Their diverse third release occasionally finds new ways to induce grins.

The production (from Ski Beatz, 88-Keys, others) adds florid, melodramatic choruses to jazzy boom-bap tracks, blunting the impact of Kweli's dogged street intellectualism.

DeBoer's political poesy lacks his predecessor's acerbic wit, and his singsong delivery is much less bracing than Sok's full-throated rant.

A couple of songs succeed on their own terms, like "Finally Begin"--destined for a rom-com trailer--but most float unmemorably down the highway of not-quite-modern rock.

There Are Rules doesn't contain a single tune that lingers afterward.

Twenty years since their last album of new material, Gill and vocalist Jon King spit out splintered riffs and skewered tropes that approximate the band's peak on grabby party-starters ("Who Am I") and mesmerizing midtempo grooves ("A Fruitfly in the Beehive"). The rest are only slightly damaged goods.

Long on cryptic references (you mean you haven't read Curzio Malaparte's 1944 novel Kaputt?) and Euro-weary mood, the vintage electronic-pop ambience of Destroyer's ninth album recalls the days when MTV emphasized music.

Unlike much of the current post-Animal Collective psychedelia, there's a palpable, full-bodied force and galloping beat behind the bliss.

Kiss delivers plenty of unexpected layers, employed judiciously in service of Beam's usual ruminative ideas about good and evil, love and death.

For "Shakin' All Over," White runs Jackson's goblin-queen croak through the analog fetishist's version of Auto-Tune, while "Rum and Coca Cola" rides the most lopsided punk-calypso groove since Kid Creole and the Coconuts.

It's the sound of too-clever body-movers merely going through the motions.

Deerhoof's trademark guitar-noise scribbling has been transformed in the studio, resulting in bulky, segmented yet hummable compositions that signify--we think--the triumph of cutesy creativity over grouchiness.

Defying logic, the famously productive Robert Pollard is getting even more prolific with age.

The band recorded in a real New York City studio, with a real producer, Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Beach House). And the songs are even better.

Cape Dory establishes an enviable fantasy: two lovers happily adrift. Where Best Coast is too cool for school, Tennis seem (almost) too good to be true.

Her deranged aura aside, the second full-length from this New York group is a brainy and brawny hybrid.

In most of these dozen tracks (not including a ponderous intro regarding the necessity of risk and a slow-jam sequel to Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind") Keys seems uninterested in breaking new ground, snooze-controlling her way through a series of familiar piano-soul platitude.

Lee's take on the feminine id is like the music itself: smooth on the outside, savage within.

There's a pervasive lack of hooks, not to mention an eerie sense of anonymity.

Ten crisp roots-rock tunes in a mere 40 minutes, The King Is Dead finds the Decemberists in serious course-correction mode -- which is a relief, if also kind of sad.

Sounds terrible, yet these guys attack tracks like "Sell Yourself" with so much pent-up energy that Shultz ends up selling his crackpot ideas.

On his third solo effort, the G-Unit rapper is a connoisseur of cars, women, and guns, spinning tight spider webs of syllables that are often so patterned that they obscure individual strands.

The fidelity hasn't improved much from the Calgary foursome's basement-recorded debut, but Public Strain consolidates the clanging drones and subtly hooky flourishes that previously existed only as separate pieces.

On his fifth full-length, this '60s-pop obsessive mostly ditches the balmy homemade chorales of his earlier work for folk-rock verities, crafting his tightest, fullest-sounding record yet.

On their third album, these dizzying British metalcore chemists swing erratically in an effort to shake genre conventions, flirting with dystopic Max Headroom stutter, electro gloom, and tender indie-folk cuddles.

Airtight's Revenge has its soul affectations, but even standard fare like "Little One" bears Bilal's impressively reedy, insistent voice. He sounds like a man unburdening himself.

His return to more intimate recording can't conceal that there's nary a melody worth savoring amid the autumnal folkiness.

Ghostface Killah's ninth album consoles his hardcore constituency: Forty-plus minutes of gritty, soul-sampling beats soundtracking bizarro street tales ("Starkology," "Ghetto"), with lyrical tough-guys Busta Rhymes, Redman, and more than half the Wu Tang Clan tagging along.