Get past glitchy irritants like 'SonDEremawe' and an artful payoff of cerebral, booty-shaking decadence awaits on their ninth album.

The Ruffinas are far better the less seriously they take themselves. [Mar 2008, p.97]

He's already sophisticated enough to paste lines about real heartbreak onto chunky, melodic beats ("True Story"), then turn around and be an equally passionate goofball ("Getting Dumb"). Leaning toward the latter could make him a star outside the backpack circuit.

Red of Tooth and Claw, like 2006's grumpier "In Bocca Al Lupo," runs low on contemporary touchstones or appeal. Keep this on your great-grandparents' Victrola, though, for a rainy afternoon of rootsy escapism.

It's the band's most diverse album yet—and, diversity being their strength, it's also their most accomplished.

Jim White's Joe Pernice–produced fourth record deftly melds Southern-flavored soul with California twang.

When [Ethan Miller] bellows, "Lord, have mercy on my soul," the result is hokey, irresistible fun.

For all its iconoclastic ambition, Sea Lion is a low-key charmer. [Apr 2008, p.102]

It's a winning rethink, salvaging the best bits of a musical style that's too easily missed. [Apr 2008, p.100]

The Felice Brothers aspire to the weird, woozy vibe of the Band's "The Basement Tapes," and often approach it. [Apr 2008, p.96]

The duo are too consistently subdued, and without their usual spectacle, Seventh Tree veers perilously close to dull. [Mar 2008, p.102]

The effect is like a vaguely remembered, pleasantly low-key dream. [Mar 2008, p.97]

The North Carolina native's third album unveils deceptively sharp tales of hearts in distress, implying fierce emotions just under the surface. [Mar 2008, p.106]

NY's Finest has everything you'd expect from this legendary producer. [Mar 2008, p.108]

We have You Surrounded is a terrific accessible hard-rock album deserving more than cult attention. [Apr 2008, p.94]

All this willful messiness adds up to a funny and surprisingly touching mission statement. [Mar 2008, p.101]

The Golden Age is their most placid disc since 1989's "United Kingdom."

This batch of tunes is still suffused with the confessional vibe that made "The Sunset Tree" and "Get Lonely" unlikely emo-folk touchstones. [Mar 2008, p.98]

The US debut of Damien Rice's former band turns sentimental mush into something palatable. [Mar 2008, p.97]

Vernon's voice--delicately layered and yearning--gives standouts 'Skinny Love' and 'Flume' their stunningly direct emotional impact, but his sturdy folk cords, earthy melodies, and plainspoken, pastoral lyrics prevent the album from descending into self-pity. [Mar 2008, p.97]

In flashing back, Cox smears just the right amount of Vaseline on the lens. [Mar 2008, p.96]

Buddy Miller pares down the arrangements and Moorer relaxes, allowing her dark, sultry voice to simmer. [Mar 2008, p.106]

Calling Headlights "nice" sounds like a backhanded compkliment, but Some racing wears the tag proudly: it's charming, but never boring [Mar 2008, p.102]

The band retains the frenzied organ chug and indie-prog lurch of days past, and newish frontman Breck Brunson (who joined in 2006) is an impressively expressive yelper, but Ghost Games never skirts the border of sanity as much as it threatens to.

Music this insistently okay should suffice as sonic Paxil, but there are less complicated ways to treat your depression. [Apr 2008, p.102]

When pop structure interrupts the soundtrack-y vibe, it's modestly and briefly too much of singer Sian Ahern's sad, smok voice would lessen the mystery. [Apr 2008, p.102]

With guitars that ring and roar and percussion that gushes and thunders, they finally turn theirlyrical perculiarities into a legitimate churn of ideas, rather than a posturing diversion. [Feb 2008, p.92]

Like Good Charlotte and Fall Out Boy before them, these multiplantinum Canadian heartthrobs have finally covered up their pop-punk roots completely, on their fourth album. [Feb 2008, p.99]