In The Reins is intelligent but natural, different but not queer.

You almost get the sense Leo must be embarrassed by how good his last record sounds, opting instead to appease some imaginary punk ethic to the detriment of his songs.

Young for Eternity is the record that US labelmates the Von Bondies should have made to follow-up Pawn Shoppe Heart, and the album that the White Stripes should make period.

Figuring out where each part is originally from will be fun for the fanatics, but isn’t necessary to enjoy the mix.

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.

As eccentric as it is beautiful.

Every song is a savage burst of raw anger, taking Pink Flag’s sarcastic punk and updating it for the new millennium with cleaner production and even more minimalist arrangements.

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.

For a band who has struggled to make themselves heard and understood, God Save the Clientele may just be the Clientele casting some burdens to the wind, channeling all their adoration for Love and the Television Personalities with clear eyes, clear minds, and louder voices than they ever have before.

Ex Hex does have some problems, but they are minor in comparison to the thrill of hearing Timony rock out again.

Rather than winning over new converts, AWOO’s main achievement might be to delineate, skilfully but inescapably, the outer boundaries of its creators’ artistic reach.

Carrabba’s keening grandiloquence may have lost some of its most explicitly cathartic qualities, but The Shade of Poison Trees remains his best work in years.

It is arguable that Gold & Green is the link between Super AE and the Bores’ much feted neo-psych masterpiece, Vision Creation Newsun.

This increased humanism lends Fleischmann’s compositions an evolutionary sense of dynamism, thawing out his stern soundscapes.

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.

That these songs sound like mashups to my ear is both their strength and their weakness--they’re good enough to remind you of the best work of the parties at hand, but the term implies that you’re not going to hear anything new, just two songs mashed together.

Cuts Across offers a surprisingly persuasive clutch of rock ‘n roll that beg for barnstorming live performances.

The moments of "hey, that sounds a bit like ..." are few, but notable; and perhaps unavoidable with such a distinctive vocal presence. In any case, these are welcome echoes from the past, not a weary retracing of footsteps.

That Harrison was evidently too busy to produce the entirety of Touch suggests a missed opportunity for a more cohesive and potentially even better album.

A truly soulful pop album, at least for one disc, Back to Basics is one of 2006’s best when Linda Perry’s fingerprints aren’t present.

Separate, the songs all sound great, but together, they don’t make a real album.

As it is, this record goes down really well on its own.

Where Jurado differs from someone like Jason Molina is in the vibrancy of the actual music.

Jarvis is strong enough, smart enough, and at home enough with its ancient rock-star concerns and unembellished songcraft, for "Running the World" to remain a bonus track. This album doesn't need rescuing.

A much smoother ride and more cohesive entity.

So what if the Darkness are nothing but a bunch of playacting nancy boys. They have an outstanding penchant for hooks [and] write witty and possibly sometimes moving lyrics.

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

THS’s move toward a purer aping of classic rock is mostly welcome and largely successful; the fallout is the loss of the band’s snaky, blunt riffing, their wit dissipating into a pool of honest rocking.