By recycling and loosening up "Two Thousand's" best elements--inventive instrumental passages, rich harmonies, across-the-board emoting--French Kicks get both poppier and deeper.

So, about 25 minutes into their fourth album, when Dan Fetherston's martial drums and Adam Rizer and Michael Pace's choral vocals begin the slow rumble of 'Children's Crusade,' the moment feels as revelatory as it is cathartic--Arcade Fire–size elation, without the uniforms and all the friggin' people.

Ultimately, it's the vocals that carry Endlessly. There's no whitewashing of the singer's eccentricities, which feel more pronounced here--she can be gruffly nasal (the oft-repeated chorus of "Well, Well, Well" never stops sounding like "whale, whale, whale") while remaining wholly beguiling.

It's patient, pretty music, tinged with a cozy claustrophobia.

Most producers who approach the mic do so at their peril, but on Dropout, West turns out to be a full-service hip-hop artiste.

A couple of wooly moments aside, Monroe’s third album, The Blade, continues a remarkable hot streak for writers Luke Laird, Jessi Alexander, Chris Stapleton, and Monroe herself.

In spite of the giddy playfulness, it never comes off as a lark. You’ll get no closer to ascertaining his actual identity, but as the balance between jokes and earnest emoting narrows, Sold Out presents something of an abstract portrait of the man behind the haze.

The quartet's stubborn refusal to evolve yields genuine thrills on their typically irascible 13th album.

He takes Lambs Anger's used parts and models them compressing keyboard sounds and looped samples into a sci-fi party mix. [Feb 2009, p.82]

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...

After a 2009 album, assorted seven-inch singles, and a recent live recording for Jack White's Third Man imprint, Jacuzzi Boys have taken their place among the best sloppy racket-makers bashing out easy-boogie soundtracks to your next drunken night at the local rock dive.

Editors have acquired a sense of urgency and emotion they lacked on "The Back Room." [Aug 2007, p.98]

Like most extreme acts, this trash-talking MC's strengths are best showcased in wham-bam singles. To sustain interest between fourth-album climaxes, the Berlin-based sleaze queen collaborates with London's Simian Mobile Disco.

On this speedy live best-of, loads of smirky, self-deprecating one-liners about boobies, boners, and crooked wieners can't conceal the music's winning wistfulness. [12/2000, p.222]

Instead of a triumphant return to form, then, Innocence is more of a satisfying side conversation, a familiar face coming round to the back door and whiling the time away nicely till dark or dawn

Asya... has an immediate confidence, rolling through tricky time changes like Tori Amos' plucky little sister. [Jul 2006, p.87]

Free Energy know that what they're emulating is about bliss not meaning, and they're savvy enough to embrace pop simplicity without condescending to it.

With guest vocalists crooning over synth wiggles seemingly lifted from Aphex Twin's "Richard D. James Album," the Iranian expat's first record in eight years is as tuneful as it is brazen.

On his fourth album, Luomo (a.k.a. Sasu Ripatti, the Finnish electronic minimalist who also records as Vladislav Delay) stays true to the course he began with 2000's "Vocalcity."

Here they dial down the Black Flag–derived chaos of "The Bronx (I)" and "(II)," unleashing sharper melodies and boogie rhythms that Axl Rose might've admired before getting cornrows.

Rae is an absorbing enough writer to keep F.I.L.A. afloat. He does a good job of sizing up an unquantifiable horror: being too embedded to relinquish one’s bloodletting past ways.

Addictive listening. [Aug 2006, p.80]

Let those [few sub-par] parts slide into the ocean and enjoy the remaining hour of perfectly golden brilliance. [Feb 2007, p.89]

Silkworm's songs aim for a groove and grace almost completely foreign to their genre. They don't always get there, but when they do, the results are breathtaking. [July 2002, p.110]

Ferry embraces these Dylan classics... with undiluted sincerity, gently remodeling the barbed lyrics into graceful modern art. [Jul 2007, p.96]

The typically droll Video Star includes a cowbell-enhanced rave-up ('Do You Mind'), a bit of Lady Gaga–ish electro-pop ('Last Days of Disco'), and one track named after Transformers ('Deceptacon'). It's a charm offensive with stars and stripes.

Rome has the undeniably high-end vibe of an A-lister's lark. After all, what kind of no-name can book the recording studio once employed by Ennio Morricone?

[The] sense of resignation threatens to render Noctunes a laborious listen, but moments of lightness give the record a little bit of balance.