Brothers finds the Black Keys digging their own space, one that needn’t be geographically defined.

'Young Hearts Spark Fire' showcases their gleeful exuberance, but even on more subdued numbers like 'Sovereignty,' they still sound like two kids who don't yet know their own strength.

What still holds up is the low-end garage-rock throb of Mick Taylor and Keith's guitars with bassist Bill Wyman, and the idiosyncratic bite of Jagger's diction. But even Mick's attempts to offend (like changing the age of that stray cat from 15 to 13) make this special four-disc 40th-anniversary "deluxe" edition more historic document (and collectible!) than satisfying listen.

Singing gets no more graceful than Green’s hot buttered tenor, which he plies here with every micron of grace and soul he can muster. Add the Dap-King Horns (able backers of Sharon Jones and Amy Winehouse) and this is more than a soul album. It’s an album with soul.

Although some songs ("Taxi Cab" and "Holiday" especially) can make it seem like just another, nicer sweater to knot around our necks, the other word I never expected to use here is perhaps the most important for a young band of VW's talent: better.

Rough-edged and overdriven in the right places, super-slick as their Reagan-era new-wave touchstones elsewhere, this pomo-funk concoction from Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspard Augé is like a French kiss from Sonny Crockett.

Though the Long Beach band's sound may not be the most original going, Avi Buffalo pull it off with polish, not sacrificing quality production or songwriting for the sake of a vibe.

Her [Andrea Lukic] presence makes Sundowning cathartic--if not downright life-affirming.

Embracing those basics of simplistic pop, the kind that doesn't need to be over thought, works nearly all of the time, and though a little bit of depth to the proceedings would have been nice here and there, a robust hook will do just as well.

On Life Is Good, he's lyrically and musically rich as he's been for years now.

In short, it's a triumph. Yes, it's still messy, and yes, Patrick Flegel's apathetic nasal vocals are too saturated, or buried in the mix, or both, but the intricate musicianship and songwriting take this from "yet another lo-fi garage album" to mini masterpiece.

This is not so much a reinvention as another way to look deep into the heart of Elliott's music. It's also an early nominee for folk album of the year.

Here's one of the few first-quarter releases of 2011 that people will still be listening to in 2012.

The murky production seems lazy rather than artful; the hard-rock riffs don’t kick as hard as they’re meant to.

The bilious frontman has aged like a cheap wine: embittered, but with enough kick left to make for a good time.

Push the Sky Away feels heavy on breath-taking and woodshedding, an album of waiting for sparks to ignite.

Songwriter Stuart Murdoch often makes good on Morrissey's promise to deliver songs that live up to their titles.

Their fourth album isn’t substantially different from their first three: Jones’s delivery, alternately muscular and tender, and the band’s total empathy with the genre’s rules elevate each tune to lost-classic status.

The Unthanks’ voices are hair-raisingly exquisite in the most sororal of ways.

Full of airy vocals and synths, the album sounds as if it could lift off at any moment if not for the drum thumps tethering it down. But the beats sound weighty only in contrast.

It's a refined sense of balance that sets her apart from Grouper and Julia Holter, artists to whom Evans is too often compared.

'(Keep Eye On) Others' Gain' and the title track sound similarly hopeful. The gloom is still there on 'You Remind Me of Something' and 'Willow Trees Bend,' but it feels less crushing. There is also more variety to the sonic textures.

It's easy to imagine her getting very famous, because Torres doesn't wash the songs out with its prettiness.

Damaged isn’t the most tuneful record Wagner and company have made.

Here, as on 2005’s "Takk," Sigur Ros have chosen to distill their rapture epics into shorter, more accessible bursts of swelling beauty. Yet this album still offers all the signature touchstones that make the band so deliciously unlike their post-rock contemporaries.

Even more than on last year’s auspicious digital-only "Exposion," Austin’s White Denim stomp down the fine line between fertile versatility and iffy uncertainty. More often than not on Fits, this works out awesome.

Metals packs more sonic punch than its 2007 predecessor, but the problem here is not with recording quality--it's libido.

This, their third album is as ambitious as its predecessors but mutes the joy in favor of a more serious tone and tighter focus--well, as tight as an album with a 10-minute number called 'Dragon's Lair' can be. The results are mixed.