Fans and detractors alike get exactly what they expect with bratty rockers like 'Outta My Head' and 'Rulebreaker,' but things seem to “get real” a bit with a more-introspective (if you can call it that) track like 'Murder (I Get Away With).'

Lifeless and boring.

Here they get back to where they once belonged, layering all manner of squiggly synth riffs over the kind of sleek techno grooves that define Get Physical, the well-regarded Berlin label they helped found. That gives the music an appealingly relaxed vibe, but it also produces the slight scent of concession.

Shadow's densest and longest work at first sounds like an overstylized, underwritten retread with lots of superfluous cuts sporting names like "Tedium." But it eventually rewards hard listening.

By the end of the 13-track disc, Lee's unwaveringly hopeful message starts to sound preachy. But if it works for him, well, maybe he’s onto something.

My advice is to skip directly to disc two, though I'm happy to report that the typically melismatic Mrs. Jigga shows a shocking degree of vocal restraint on the ballads.

It's hard to find many flaws in this new disc from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

Individually, these songs pack an emotional wallop, performed with a passion that is rare in today's indie-rock scene of disconnected cool. But taken as a giant lump, they're exhausting dead-ends: 12 straight climaxes cancel each other out - and Babel could use a little rising action.

Some tracks, of course, are as sexy as a soggy batch of freedom fries once the words are comprehensible. But the best updates... have a seedy splendor all their own.

And so it goes with Mogwai's A Wrenched Virile Lore: a broad range of electro producers, ambient knob-twiddlers, and singer-songwriters re-assemble the Scottish post-rock champs' most recent studio album, the excellent Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, mostly with shitty bonus-feature-styled results.

Though no new ground is broken, the classically trained pianist and Berklee alumna shows her confidence and talent with this strong break-up record right after the quirky cool of last year's Taller Children.

The pointlessness is grating. XI Versions' final three songs do show signs of life--Animal Collective, Walls, and Pantha himself manage to work up a buzz--but they can't compensate for time killers by Lawrence, Carsten, and Efdemin that make inoffensiveness offensive.

They don’t always succeed on Walk It Off, in part because producer Dave Fridmann’s oversaturated-in-both-senses-of-the-word indie-psych sound does them no favors in their attempt to establish an identifiable TNT brand.

Ditch the first 20 minutes and open the album with the stunning, nearly seven-minute "The Violent Bear It Away," which is tucked away toward Destroyed's end, and here's a career-defining work.

Blackout may be more a tribute to the skills of the A-list producers who guided her through the disc than to any of her own talents.

Although it's an imperfect effort in some regards, the somewhat conceptual OX 2010: A Street Odyssey testifies to Vast's highly developed steez, and does so with complements from MCs who effortlessly jibe with his arcane rhyme selections.

As Blur, Morrissey, and even Oasis learned the hard way, engaging in parochial social criticism — as much of Yours Truly does with its references to youth clubs and housing estates — doesn’t connect with more than a cult of Anglophiles here in the US.

Lissy Trullie sounds simultaneously hungry and tepid, as if Trullie wants to make a big splash, but her album lacks the conviction or vision to make it happen.

Perhaps in the winter this will all seem a lot less charming, but right now, it’s a nice soundtrack for a drive out to the coast or for porch sitting late in the evening.

World Wide Rebel Songs is Morello at his most confident and musically expansive.

Agebjorn seems utterly uninterested in taking Shapiro to a new place--not even a different dance floor--and though you can't blame him for drawing out a good time, it feels as if we'd been here forever.

Keith is... for the first time living up to the standards of his most important precursor, the shape-shifting funkateer George Clinton. That is, even as he jokes and grooves his way through Octagon’s long-awaited return, he’s also serious as shit.

Up-tempo club jams like "Break Your Heart," "Dynamite," and "I Can Be" sport melodies sturdy enough to support all the digital detailing, and power ballads such as "I'll Never Love Again" and "Falling in Love" do the gathering-steam thing as efficiently as more traditionally presented songs by Diane Warren or Kara DioGuardi.

Spine Hits as a whole is a tighter operation, less intended to soundtrack your mushroom trip, but a worthy attempt to bridge the gap to the mainstream.

The fact that Paley and Francis wrote this album together over the course of three afternoons and then recorded it in two is part of its charm. There are no big guitars and not much percussion. What you get is two compelling performers and their songs, backed by a couple of Muscle Shoals aces, bass player David Hood (yes, Patterson's dad) and Spooner Oldham.

In exploring his split psyche, T.I. forgets what made the excursion interesting to begin with: there’s good and evil in everyone, but you gotta mix the two to get a reaction.

The lyrics are nonsense about grotesque surgeries and a futuristic interface of man and machine; they’re sung with a weariness that suggests that even the singer is fatigued with this kind of thing.

It ain't exactly Bill Shakespeare (or Trojans), but it gets the job done.

Future This is ultimately more melodic than its laborious predecessor. But around the "ballads" in the second half, you start longing for a point.

Only the title track bears any resemblance to what Dashboard once were.

Though Daybreak generally fulfils that longing for the simpler days of 2001's Stay What You Are, it's ultimately hard to understand why it's taken almost three years to make such a simplistic record.

Sometimes Out of Frequency wavers into old-school television-theme-song territory, like a ramped-up take on M Squad or some bad dating show at the turn of the '80s.

Sure, you can wonder whether there’s a need for Youth Group with so many bands trying to replicate the success of Coldplay and Death Cab for Cutie, but Casino Twilight Dogs is worth a listen.

More often, however, CooRosie appear uninterested in the listener's experience--and that can make Grey Oceans a bit of a slog. The cost of their commitment is you.

Ritual is so grandiose that it rarely has room to breathe.

There’s something melodious and calm about Will.i.am’s third solo hip-hop/R&B album--but there’s also something boring about its euphonic electro-funk dolor.

B.S. includes far more filler than it needed to.

It’s a ridiculous album, sure, but take "Defenders of the Faith," replace the Metallion with Nostradamus, double the number of awesome riffs, add the occasional pan flute and symphonic embellishments, and you have the most grandiose metal record likely to be released this year.

True to its title, Violence Begets Violence is the Philly powerhouse's most aggressive effort yet, a morally polluted playground that no sane unarmed person should dare to frolic in.

The bulk of Roses is like a spring day in the first week of May - not exactly shocking, but sunny and warm.

There are so many clashing vocal parts and guitar effects that you have to strain to hear the actual songs. Which is a shame, because said songs (all of which Ringo co-wrote) are pretty good.

Beta Love is the best of both worlds: surprisingly slick and danceable, while subtly amplifying their art-school charm.

It might be one of the year's worst albums, an underwritten, overarranged mess of factory-floor guitar fuzz, go-nowhere vocal melodies, limp electronic beats, and lyrical clunkers.

His much-delayed solo debut eschews the kind of risk his productions are known for, and the result turns into one big mash of slow fades waiting for pretty ladies in the video.

By album's end, CSS are back to their old irreverent ways, screaming that title lyric repeatedly, nearly drowned out by sax blasts and cowbell.

Blank is a product of the cut-and-paste era; nearly everything on I Love You, which arrives in the wake of several buzz-building collaborations with Spank Rock, seems like a tongue-in-cheek version of something else.

It’s Frank Black on his first real roll as a solo artist.

Brandon Flowers has gone on record saying he brought the songs on Flamingo to his fellow bandmates for the next Killers album and was given the brush-off.

Hit the Waves is so heartfelt as a pastiche of '80s alternative music that it almost muscles its way into being brilliant.

The Fountain reveals that the magic of yore is still there.

It works, sometimes.

Despite always titanic levels of rock-star delusion must at some level be aware that this time they have turned in a truly half-assed piece of work.

The tunes are repetitive in the vein of Oakey's earliest industrial post-punk '70s rants, but with the angry friction of those heady times cooled off, like a trip to the corner after a heated outburst. And if the album doesn't quite attain the life-altering awesomeness of Dare--well, what album does, really?

Freedom is mostly lame club tunes with mega-auto-tuned vocals about wishing "I could just stop by and lay by your side."

Vannucci as a vocalist and lyricist lacks the star power to keep up his larger-than-life showboating over the course of 40-plus minutes.

An eclectic, danceable collection of hip-hop, R&B, and pop confections.

This is the same ol' Korn you've loved or hated (or felt indifferently toward) since you first saw that slo-mo bullet in the "Freak on a Leash" video, except with de-tuned guitars swapped for garish, beefy synths.

Again and Again is a beast of a different color, the sound of a classic New Order or Pet Shop Boys track--if someone had first sunk his incisors in and drained the blood from it.

It’s also one of the best-sounding records of 2009, with a simple, clean style and plenty of piano, banjo, and pedal steel to flesh out the dynamics.

This time the throwbacks are so brazenly imitative, they might raise the copyright hackles of the earliest copyright infringers.

It’s a shame he doesn’t indulge more of his rock impulses, because his ornate mid-tempo predilections tend to water down his natural charisma.

For the most part, Ten$ion is a letdown in its utter normalcy.

The Greatest Story would be a stronger statement if it werenâ??t for the conflicting cornerstones of conscientious-rapper soapboxing and standard-issue gangsta themes heâ??s laid at its foundation.

The blithe, lyrical approach is misplaced in the context of Morello’s domineering, effects-laden guitar sound.

If the Jonases come up woefully short in the sensitivity department, they (nearly) make up for it with songwriting that's far more flavorful than that on Fearless or on the JoBros' previous disc, last year's "A Little Bit Longer."

Last 2 Walk is a club-banging record, but it’s hard to recommend something so by-the-book.

On Mine Is Yours, everything is bigger. King's reverb-tinged production puts the focus on the band's surprisingly tender melodies and slow-burn rock arrangements; the result is 11 melodic, economical tracks that deliver huge hooks without sacrificing instrumental dexterity.

Sometimes it gets too cheerful.

This is a mixed bag.

Animal is a clear subversion of pop norms amid a sea of synth stabbing and whisky guzzling, a kick in the groin on a dark dance floor.

Something To Die For has the Swedish dance/pop outfit awkwardly dipping a toe into the pool of trance music.

She layers airy, tightly harmonized vocal hooks over sleek synths, strummy guitars, and booming hip-hop beats, and the songs broadcast their emotional content--anxiety, melancholy, resilience--with a straightforwardness you rarely hear outside children’s music. That simplicity doesn’t detract from the ample melodic and textural pleasures, but it does give Down to Earth a limited shelf life.

The Donnas get the ball into the red zone from time to time on Bitchin', but they never really score.

In This Moment are up to some weird, wild, wonderful stuff.

With tracks like "LUV XXX," "Beautiful," and "Lover Alot," everyone's favorite dude-looks-like-a-grandma just can't let go of that screechy horndog rock.

For the most part, singer-songwriter Craig Pfunder doesn't justify the presence of vocals and lyrics.

Insipid lyrics, absolutely zero feel, and derivative riffs that make Godsmack seem ingenious add up to everything that gives metal a bad name.

Teenage Dream is front-loaded with synthetic whump-pop that fuses Perry's singular vocal nag to irresistible songsmithery.

For a gangster, Banks sure plays it safe.

This is a subdued, atmospheric affair, rooted in bangs-in-the-face, black-polish-on-the-fingernails '80s rock.

All Things Bright and Beautiful, 12 sterilized laptop clunkers that are indeed bright but far from beautiful. There's no maturity in sight.

With a slapdash track list that intersperses previously unreleased cuts with lightly retooled versions of tunes from Left Eye's import-only solo debut, Eye Legacy still feels like an after-the-fact throw-away, one that makes you wonder just what its creators were attempting to say about their dearly departed friend.

The Devil's Rain is chock full of good, campy horror business.

One must reconcile with the absurd fact that Lulu exists before realizing how genuinely brilliant it is--when it's working.