While the nervous energy that has always been a key ingredient of the group’s sound (on record and otherwise) remains firmly intact, a newfound sense of responsibility and road-worn weariness occasionally rears its head, putting a bit of a damper on this otherwise upbeat record.

No one else is making literate, story-based pop this good.

Your senses will be sorely disappointed.

It's Golightly's most genuine, dark-struttin' My Generation-type record to date.

The group has created an album filled not only with the timeless pop hooks you have come to expect but with the anthemic swagger that is the hallmark of many of the great rock recordings of the last 30 years.

Apologies to the Queen Mary is almost an hour long, and there are certainly portions of it that aren't essential... but it's difficult to see where any fat could have been cut, as each track has its own fractured beauty.

Yes, Lali Puna are taking the Radiohead Route. Not just thematically, either: the tone and ambience of Faking the Books is as detached and cold as Amnesiac was, though more straightforward: there are more "straight" guitars and "actual" drums on this album.

Imagine a less sardonic John Wesley Harding, prone to occasional bouts of husky, Peter Gabriel-style vocal sincerity, and you'll have the basic idea.

Does little to sully their reputation as one of the "great white hopes" of the indie dance nation.

Sung Tongs resembles the freakiest of '60s psyche, the outward fringes of Elephant Six-dom, the craziest excesses of Tom Ze -- yet it is a warm, deeply human work that winds its way into your heart.

For all his skillful sampling and solid lyrics, Blueprint hasn't broken any new ground with 1988, which just underscores the troubling tendency of underground art forms to become more like the mainstream as they age.

Shine A Light is metallic, screamo-ing, ear-bursting, confused and chopping. And man, it's great.

The Coxon-less Blur is a less focused Blur, but Albarn, James and Rowntree can still pull moments of sterling derision from beneath the fog.

For a band only three albums into their career, they're showing inordinate amounts of brilliance.

The Sunset Tree feels like Darnielle's most personal record to date, and it's certainly his most immediately accessible, musically speaking.

It's also pleasing to see that Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner want to expand their sound beyond the clicks, pops, squelches, hisses and squiggles that have become their trademark.

Homesongs is his minor key playground, filled with masterpieces in the making. All you have to do to enjoy them is slow... down...

Hayden has released an album of magnificent proportions.

An overblown, overhyped dreamy swirl of sound that can't commit itself to being anything.

This music sounds a lot like something Edward Scissorhands might compose if he could just play the damn piano.

I can respect the need to innovate in hip-hop, but variety here comes at a cost -- there's no coherent or consistent melodic through-line.

Fans who still have a great deal of admiration for eighties Wire will probably be most pleasantly surprised by Read and Burn 02.

A rewarding, re-listenable collection of solid rockers and ballads.

If you take your pleasure from the sheer palpability of the music -- the way it walks icy fingers up and down your spine, and paints pictures in the air, so real you could step into them -- Blacklisted will enjoy a long, happy stay in your CD player.

A mature, elegant effort, full of richness and depth.

Absolutely essential!... It’s a coming-out party on the level of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless.

Woman King's songs are decidedly textured, rich with rhythm and reason, myth and melody.

Stephen Malkmus' solo debut is as mature, focused, and charming as it is rambunctious.