The impromptu feel is often charming and sometimes campy, but always sincere.

If you like smart, complicated rock and roll that nevertheless puts on a show, they are as good as it gets.

The melodies are hauntingly memorable; the band is smart enough to add just enough supporting touches to augment and support, without ever threatening to overwhelm.

I doubt the public at large is ready for a full-scale introduction to an artist who can mesh big bands and big beats, but those of us who are ready for such a union should be glad we have it all to ourselves, for now.

Though it's fair to question their sense of tradition, they succeed where other blues-aping artists, like Gomez and Arnold, have failed, because they're not wholly indebted to the customs of the blues. They've merely co-opted its grisly spirit and transformed it into something unique.

This is a record in which Warren has fused elements of dance, rock, trance and folk to create exquisite pieces of crystalline future-leaning pop.

Ultimately, the album's even-handed mix of [vocalists Helen] Marnie and [Mira] Aroyo makes Light & Magic a tasty cocktail of fiery sensuality and icy perfection.

The band's most realized effort to date -- a brilliant amalgam of dense future-primitive soundscapes and heartbreaking twilight flourish, bolstered by curveball arrangements and a sense of unified purpose.

If the Throwing Muses are not still at the top of their game, they are very, very close.

After a couple of trips through Trust, you might feel like I did -- uncertain whether you'd just had the best sex of your life, witnessed an astonishingly moving church service, or attended the funeral of a life-long friend.

Young Prayer is a visceral religious experience, its lyrics forsaken in favor of mantras that are more chanted than sung.

These songs are reminders of a time when death wasn't a distant bogeyman but a mundane reality of everyday life. Alasdair Roberts's versions are somewhat modernized, but utterly immediate.

Does nothing if not cement her place as one of the most unique, intelligent and subtly disarming artists in music today.

It's achingly beautiful without relying on maudlin sentimentality to win the listener over. Genius.

A modern-rock radio record for folks with a few more brain cells to rub together than the Andrew WK set.

Magic is liberally scattered throughout the album.

The songs are simpler, livelier, a little more direct and a lot more hummable.

As much as it hurts to admit it, not everybody will get so much out of Smog's latest understated masterpiece.

United States of Atlanta is guilty of just about every modern hip-hop cliché in the book... but its glimmering, capped-toothed, post-millennial party platform is a rousing success in spite of itself.

Before the Poison is a wonderful disc, the sound of a well-established artist continuing to grow and explore.

Perhaps there's nothing here as immediately catchy as "Tally Ho!" or "Getting Older", but the latter-day Clean are still amazingly good.

Add N to (X) have retained their sense of direction and honed their sound into a powerful and persuasive entity.

Let Us Never Speak of It Again is the sticky, panting, sexually deviant album Louden Up Now should have been.

Despite the diverse array of styles on display throughout Lost Planets..., this is Sprout's most cohesive set of songs to date.

After you've listened to Rock Action for the first time, you may be hard pressed to believe that Mogwai merely wrote these songs; you'll feel as if they created these symphonies out of thin air, pulling gorgeous sounds from within the deepest recesses of the human soul. Eventually you'll come back down to earth and realize that Rock Action is by no means divine...but it is very, very good.

For the most part, words and music are woven together in interesting and convincing ways.

It's rather spotty (both in production and songwriting) and unfocused.

Sure, Hersh could be your mom, but only if your mom routinely blows out big stacks of Marshall amps.