Most everything here is played too fast and mixed too loud, the live instrumentation doesn't swing, and the vocals often suggest karaoke Kylie Minogue. But the songwriting remains period-perfect and consistently well crafted.

Though he sounds slightly out of place on the screeching "Lies X 3," standouts "We Live by the Beat" and "Kontrol Phreak" impressively blend synth-funk and neo-new-wave glamour.

Even emo and chamber music get roped into Sidewalks' exclamatory gush, verifying that there truly is no sound these two won't use to support their almost religious commitment to spreading huge grins.

Eno unleashes tempests of breakbeats ("Horse"), electro exotica ("Bone Jump"), even roiling post-rock ("2 Forms of Anger"), creating a perfect storm.

With livelier playing and more memorable tunes, Costello's second straight collaboration with producer T Bone Burnett is a major improvement over last year's ho-hum Secret, Profane & Sugarcane.

Let's have a toast for the ladies who stick it to the douchebags.

Cardiology dials down the sparkle, which is kind of a bummer; plodding fake-U2 anthems such as "Right Where I Belong" are definitely not Good Charlotte's sweet spot.

The 78-minute Spiral Shadow supersizes everything, from song lengths to layers of deep-focus space-rock effects, but the sprawling songs are still built around riffs as sweaty as a south Georgia summer.

The Fool is built on Joy Division's post-punk low end, moody chords, droning vocals, and doomy lyrics, but it's more than a tribute.

Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager, the sequel to The End of Day, is a revelation, boldly reshaping Cudi's sound -- with vivid production by Emile, Plain Pat, the Cool Kids' Chuck Inglish, Jim Jonsin, Diplo, and others.

The result of all this hemming and hawing is a captivating reminder of how much weirder this band is than its reputation.

Yet the cameo-packed Olympia shares far more with Ferry's recent solo stuff than it does with Roxy's early-'70s art rock; lusciously arranged lounge-funk workouts.

What does one call eight songs in 25 minutes? An EP? A mini-LP? Just don't call it a placeholder--there are too many bulldozer riffs here, even in the under-a-minute sketches.

After three consistent, unique albums, the duo only flag when they abandon their sense of humor and mischief -- which is what made them so smart in the first place.

Write About Love also feels monumentally comfortable in its own skin. For a band that made its bones meticulously documenting awkwardness, that's a particularly impressive change.

Disc two works better in theory than fact, compiling disparate song fragments into a single 33-minute mixtape-inspired track, but the group's radiant delight in pure sound is undimmed.

Jones has always savored extremes, and here, she's alternately demonic (the toothy gleam of 'Corporate Cannibal') and angelic (the gloriously autobiographical 'Williams' Blood').

This debut is a different kind of soul music, as meditative as it is evocative.

Stevens sated his jam-band jones in a borderline amusing way on August's All Delighted People EP, but here all the engine-revving too often feels lazy, especially considering how vibrantly he embraces the album's fresh musical direction elsewhere.

Though this is a flawed and scattershot project, Wayne remains an artist who makes music like a patissier--his songs are frivolous, delicious, and meant to be relished for just a moment.

From yellowed headlines, nature-magazine clippings, marker scribblings, torn paper, even Kurt Cobain's visage, Antony extracts a poignancy that beautifully matches his music.

Across two epic, messy tracks, the pair go around the world: classic ambient house, dated trip-hop, thundering drum loops, weird dub, even down-home picking, yet stay nowhere long enough for anything to really take hold.

Despite frontman Rhett Miller's nice-guy tendencies, Old 97's are way more fun when he gives in to his bitchy side--which is large and in charge on The Grand Theatre, runaway-train backbeats and all.

"I know it sounds strange," chirps mullet-rockin' Yo-Landi Vi$$er in "Rich Bitch," "but I used to count change." In fact, that's one of the more credible claims on this South African rave-rap crew's delightfully low-rent debut.

The title of Clinic's sixth album cheekily nods to the surgical-masked Brits' current, revamped sound--a softer spin on indie pop with their usual gritty agitation almost completely scrubbed away.

Thanks to KT Tunstall's compelling whiskey-and-cigarettes voice, everything she tackles demands to be heard -- though not everything here absolutely needs to be.

But what that album [Knowle West Boy] had in abundance--loud guitars, noisy electronics, new ideas--this comparatively minimal one lacks.

His debut solo album sports lyrics of the sort Loudon Wainwright III has been writing for decades, set to harp, oboe, strings, and horns. Lacerating sentiments clash with pretty sounds as Kasher holds forth on his "death wish," detailing the foibles of prodigal husbands.