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.