating, empowering charms.

The band is smart, then, to play to their strengths on Something to Tell You: experiments at small scale.

Ditto's huge voice can't do soft, so it shoots skyward on 'ove Long Distance,' and coupled with a mechanical piano and canned beat, the band starts to sound a bit catatonic. But the rest of Music for Men is a tightly wound disco-punk conjugation.

Prince’s main weakness is the urge to display his own mind-boggling talent.

First Impressions may not be the best Strokes album, but damn if it doesn't feel like the last. [Jan 2006, p.88]

If there's an ounce of you that's ever been keen on Pearl Jam, or even if you've never bothered, grab a pair of headphones and let Binaural pummel and soak into you, and relax about it.

Bloodflowers smartly pulls up the weeds and cleans a bed for mid-life flowers akin to Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man or Dylan's Time Out of Mind, though it doesn't reach the creative heights of those albums.

Even as Intimacy gets sonically or lyrically precarious--'Zephyrus' recalls 'Jesus Walks,' for Christ's sake--it does so while reaching hard toward something exhilarating.

Here, though, watery, joke-free confessionals like "This Is Home" and "After Midnight" sound comparatively adrift.

Bingham made Junky Star with Crazy Heart collaborator T-Bone Burnett, but the A-list producer mostly resists applying his trademark chamber-roots atmosphere.

Pretend turns out to be an enticing fusion of her wintry, pop-paradise homeland, and the West African musical roots she picked up from her father, the late Maudo Sey, all tempered with raw empathy; her masterful pop-soul captures depressive moments and makes them soar.

Though Blow Your Head leans hard on the Diplo cohort (Major Lazer, Rusko, Borgore), its colossus is James Blake, whose shower of warped arcade-game synths and butchered old gospel vocals is stunning--heaven for believers and headaches for everyone else.

Cherry Bomb is both impressive in its ambition and absolutely stunning in its aimlessness, weaving countless genres into multi-part suites but still coming off undercooked in its entirety.

Not long ago, Ben Bridwell's reedy vocals and slow-burn guitar were compared to Built to Spill's Doug Martsch; Bridwell himself is now a touch- stone. But when does "consistent" translate to "rut"? For Band of Horses, not yet.

Fender Rhodes–heavy groove of 2006's self-titled breakthrough gives way to more discernible melodies and socially conscious lyrics (see "Oppressions Each"), buoyed by soulful horns and backup vocals.

Equally comfortable with dance grooves ("When I'm Alone"), country-tinged laments ("Everywhere I Go"), and epic pop dramas ("Loosen the Knot"), Illinois-bred, California-based Elisabeth Maurus is a promising work in progress on this smoothly produced debut.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who listen for lyrics, and those who listen for beats. If you belong to the latter group, then Views will be one of the best albums released this year. If you’re in the former, well...

A collection of workmanlike whimsy... [12/2000, p.225]

You’ll discover plenty of laconic beauty wherever you drop into The House, and it glimmers with the songful club music that made its predecessor great for getting ready to go out. But a profusion of digital-pastoral vocal settings makes it unlikely to displace Pool from constant shuffle rotation.