With your headphones strapped, the album's dirty optimism will brighten even the darkest, stalest airport-layover experience (true story).

Khan might be getting bolder, bigger, and more experimental, but pushing past what everyone expects or wants from you as an artist sometimes works - even the third time around.

In Ear Park improves on Grizzly Bear’s psychedelic folk æsthetic by both fleshing it out and making it more accessible.

This showcases Stewart's proclivity for macabre imagery and borderline perversion waging war with his pop-songwriting expertise.

It's the album's more subdued tail end, particularly "Ahead of Myself" and "Temptation," that shows a songwriter rising above his comfort zone to deliver a career-defining transition.

These on-record musings never reveal the off-record Marnie, which is a shame, but the sprawling, chimerical Marnia brings you close enough to be captivating anyhow.

The band bring the tang of that elsewhere pop back to Carried to Dust, however, planting big-hook sensibility and the willingness to evolve within its Southwestern mood pieces.

There's much beauty in the modest moments: the gentle, dreamy guitars in the ballad 'Detlef Schrempf,' the Uncle Tupelo–ish tumble of 'The General Specific,' and the instrumental interlude of 'Lamb on the Lam (In the City),' which sounds like the Cure lost in the Appalachia.

Saint Dymphna is the sound of a band of psychedelic dabblers finally getting their shit together.

In the end it’s the guitars, which alternate from restrained, melodic jangles to serrated feedback screams, and the general sense that Happy Hollow chronicles life during wartime that hold these 14 tune together, hymns or otherwise.

After a few listens, the entirely synthetic remainder that is Supreme Balloon is not merely a relief but a delight. If anything, the limitation of having no limitations has revealed Matmos as more skilled, stylish, and sculptural here than on any of their past releases--not to mention versatile.

As a post-Occupy album, it's less ripped-from-the-headlines and more cribbed-from-older-and-better-ideas.

Art-pop triumph "Tell Me" puts it all over the top as the zenith of Triple D's young career. That's something to be optimistic about.

Bland, quasi-political lyrics and zonked-out, dead-end textures.

Boy in da Corner may be the classic Dizzee will be forced to chase for the rest of his career, but Maths + English shows him still striving.

For all that Liars have striven to create an original album, the songs suggest not so much inspiration and composition as hours of laborious mixing and midnight consultations with Brian Eno's "Oblique Strategies."

This ninth studio album finds long-timers Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley regaining their focus with their best set of narratives since 2006's A Blessing and a Curse.

Megafaun have promised a full-sized follow-up to last year's stellar Gather, Form and Fly by year's end, but this six-song appetizer will serve nicely for anyone pining for new material from these North Carolina avant bards.

The title Revival is no hype: Fogerty is again in full command of his talent for blending heartfelt writing with irony-free meat-and-potatoes rock.

This disc is both violent and romantic, offering warm singer-songwriter torch songs and jagged avant-noise frays with large-hearted choral flourishes.

Their sixth record reminds me quite a bit of that Metric album that came out last spring. You could put this reaction down to Sainthood’s understated, idiosyncratic electronic elements, or to the whole Canadian elevated-indie-pop thing.

Their third effort finds the four-piece twisting confessional post-punk into something startling, brash, and exhilarating.

At their best--during the disc’s torch-lit forays inward, the piano-ballad title track and the forlorn 'We’re Looking for a Lot of Love'--Hot Chip get serious, delving into the up-late tangles and riddles of the 21st-century heart.

To Willie could have a lost ballad and a roadhouse jam for variety's sake, but Houck's thoughtful curating makes it more than a fans-only stopgap.

The echo-saturated clang works as background music if you’re washing dishes in a haunted house or performing at-home knee surgery, but hunker down with the sound by itself and it evaporates like stale smoke.

Despite the injection of hope and a denser sound courtesy of Steve Albini, as well as good execution throughout, most of the songs tread familiar territory.

The disc’s best stuff — such as the hard-rocking opener, “Can You Feel It?” — makes it easy to get swept up in his limitless enthusiasm.

Patrick Stickles finally overworks his music to match his trying-too-hard fables.

This record is a sequel to 2007’s "The Stage Names," and it shares its predecessor’s concerns: artifice, authenticity, and above all, the sniveling insincerity of hazy-eyed media zombies.

On Excellent Italian Greyhound they deliver the expected fistful of vitriolic by-number chuggers.

If Clinging is at all a departure from the Radio Dept.’s previous pleasantries, it’s along the two most valuable vectors: outward and upward. Although their sound has always seemed certain, it’s never been this clear.

Anyone's pop cynicism should have a hard time getting out of bed on this one.

At times, the free-association gets to be a bit much, but it's all held afloat by trampoline beats from a stud cast that includes the likes of Diplo and El-P, all channeling Magoo-era Timbaland, Kelis-era Neptunes, and Hov-era Panjabi MC.

Scott-Heron's roughed-up reading of Bill "(Smog)" Callahan's title track certainly does the trick, though his tender take on the Bobby Blue Bland hit "I'll Take Care of You" only makes you realize how much life he's got left in him.

The result bounces all over the place, from zippy new-wave rave-ups to tinkly twee-pop lullabies to handsome folk-rock jams with trippy guitar sounds.

Somebody needs to boot Nielson off his why-fi connection: beneath the murk is the work of a riveting craftsman.

He'll never be as good as he once was until he hooks up with funereal Balkan scales again, but imitation Magnetic Fields on "Santa Fe" is better than nothing, right?

The many-splendored guitar blitz of Major rings in the return of good old-fashioned butt rock, but played to the squarely measured rhythms of '90s emo and Northwest indie stuff like Built To Spill.

Although the record is on the slight side--there’s simply no replacing the inexorable, existential pushing forward of 'Dallas' or 'Smith & Jones Forever'--Berman still has a knack for catching you off guard with moments of strange beauty.

This is the work of artists confident enough to embrace a sound that makes them happy.

Not only does this new song cycle retain the Euro-tastic sheen of its predecessor, it outdoes it in sheer dance-floor whump.

The key is confidence. Moments that would be cringe-inducing if delivered by the less intrepid come across as triumphant.

In Love with Oblivion finds the band more upbeat than ever, channeling Flying Nun–era sounds with melodic riffs, handclaps, and chugging bass.

Of special note is the 10-minute instrumental 'Suicide and Redemption': listening to it, you almost forget that there are supposed to be words in rock songs, since it’s filled with building riffs, escalating volleys of tension and release, and moments of frantic drum abandon from Lars Ulrich that should do a lot to redeem his standing in Modern Drummer’s Drummer of the Year polls.

Sonically, it's jaw-dropping, particularly on headphones: every cymbal splash and synth squiggle purr up-close and personal. But most of these 10 tracks are so subtle, they might drift past unnoticed if you're not listening hard enough.

It's all meant to sound fresh, but it doesn't always sound good.

On C.A.R., Cohn finds a loophole to get one of those rad concepts out of just that: a depressive who longs for suburban utopia.

Split over six fantastic-sounding CDs, these live recordings are a revelation, an aural document of the Doors and Morrison at their professional best.

Here you get an hour’s worth of top-notch disco-house jams crammed together into a non-stop megamix that emphasizes both the duo’s tune sense and their body-rocking beatcraft.

This beautiful disc needs only her sweet muted-trumpet voice and optimistic viewpoint to sail gracefully through its 10 songs.

It's a gorgeous performance that anchors Mothertongue with its strength and solemnity.

Bloom is a sonic boomerang: resist if you must, but you'll inevitably end up right back where you started - sucked into their heavenly sonic utopia.

The good news is that Why There Are Mountains is polished and offers some strong songwriting while still leaving the band enough room to grow into something better.

Forsaking subtly Southern melancholy in favor of jangling, twanging hillbilly heartbreak, Here's to Taking It Easy misplaces amplified country fever instead of channeling it.

Call it what you want, just be prepared to call it something other than music.

Bibio's references may already be T-shirts in your bureau, and his dovetailing of crisp guitars, tangling melodies, smart electronic gestures, and resin-hit production values (all evident on the title track) isn't new by any means. But if you can get out from under caring (that is, if you can locate the title lane), you'll feel as liberated as Bibio sounds here — an artist making a mixtape of himself. Folk yes.

Costello’s flubbed lines are left intact and the album’s mixes can be wildly uneven, but missed perfections make for a pretty riveting whole.

Hundreds of Lions marks her return to original material, but it’s clear that the time she spent doing songs by yesterday’s greats inspired her: this is her smartest, slyest set yet, with shapelier melodies, wittier wordplay, and more-adventurous arrangements.

After the brilliant five-track sweep that opens Ritual Union, which peaks with the entrancing "Please Turn," Little Dragon take an unfortunate turn toward light experimentation and hard-nosed repetition, emphasizing pocket-sized click-clack rhythms and downplaying

These Nashville-based high ministers of retro-groove--known for their muscular live sermons--broaden their gospel on CD #2.

It can be tricky to pin down Parts & Labor's busy sound - it's noise pop that's not too noisy, or maybe post-punk that's cool with cracking a fat grin - but it almost always has something entertaining going on.

Family of Love is strong, with songs that suggest rather than demand, but nonetheless maintain Dom's glossy, candy-coated summertime sound.

Only the nuttiest of fans will find any new details (the more-present backing vocals on Agaetis Byrjun stunner "Svefn-g-englar," or the beefed-up church organ swirl in "Ny Batteri"), even if the band's live majesty is captured in full-force.

For the second time in 2006, Wu-Tang’s Ghostface has released an album that makes it seem everyone else in the hip-hop world should be paying more attention to Ghostface.

Modern Guilt is a hot thing of indefinite course.

Having put aside the gimmicky Atari-melting antics of yore, the Castles have created a dense-yet-airy thicket of pure pop transcendence.

With synth tones straight outta Miami Vice and dreamy melodies that cut through the fog-machine haze, Plastic Beach is music for piloting your speedboat beyond the no-wake zone, or for looking back from the future with a sentimental affinity for the past.

If you’re not in the mood for it, Perkins’s uncut melancholy can be a lot to swallow. Still, this is one of the prettiest bummers around.

But tempos that gait like a swinging pocket watch and Kozelek's drowsy, double-tracked voice make a strong case for a spellbinding kind of sublimity. This uncanny effect is even more pronounced on Admiral Fell Promises.

Temporal as a whole is evenly mastered and gratifyingly titanic.

Trees might be at its best when Moore gives into the freewheeling vibe that is the natural outgrowth of spending your adult life engaged in on-stage jam sessions.

Les Savy Fav's fifth studio album finds the veteran Brooklyn quintet further channeling the gonzo energy of their live show, and with winning results.

Man Man fans probably weren't expecting "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head"–levels of optimism from the happy-titled Life Fantastic, but the vibe on the Philly-based band's fourth album is pretty morbid, even by their standards.

It is her most authoritative and cogent statement.

Lupe’s new sophomore disc, Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool (Atlantic), is way too long.

It’s now clear that though the District of Columbia might not have representation in the US Senate, residents do have a distinguished rep in hip-hop.

Whether he's in onomatopoetic punch-line mode or scratching the Cee Lo end of his terrific range, Monch is hip-hop's superlative talent, and now he has a solo stripe to prove it.

Out of the Game is melodically smart and consistently rewarding.

The Fool feels like a séance, with guitarist Emily Kokal and her fellow female vocalists focusing their ghostly calls on a mysterious you.

Building levees of emotion and tearing those bitches down - Explosions in the Sky have never sounded more thrilling.

Reign of Terror is way awesomer [than Treats].

Cooder, like a Keith Richards/Woody Guthrie hybrid, observes [the current political scene] all as a damn shame, with little condescension and oodles of wit.

His words are layers of palpable atmospherics; subtle and pleading at times, worried and demanding at others, mainly steeped in a falsetto that rarely wears thin - note "rarely" - it occasionally causes the eardrums to glaze over.

It's an atmosphere-setting collection, with little in the way of memorable riffs or melodies. But that's the point: Earth has needed to slow its roll for a minute now. Here's the inspiration.

The King Is Dead is ear-openingly different for the Decemberists, but the pretty country-rock might soothe even the hardest of cowboy hearts.

Over time, the Mountain Goats have explored different emotional territory. Here they prove they can still make humble, evocative music.

It's a killer.

The cumulative effect can be like listening to a church choir doing canons while simultaneously crushing OCs on your bicuspids, one at a bloody time.

Instead of wandering into opaque experimentation, as they’ve been known to do in the past, they corral those unruly elements into a series of hummable, memorable tunes.

For all its robust, pristinely recorded eclecticism, Rhine Gold holds together beautifully, thanks to Makrigiannis's angelic tenor, which soothes and stirs in equal measure.

Novelty is only part of what makes pop work, and on Don’t Stop, Annie brings enough of the other stuff--hooks, grooves, and a combination of sass and sincerity--to make you forgive her tardiness.

Yeah, the alternate/alternating track sequence is screwy for the first seven songs or so — Deerhunter build momentum only to lose it. But it gives the album’s backside something of a black-and-white-to-Technicolor moment.

On Kiss Each Other Clean, Beam's muse must have told him to pull back on the reins.

Disorienting at first spin, Wild Smile rewards by reconciling the easily digestible and the weird with each subsequent listen.

The 12 songs are rhythmically warm and appealing thanks to Jay Bellirose’s spare-cymballed drumming and the beautifully knotty guitars of Henry, Bill Frisell, and Greg Leisz.

This New Jersey quartet is one well-oiled muscle, and they flex it to hypnotic effect for 40-plus minutes.

The heart is here, but the lyrics have him sounding like a man who’s turned healing into a systematic process — a man who’s heard too much kind advice or maybe sat through too much therapy.

Subdued but not entirely resigned, Mitchell sings in a strong, assured voice that’s still warm and welcoming, though lowered by decades of ecologically unhip tobacco smoke.