Even skeptics should find Bingham's second album, embellished with a bit more pop and politics, a convincing step beyond his promisingly earthy 2007 debut.

Embryonic finds these wild-eyed Okies sounding even more adventurous and less eager to please than at any time since 1997's four-CD experimental sonic goof, "Zaireeka."

Sorta silly lyrics like "Rollin' fast down I-35/Supersonic overdrive" indicate the road that Phosphene Dream navigates: It's all blacktop stretching through reverberating vistas--ultracool if a little predictable.

The two have widened and lightened their sound a bit from '99's Field Studies, with more, merrier guitars and varied selection of keys. [Oct 2001, p.134]

While the production's scope doesn't quite fit Chikita Violenta's knack for scrappy Superchunk-style guitar pop, the busy shimmer usually complements the songs' energy instead of burying it.

By giving us the best album of his career, and subsequently re-ascending to Top 40’s mountaintop, Bieber’s answered his own question: In pop music, it’s never too late to say you’re sorry.

These are the weirdest tracks Yorke has ever been a part of. [Aug 2006, p.75]

Lonely Avenue's two knights of music nerd-dom use their disarming pop smarts to wryly sympathize with the hapless Playgirl cover boy. The empathy and humor run throughout.

Gough sounds like a guy celebrating his birthday in an airport cocktail bar. [Jan 2003, p.99]

Tightly wound to the point of unease, the Brooklyn singer-pianist's third album has its occasional irresistible moments.

Her vocals are both pitch-perfect and emotionally resonant. [Apr 2007, p.96]

Wisely, the album flows like a mixtape rather than a stab at artistic self-definition, with Brooklyn funk band the Dap Kings laying down a unifying groove and Ronson's love of vintage '80s synthesizers providing a stylistic through line.

He's a natural co-conspirator: Collaborations with Drake, Young Jeezy, and T-Pain lack the BBQ spare-rib smokiness of vintage UGK, but still satisfy.

The lyrics chew as much as they bite, and the music -- ranging from twangy jazzisms to raucous blues rock -- lets Costello honor his roots while still showing off what he picked up at the conservatory. [May 2002, p.118]

Another One is a collection of a few of DeMarco’s best songs to date, all in a day’s work for this normal guy who just so happens to get a little wild on stage.

The sound remains crisp, ensuring that its rough-hewn beauty shines through. [Oct 2006, p.104]

You've been touring nonstop in support of your first new album in seven years. What do you do next? If you're Texas-based scrungers Toadies, you redo your unreleased second album, recorded in 1997 and rejected by Interscope, presumably for lacking another "Possum Kingdom," which drove their debut Rubberneck to platinum sales.

They use mopey melodies and nature imagery to evoke heart's near the breaking point. [Nov 2008, p.100]

Add the pipes of Nancy Whang on most tracks--giving Future a boy-girl dynamic--and there's a distinct suggestion that the Juan MacLean might just become the Human League after all.

The Best Damn Thing rarely takes itself too seriously. [May 2007, p.89]

Big Black Coat works best when the music is as committed to frenzied, all-consuming libidinousness as the lyrics, and on those grounds, it’s a surprisingly successful reinvention for the duo: one that feels more in line than recent efforts with the strengths (if not the tones) of their earliest material.

It's an irresisitible, exhilarating mix that sounds like no band but Wolf Parade.

This deceptively named British band's second album revisits the terrific uproar of its debut only briefly before jumping headlong into more expansive, proggier territory.

Woozy, smoked-out hooks are strewn like cigarette butts--a Black Moth specialty that Fridmann dials up throughout this consistently twisted half-hour and change.

This reunion with producer Hi-Tek, Kweli's partner in late-'90s underground champs Reflection Eternal, fuels both camps with smart essays on addiction ("Lifting Off") and celebrity culture ("Got Work"), as well as forced, throwaway couplets.

Underworld is freed up to focus on crafting memorable tunes that hark back to their electronica heyday, as well as more personal, coherent lyrics. Earnest emotions surprisingly suit these dance-floor surrealists.

[It's] mostly a very good album, but the concept betrays the end listening experience, leaving the unshakable feeling that it could've been a six-track EP, not an over-padded full album.

While string-gilded klezmer ballad "Steak Knives" and steamrolling six-minute confession "Shameless" plod well-trod territory, the mod-pop swing of "Piranha Club" and the wry, multi-suite cabaret of "Oh, La Brea" place Honus' self-loathing in a refreshing, no less bizarre, light.