Sure, the songs are serviceable, even great at times, but if you take away the new instruments, the tracks are spitting images of their younger brethren.

The big difference behind the two albums’ superficial sonic similarities lies in the direction of this one’s gaze: panoramic, rather than immediately ahead. Whereas Bang Bang Rock and Roll was drunk, It’s a Bit Complicated is sober enough to think about being drunk.

Where Chesnutt has long been thought of as the banjo-on-his-knee godfather of freak-folk, this record shows his skewed vision is beginning to radiate far from its nearly-naked, southern gothic roots.

Anyone expecting a pared down, contented Sufjan can bugger off. If anything, The Avalanche chases his caprice and whimsy further down the rabbit hole.

If you’re already among the converted, Random Spirit Lover is a second straight masterpiece from arguably the most talented songwriter of this generation.

It is an energetic, powerful, and enjoyable album where occasionally pretty invention is marred by the suspicion that a hit-making producer is on deck.

They’ve evolved into a tightly wound and grotesquely attuned power trio; and nowhere is that more evident than on the hyper-bpms of Grass Geysers.

They’re good at what they do, but what they’re doing is painting-by-numbers from someone else’s book.

Like every East River Pipe album it’s blemished by imperfections, but Cornog’s lonely, home-recorded drabness goes beyond the "sun, sun, sun" of other retro-oriented musicians to remind us that sunlight reflecting off slabs of urban concrete remains as bleak in 2006 as it was in 1974.

The songs are intriguing and engaging, invoking the ability to make audiences to both dance and pay attention to how well the music has been produced.

While Tres Casas is a large step forward for Molina, and a better album than Segundo, paradoxically, it’s a less enjoyable one.

Some of the most listless, unaffecting music the band has ever penned.

They make a better Shins than a Stooges. For anyone looking for a relative of the former with an interestingly rough sound and loads of potential, the M's are good to go right now; but the rest of us are stuck mining gems from amidst muck, like normal.

A bit jumbled together and disorienting, but overall just about as rejuvenating as anything.

This is one of the most forward-thinking “rock” albums to come down the pike in some time, playing with the genre in both form and function while showing off Reznor’s ridiculous resevoir of ideas in fine fashion.

For longtime fans, there’s little reason not to buy this. For newcomers, Peel Sessions might not be a logical starting point, but you’ll still walk away understanding why Galaxie 500 are still revered.

This is an album not entirely worthy of the patience it requires to be appreciated track by track.

What results is an achingly brutal intensity given to each broken phrase, scream and sigh.

The only perfect choice here was to make an album full of ballads. It could have been a violent reworking of age-old texts. Unfortunately, there’s not enough violence here to fully rend and flay, just enough to bruise.

Of course, as far as production goes, it would be nearly impossible to top Doggystyle. However, Paid the Cost tries as hard as it can.

Jacked up on myriad assembly-line noises, mechanical tinkerings, and golden acoustic guitar strumming, they manage their melodies with a deftness that keeps them loose and limber in the quiet assault of the underlying density.

For the first time since their full-length debut album 1977, Ash have achieved synergy between their sweet-as-milkshake pop and the full-on heavy metal and punk that inspired Hamilton and Wheeler to pick up guitars in the first place.

The songs are light, the production both relaxed and relaxing... the music breathes.

Before The Dawn Heals Us is a very twilight album, a very urban record. It never quite achieves the variegated subtlety of Dead Cities..., but it doesn’t reach for the same frosty rural pastures as that record either.

It’s not that change is bad, but Wolf is moving into areas already well covered and away from ideas that beg for more exploration.

The subtle backing musicians never overshadow Callahan’s reedy baritone and direct lyrics; they merely add subtle shading and light in the appropriate spots--a restraint reminiscent of Bob Dylan’s use of studio musicians on laid-back classics like John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline.

The group synthesizes pretty much anything you could lump under a general Americana label--bluegrass, country, alt-country, folk rock--to create an idiosyncratic sound more West Coast than Nashville.

Without relying on a crutch of irony and cynicism, they boldly risk sounding cloying in order to summon the emotional honesty necessary to create music that is unabashedly romantic and achingly beautiful.

It is a funereal album whose spark and anger is obscured like the smoldering foundations of a burnt out city.

Really, though, Cabic needs more “Red Lantern Girls,” a gauzy folk workout that hides and seeks until a brutish electric guitar prods the rhythm and heads for higher ground. It is everything the rest of the album is not: aggressive, terse, and surprising.

It doesn’t always succeed, but it most definitely exceeds expectations.

None of these songs truly sound fully-formed, able and confident, but all of them have their "moments," and some of them do come crashing down like a tidal wave of yearbook memories

Before The Poison isn’t flashy, and it’s likely to get overlooked, but it may just be the single best album Marianne Faithfull has ever put her name to.

Out of Breach isn’t without its charms, but with an opening statement as assertive, exiting, and promising as Afro Finger and Gel, it certainly feels a little disappointing.

It's a mixed bag, to be sure, but even Autechre's clichés are more interesting than nearly everything else you'll hear this year.

They want to be every band to every bloke, shuffling between genres in an effort to jack all and master nada.

It’s not that Wolfmother are all that bad. It’s just that everything there is to say about them is best said by immediate reference to another band and Wolfmother always come up short in the comparison.

ABO keep the music tight and enclosed to match the lyrical mood, making Derdang Derdang a succinct, purposeful statement.

Out Hud’s shift to house-pop may not be the group ‘coming into its own,’ but it does throw aside the burden of influences that S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D. had attached to it.

The majority of Nastasia’s guitar-and-piano bit parts are full bodied and masterful, overshadowing many big-footed leading ladies’ recent folk releases.

This may be far too soon, more reflex than action, for the band to properly capitalize on their start.

Despite its exhilarating moments, The Runners Four feels like it’s missing something.

There’s plenty to recommend this album, but rarely do Shipp and Antipop ever really come together.

No Shouts, No Calls isn’t just their most song-based work, it’s also their most romantic.

Starting at the midpoint, "Twosley," Maritime starts to drag.

They've lost two members... so perhaps that explains some of the more aggressive focus and minimalist arrangement, but not the surprise-around-every-corner freedom they find within their self-imposed stricture.

Power In Numbers is like a coming out party for J5, as it shows their ability to shed their label as a novelty and proves they are talented in their own right.

While Barnes' lyrics don't indulge in apocalyptic imagery or read like autopsy reports, the lyrical subjects range from death, to low culture, to existentialism. When combined with such inexplicitly peppy music, the somber nature of Barnes' lyrics welcomes hesitant laughter.

<A HREF="http://www.stylusmagazine.com/review.php?ID=1410" TARGET="_blank">People are claiming The Rapture are geniuses, saviours and innovators but the simple truth is that they aren&#146;t.</A> [Review 1, score=70] <A HREF="http://www.stylusmagazine.com/review.php?ID=1411" TARGET="_blank">One hates to frown on a band&#146;s ambition, but you may find yourself hoping that next time out the band plays to their strengths the whole way through.</A> [Review 2, score=75]

Elvrum&#146;s tightest song cycle yet, truly focusing and clarifying the themes and ideas he&#146;s explored on all his albums.

Can’t Wait Another Day is another album of what Ladybug Transistor does best: distilled pop and folk from another era, part doppelganger, part contemporary sheen—an indie rock album in its Sunday best.

By adding textures, piano, acoustic guitars, and restraint, and losing some of the scowling and savagery, BSP have unleashed a truly unique pop creation, one with depth and feeling.

Easy Tiger sounds like the kind of album Adams could churn out every 18 months for the rest of his life.

Although this LP is sequenced into tiny fragments of varying speeds of mood, the LP feels like one super-caffeine express fairground ride.

The first chunk of Putting the Days to Bed consists of the kind of big-chorused, proudly conventional pop songs summers are made of... Elsewhere Roderick's voice and lyrical acumen fail him.

This is a band that, rightfully, just sounds tired.

Its unbearable tendencies are avoidable because they're overshadowed by bursts of creativity.

While I’ll stop short of saying that [co-producer Neil Michael] Hagerty ruined this record, I can definitively say that I’d love to hear what it would have sounded like before he got his hands on it.

In Stormy Nights is by no means the first time Ghost have plugged in and upped the volume, but it is easily their most unhinged, aggressive record; they make a show of steamrolling their subtler instincts.

Their steadily, sturdily conventional rock and roll is more compelling and rich than most people would admit as they're busy gawking at the sight of the Amazing Lyricist and his Kinda Weak Voice.

These songs stay stuck with you like a lump in your throat.

Given the genre-splicing we witnessed on 10,000 Hz Legend, Talkie Walkie sometimes seems like white-bread Air, like a fractured spin-off of Moon Safari.

Hera Ma Nono improves on "Ok-Oyot System" in almost every way: the guitar sounds are more vibrant (padded with reverbs, phasers, and other bubbly what-have-you’s); the songs hang together better as a record; the slide between Swahili, English, and Luo is as effortless and colorful as good pidgin; and, most importantly, it usually gets at--or at least hints at--African music’s most cherished balance: unhurriedness with a pulse.

The main draw here is in Prodigy rediscovering his way with words.

Music fans of the world rejoice--Yo La Tengo can once again hear the heart beating as one.

Everything on Winds Take No Shape is done with such mechanic precision that there&#146;s little room for any sparks to ignite this mythic fire.

Musically the record comes off as simply a rote (if spirited) rendition of the best records from Rainer Maria or 764-Hero, which certainly isn’t saying much.

BYOP’s debut cascades on itself. Its compulsive, one-sitting punk is delivered with absolute self-conviction.

Occasionally, it does seem to forsake being interesting in order to just sink into snarky spot-the-reference games or gnash another guitar solo in the interest of vapid overstimulation.

The explorations of Security aren’t exactly shattering, but they’re refreshing.

This is indie in the most traditional sense.

Get Lonely doesn’t have the full force of any albums in the Mountain Goats catalog.

Apropa&#146;t&#146;s biggest flaw could be the use of Eva Puyuelo Muns&#146; vocals. Perhaps I&#146;m accustomed primarily to Herren&#146;s music as instrumental, but the use of Eva feels painfully forced at times.

The music is still missing one crucial element&#151;hooks. There really aren&#146;t any of which to speak, and no amount of production skill and instrumental finesse is able to mask that.

While it's admirable that The Secret Machines are trying to solidify their niche as the go-to guys for soundtracking laser light shows (or at least My Morning Jacket for indoor kids), Ten Silver Drops is a sideways moonwalk that won't get them any further away from the planetarium circuit.

This album is difficult, complicated, pretentious, infuriating, inconsistent, and asks more questions then it answers.

Axis is an easygoing, engaging listen, an album whose relative triviality easily forgives its flaws.

Whereas the somewhat timid and searching De-Loused in the Comatorium was all about surprising audience, critic, and probably the band itself, Frances the Mute is a self-assured organic animal that should come as no surprise to anyone.

All of their typical sentiments are there, but where their prior releases used spacey interludes and bridges as a recess from the hopelessness, the group employs these moments more sparingly.

Fundamental offers pleasure as rewarding as The Magic Mountain or Glenlivet 18--indulgences best enjoyed as you approach the half-century mark, when your imagination is keen to leisured elongations of familiar tropes or newly appreciative of exotic sumptuousness.

The entropic quality of the &#145;yellow&#146; Pole has undergone a &#145;rehab&#146; of sorts, resulting in a cleaner and reinvigorated sound.

Music that&#146;s easier to admire than love.

So when you see Infinity On High getting praised, don’t bother scoffing. This deserves to get praised. There's a lot on here that's great and pretty much nothing that's bad.

Good Arrows is still a series of beautiful songs for that part of us all that just wants to stay in bed all day.

Of the album’s 13 tracks, not one feels like filler.

Its utter lack of anything approaching strong feeling relegates it to the realm of indie-flavored muzak.

The rest of More Adventurous is mostly what you would have expected from Rilo Kiley before the album's bracing beginning, only now it carries the stench of promise unfulfilled.

Ce is Caetano Veloso's 40th album—and the first in many years to make the hairs on the back of one's neck stand up.

His pieces match open, lovely music with lyrics depicting people in struggle.... Individual songs take on various moods, but the album never dips fully to the bleak.

A number of songs crumple under the weight of the album&#146;s ambition.... Regardless, Amore del Tropico is a fine, fine record: a lively, lovely concept album that bridges the gap between Nick Cave and Calexico.

It could have been much more, but for what it is -- a blissful summer excursion -- L' Avventura is delicately delightful.

There are entirely too many nods to the past for this album to be a fresh start, yet it refuses to slip comfortably into place in their catalogue.

It's good in its own right, but perhaps you're better off listening to it in isolation from the rest of their canon. It's not quite there, but it is definitely a good record.

Musique Automatique captures both the vibrant spirit of Europe as well as the feel of modern pop to create a wonderful album.

This is a pretty uninspired piece of work.

The change is typically drastic, but given the uncharacteristically long period spent in the studio this time around, the sum of worthwhile material is far less impressive.

Instead of consolidating their respective strengths, Broken Boy Soldiers is White and Benson compromising them in favor of finding an agreeable but ultimately dull and colorless middle ground.

The best numbers show Hart gaining subtle confidence as a composer without feeling the need to break the mold completely.