Don't call these noisy Swedes a nostalgia act. Reuniting with producer Rick Rubin, whose low-gloss production emphasizes the quartet's adrenaline rush, the Conspiracy unleash a barrage of topical bulletins.

An outrageously overblown pop-metal extravaganza, Chinese Democracy feels like a perfect epitaph for all the absurdity and nonsense of the George W. Bush era--one final blowout before Principal Obama takes our idiocy away.

His deceptively fragile vocal style and skewed lyrical genius were already evident at age 22 in these 13 acoustic songs recorded over two nights at a Michigan Episcopal church.

Sasha is an intriguing but diluted direction.

A familiar blend of big-riff rockers and pseudo-sensitive power ballads, Dark Horse won't win the Canadian band any new fans--or will its hearty endorsements of oral sex disappoint the devoted.

Dido's third solo album reveals an unyielding fear of intimacy, her mellow trip-pop (coproduced by Jon Brion) buckling underneath sadness and alienation.

The initial 1996 sessions emphasize the droll felicity of essential early songs 'The State I Am In' and 'The Stars of Track and Field,' tightening the comedic timing and ramping up the tension, making their adolescent trauma both funnier and scarier.

Nearly every song on their second collaboration--but particularly the brooding 'Salvation' and sweetly melancholy 'Trouble'--reveals gorgeous comfort in the juxtaposition.

Though Day by Day doesn't include any tracks as memorable as 1999's 'Beng Beng Beng,' Kuti still shines.

The duo's virtuosic picture of the 21st-century city feels so alive it might convince Escape From New York's Snake Plissken to return.

With a hot guest list (Ciara, T.I.), this is bound to bump the clubs, but beyond that, it's clown time.

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."

They seem less confident introducing more distinctive elements into the flow on their debut, which features six original songs and five remixes.

Josephine Olausson's Ono-esque delivery remains an acquired taste, but that's surely by design: If she sang any sweeter, Love Is All's songs might evaporate like cotton candy.

Even when he's bumming, though, Walker still finds comfort in a good groove or a tart horn chart.

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.

Gimmicky yet compelling, the delicate second album by Miami's Postmarks presents 11 numerically titled covers in ascending order, plus Sesame Street's cute 'Pinball Number Count.'

At his most excitable ('No Direction'), yearning frontman Steve Schiltz aims for the stadium's back row, Bono-style, though the dogged pursuit of spiritual uplift generates more fatigue than enlightenment.

Despite refreshingly brief songs, frontman Fran Healy can't resist self-conscious vocal flourishes that insist he's imparting great truths (shades of Bono), and the bombastic arrangements encourage Andy Dunlop to uncork cheesy, stadium-seeking guitar riffs.

Up-tempo and uplifting, this largely self-produced record blurs distinctions between accessibility and avant-gardism.

Though sometimes courting sleepiness, the debut's barbershop harmonies, Hawaiian strumming, and lovesick melodies transform rock-club jadedness into an aesthetic fit for honeymoons, holidays, and other occasions where you savor small pleasures, even if they're quaintly recycled.

of whether the dance-punk grooves and elusive, histrionic hooks resonate, Thorpe has a point he's determined to make: Even the most sensitive fop can be a hormonal horndog.

With Gwen Stefani sidelined by motherhood, Canada's Dragonette fills the No Doubt void by walking a similar line between girly electro pop and boyish new wave.

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.

These trebly, trenchant Brits have truly gone pear-shaped.

QOTSA may be rock at the edge of the abyss, but Heart On vaults right over, taking flight on an updraft of woozy audacity and shuddering riffs.

Even if he never wins back the Interpol/Bright Eyes bystanders he lost with 2004's overly heavy, underachieving self-titled punt, Smith finally rewards longtime fans with a proper Cure album, not a quasi-solo-project facsimile.

It's not a radical departure--there's no 'Kid A' in their future--but rather an engaging sidestep for a band that does triumphantly normal better than almost anyone.