Predictably, the Orchestra works considerably better as a symphony band than an orchestral accompaniment.

There’s an attention to detail and storytelling nous built up by those previous concept albums that makes further listening and exploration of Happy Hollow that much more rewarding.

What makes Trust Not Those In Whom Without Some Touch Of Madness a career highlight for Zedek is how she avoids misery while continuing to confront emotional storminess.

Ward’s only failure in his bid to create a paean to another era is Transistor Radio’s length.

The language barrier and discord makes the record incomprehensible, but nearly everything is still as intoxicating and entertaining as hell.

The price of diversity is cohesion and there are points where Maths + English veers wildly off track.

Criticising this album because you’re not a teenager is like criticising inhalers just because you don’t have asthma. This may not be for you, but when it hits stride it’s impossible not to get caught up in it.

Bows and Arrows is an album of grandiose pleasures, the sound of a band not just making good on the promise of their debut, but expanding every which way at once, merging distinctive songcraft with decadent theatrics, and tethering themselves to a confidence that they, unlike others, will survive the sea-change of a deflating scene.

What Marry Me may lack in innovation, it makes up for in attitude and execution.

Sounding (at best, mind you) like an uninspired Afghan Whigs tribute band, it recycles motifs, melody lines, production tricks, and lyrics from the back catalog. Part of the problem lies in the production--it's far too muddled, loud, and flat--but even the most gifted producer would have trouble making a good album out of the Dulli-by-numbers on display here.

Those who have loved Ladytron’s move toward a mix of harsher electro and lighter pop elements will find this a welcome progression, and seemingly a natural one, too.

Jesse Lacey... still conjures up arresting images but they rarely add up to coherent songs—and nothing consistently cuts to the bone like Deja Entendu’s highlights.

Here are nine really communicative almost-pop songs, subdued but no less ambitious follow-ups to similar tendencies on 2005’s The Runners Four.

Human Animal comes off as a less directly brutal assault than its predecessor. It sounds a hell of a lot better cranked to ten, though, its contours more explicit, the sounds sharpened to a steely point.

Despite the increased emphasis on production, like Blonde Redhead's entire catalogue, the chirping, child-like cords of lead vocalists Amedeo Pace and Kazu Makino act as the essential ingredient to the bands avant-garde concoction.

Earle's strongest release in some time.

It sounds as if a bunch of no-bullshit straight-edgers have been cooped up in an underground drug den for a week with only Pink Floyd records for company, and then released blinking into the daylight and shuttled immediately into the recording studio.

Ultimately your reaction to the first album will define your reaction here. I can foresee a long cult career for Andrew W.K., devoted acolytes swearing he is the best thing ever, and everybody else ignoring him because they don’t know how to do anything else.

Those disappointed with Velocity’s, raw, live sound, will see this album as a return to form. Those that dug its easily digestible garage rock will, in turn, view New Magnetic Wonder as a step forward.

An album of rich country, folk, and gospel music.

A retreat from overt tale-telling makes these songs less immediate and localized but potentially more personal, both for Jim and his listeners, as he strips away the surreality and specificity and renders his murky ruminations more universally resonant.

With the Fiery Furnaces bringing indie-prog rigmarole back in fashion, Face The Truth might get a little more love than Pig Lib did, despite being the same album with a few more fart sounds.

It's not as much a progress as DCW, but it's easily its equal.

Beck has shed himself of Sea Change’s need to shelter himself in his songs. We have our urban craftsman back, to stir the dust in sampled record grooves and unearth for us, again and again, the new in the old and vice versa.

Contemplative and comforting, this is inoffensive Americana for the brainy set.

A semi-bizarre and semi-wonderful example of twisted, melted country-blues-psyche-pop oddballness.

Musically there&#146;s not enough variation to keep things interesting throughout.</A>[Note: Score listed is an average of two separate reviews: a <A HREF="http://www.stylusmagazine.com/musicreviews/grandaddy-sumday2.shtml" TARGET="_blank">61</A> and an <A HREF="http://www.stylusmagazine.com/musicreviews/grandaddy-sumday1.shtml" TARGET="_blank">85</A>]

Little new or exciting is added to the mix that can&#146;t be found in different forms on their previous two albums. Instead, the album works as a consolidation of strengths from earlier works.