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

Over the course of eleven songs of grim predestination, virtually no modernizing or even identifying signposts are allowed to disturb the terrain.

Ultimately, it's that broken, half-told beauty that gives Dog its mystery, but also perhaps its feel of a record you may always like but around which you may never really feel completely comfortable.

Banhart's efforts to expand himself have left him woefully unable to play to his strengths in the rare occasions he bothers with them.

In Our Bedroom After The War is Stars' most consistent, nuanced album, and says good things for the future, but Campbell and Millan won't write a perfect record until they learn what their songs need, and abandon the inevitable few tracks on which it's refused.

The album sounds simultaneously familiar, yet alien.

Just Like You shows and proves unquestionably that Cole’s capable of some seriously rich, powerful art.

We can only parse this album as that of a brilliant group still trying desperately to reconcile its awkward youth into an identity, but only managing to hide behind a few ten-year old audio masks.

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.

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

It doesn't hurt that she's accompanied by the Drive-By Truckers and a handful of old Muscle Shoals session men, but it's still her voice and interpretive skills that carry the record.

Ultimate Victory may find Chamillionaire a little confused about his strengths, but in terms of establishing him as someone whose heart's in the right place, it does its title proud.

Ultimately, The Meanest of Times stumbles when the folksy frayed stitching is torn away, exposing nothing but atrophied punk muscle.

Trying too hard to mimic his band’s tried-and-true telepathy with only karaoke-level results, it's easy to see he thinks he’s run out of ways to experiment.

Spirit If... may be the second-best record any of those associated with Broken Social Scene have issued--whether together, apart, or kind of both.

['Fantasies' and 'Missed' are] mere tasty morsels amidst a mass of mid-tempo gelatin resulting from nearly arbitrary song structure ('Own Your Own Home'), bland chord progressions ("Ghost"), or one-take studio dickery ('Phonytown') that renders the closer, 'Cheaper Than Therapy,' a five-and-a-half minute afterthought.

The music is the same. As immediate and worthy as some of these songs are, the chugging guitars and oar-bank handclaps and background HEY!s don't sound like the work of a band that really likes this music and wishes it'd been around to make it at the time and probably deserved to be, the way the Donnas' old jailbait anthems could; they sound like bad one-liners.

Love Is Simple is Akron’s most streamlined album, one that bridges their multitudes and, finally, puts forth a series of discreet songwriting ideas rather than merely splashing about in genres.

The silent partners in LSF, Butler, Haynes, and guitarist Seth Jabour, all turn in their best work, making Friends the band’s most propulsive and moving offering yet.

Their classic albums all had filler, but The Last Sucker has none. Each song is instantly identifiable. Riffs are huge, driving, and upfront. Songs maneuver crisply through choruses and bridges, avoiding the meandering that plagued previous efforts.

There isn’t an ounce of life in Curtis.

A long, exhausting listen, Strawberry Jam will occasionally satiate fans hungry for the band’s strange brilliance.

Musically, at least, it’s the most accomplished thing he’s ever done.

Proof of Youth is a satisfying sophomore effort.

Sullivan and Cox are attentive enough to make room for understated fiddler Claudia Mogel, who keeps the band’s country flame burning when they flail and strut. None of this, though, is enough to strip the album of a staleness and fatigue

A Drink And A Quick Decision is a pill every bit as sweet as its predecessor, mining similar terrain to achieve equally sexy results.

iT is the most focused art the Projectors have ever produced.

Playtime Is Over is exactly what we've come to expect from the garage sound of grime. It isn't trying to be anything it's not.